Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is an unknown, but the media is already referring to him as "America's dad." How sweet. But the picture most of the media is drawing of Walz does not match the opinion of some soldiers in his National Guard command. They think he embellished his career with the Guard and "slithered out the door" before his unit was deployed to Iraq.
“On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr wrote on Facebook in 2018. Walz was preparing for his first congressional campaign in 2005 when he retired.
Herr and Behrends say Walz promised his unit he would join them in Iraq before backing out. The two retired command sergeants say that Walz could have asked the Pentagon for permission to run for office while on active duty. Instead, he chose to quit.
Walz further dodged the necessary paperwork to ensure a smooth transition out of military service and “instead … slithered out the door,” the pair added, with his retirement filing showing “soldier not available for signature.”
The National Guard members also accused the now-two-term Minnesota governor of having “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.”
The letter was first unearthed by the Daily Wire.
Still, Walz has said he has “an honorable record.”
“We all do what we can. I’m proud I did 24 years,” Walz said about his service.
Herr and Behrends weren't the only members of Walz's unit to call him out for his "disturbing" retirement. Tom Hagen, an Iraq war veteran, wrote a letter to the Winona Daily News, framing Walz's retirement as an abandonment of his comrades.
“But even more disturbing is the fact that Walz quickly retired after learning that his unit —southern Minnesota’s 1-125 FA Battalion — would be sent to Iraq,” Hagen wrote in the letter, according to Behrends and Herr. “For Tim Walz to abandon his fellow soldiers and quit when they needed experienced leadership most is disheartening. It dishonors those brave American men and women who did answer their nation’s call and who continue to serve, fight and unfortunately die in harm’s way for us.”
“The bottom line in all of this is gut-wrenching and sad to explain,” Behrends and Herr concluded. “When the nation called, he quit.”
Behrends added to his Facebook post: "We are the land of the free, because of the brave. We are not the land of the free, because of those who ran."
"The citizens of the state of Minnesota deserve to hear this side of the story, not just a slithery politician's version of what he wants people to hear."
Related: Walz's Response to the George Floyd Riots Shows His Unfitness For Vice President
It's not likely that any of this will become a major issue, and that's a shame. It shouldn't disqualify Walz from running as Harris's vice president, but it's information that voters should have available to them.
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