By The Editors
August 8, 2024 6:56 PM
In the days since Kamala Harris named Tim Walz as her running mate, the Minnesota governor’s military service record has drawn scrutiny. Attention has focused on two topics: the circumstances surrounding the Minnesota governor’s retirement from the National Guard during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan nearly two decades ago, and the way in which Walz and his various campaigns have described the nature of his military record. This scrutiny — and sober-minded criticism of Walz’s statements — is warranted.
Here are the facts as they are presently known.
Tim Walz enlisted as an artilleryman in the Nebraska Army National Guard in 1981, the day after his 17th birthday. Over the next 20 years, Walz reenlisted several times and by all accounts served honorably as he rose up the ranks. Shortly after 9/11 and now living in Minnesota as a high-school teacher, Walz reenlisted again, despite the fact that he was eligible for retirement after 20 years in the service. In the summer of 2003, Walz’s unit, the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery of the Minnesota National Guard, deployed to Italy to augment Air Force security forces in Europe.
After the unit returned home in 2004, Walz was selected to serve as the battalion’s command sergeant major — the senior non-commissioned officer in the battalion, a soldier who holds a critically important role and who serves as the senior enlisted adviser to the battalion commanding officer. The command sergeant major, among other things, is responsible for monitoring and advocating for the welfare of the troops in his unit. As is the norm, Walz’s September 2004 promotion to command sergeant major was conditional on his completion of the Army’s Sergeants Major course and two additional years of service.
In early 2005, as the insurgency in Iraq was growing worse, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion received a warning order notifying the unit to prepare to deploy to Iraq. According to a 2018 letter to the editor written by retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr to Minnesota’s West Central Tribune newspaper, the unit began its training workup in the fall of 2005, and then spent 18 months in the combat zone in 2006 and 2007.
Tim Walz, however, retired on May 16, 2005, and ran for Congress.
It is true that after 24 years of service, Walz rated retirement. It is also true that if Walz’s retirement package was processed before his unit received its official mobilization orders in July 2005, then he was under no legal or administrative obligation to go on the deployment.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/tim-walzs-military-service-deserves-scrutiny/
