Fact Check: Tim Walz’s September 11 Re-Enlistment Story Debunked
By Ashe Schow
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Aug 23, 2024 DailyWire.com
Among his many other lies about his military service, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz – Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate – also fabricated a story about re-enlisting in the National Guard right after September 11, 2001.
Walz and the Harris campaign have repeatedly claimed that Walz re-enlisted instead of retiring after 20 years when terrorists piloted planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11. In reality, Walz wasn’t up for retirement until the next year, and so his re-enlistment was not about the immediate attack on the U.S., the Federalist reported.
Walz initially enlisted in April 1981, which would have put his 20-year retirement in April 2001, months before the attacks. But Walz had had an inactive period of seven-and-a-half months that would have deferred his retirement by the same amount of time – putting his 20-year retirement in November 2001, a month after the September 11 attacks.
The problem for Walz is he said during a 2009 interview that his retirement happened to occur the “week of September 11, 2001.”
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