Ever since he was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, there have been concerns about stolen valor when it comes to Gov. Tim Walz's (D-MN) military service. Walz served for 24 years with the National Guard and then retired and ran for Congress in 2005. In the days since Walz was selected, many of those who served with Walz have shared their thoughts. It turns out they've been raising concerns for years, as a report from ABC News revealed.
.@wsteaks and @OliviaRubinABC report that in 2016, Thomas Behrends, who took over Walz's battalion after Walz retired from military service in 2005, penned a private letter to Walz imploring him to stop using the title of Command Sergeant Major.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) August 15, 2024
"It saddens me that after your…
Walz left before his unit deployed to Iraq, and Thomas Behrends took over. He penned a private letter to Walz back in 2016. As the report explained:
Thomas Behrends, who took over Walz's battalion after Walz retired from military service in 2005, has been a vocal Walz critic for years, accusing him of using a false rank after retiring and criticizing his decision to retire before his battalion was deployed to Iraq.
"At the point when he quit, the balloon was deflated and all the soldiers out here, basically it was like one of their main senior leaders had died. They couldn't believe it," Behrends said in an interview with ABC News.
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In the National Guard, Walz began serving as command sergeant major, a leadership position, in 2004, and was officially appointed to the role in April 2005, shortly before he retired from service, according to a statement from Army Col. Ruan Cochran. However Walz did not remain in the role long enough to keep the title in retirement.
Still, Walz repeatedly referred to himself as a "retired command sergeant major" for years.
In 2016, Behrends penned a private letter to Walz, thanking him for his service but imploring him to stop using the title, which he said Walz didn't earn.
"It saddens me that after your long career in the National Guard, that you did not fulfill the conditions of your promotion to Command Sergeant Major," said the letter, a copy of which was provided to ABC News. "It's quite a title to have, when it has been earned. I would hope that you haven't been using the rank for political gain, but that is how it appears."
A former battalion commander of Walz's National Guard unit also issued a scathing rebuke of the way the Minnesota governor has described his military rank since retiring and entering politics, writing on Facebook that Walz "did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9," referring to the governor's repeated use of the title.
"It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path," wrote John Kolb, who became lieutenant colonel of his Minnesota unit shortly after Walz retired and launched his bid for Congress. When reached for comment, Kolb told ABC News that his statement "speaks for itself."
The report also mentions that the Harris-Walz campaign is claiming Walz "misspoke" when it comes to a clip of Walz talking about carrying weapons "in war" that the KamalaHQ X account shared. Walz's Republican counterpart, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who is also a veteran, has called out such claims.
That's quite the instance of misspeaking, which the campaign admitted to last week, as a report from NBC News revealed, though through a statement from an unnamed campaign spokesperson.
There's also the issue of the Harris-Walz campaign website:
A line in Walz's bio on the Harris-Walz campaign website also initially described Walz as a "retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard," according to a review of the webpage via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
The campaign later changed the wording to say Walz "served as a Command Sergeant Major."
It's not just the example of Walz's bio on the Harris-Walz campaign website or talking about carrying weapons "in war" to show off how anti-Second Amendment one is.
The ABC News report also started off by highlighting one of the chief concerns with how Walz has presented himself and his military career, including with a C-SPAN interview from 2016:
In early 2016, Tim Walz sat down with CSPAN for a bipartisan discussion about his opposition to President Barack Obama's push to reduce troop levels overseas. To begin the panel, the host introduced Walz -- at the time in his fifth term as a U.S. representative -- in part by incorrectly outlining his military service.
"Enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 and retired 24 years later as Command Sergeant Major," she said of Walz, "and served with his battalion in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan."
Walz nodded in agreement at that statement -- despite the fact that, according to military records and his own admission, he had never served in Afghanistan.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has even referred to Walz in such a way, with the then congressman also failing to correct her during a 2007 press conference.
While introducing Walz, Pelosi noted "we appreciate his service on the battlefield."
FLASHBACK: Tim Walz thanked Nancy Pelosi at a press conference in 2007 in which she said while introducing him that "we appreciate his service on the battlefield."
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 9, 2024
CSPAN then identified Walz as an "Afghanistan veteran." pic.twitter.com/6HaKNyfKsf
Walz had his first solo address on Tuesday in Los Angeles since being picked as Harris' running mate. He spoke about his military service, which he emphasized he was "damn proud of" and lamented that "these guys... are even attacking me on my record of service."
It's not his service that's being denigrated. There's very real concerns about what Walz has claimed about his service, including his rank, and how he's failed to correct those who mislead about his service.
Freakish Timothy Walz lied about carrying weapons into war.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 13, 2024
He held a sign claiming to be an OEF veteran.
He claimed for years that he was a retired Command Sergeant Major.
He abandoned his unit before they deployed to Iraq.
Freakish Timothy is a liar. https://t.co/ecdIsLjMLo pic.twitter.com/3CWTiASmlb
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