Both Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) tout distinguished military records. But clashes over the specifics of their years in the armed forces were quickly ignited between their camps this week after the vice presidential match-up was set.
Vance, who served in the Marines, took the opening shot Wednesday at Walz, who served 24 years in the National Guard. The Republican presidential nominee accused his Democratic rival of “stolen valor” for leaving service before a deployment to Iraq and claiming he served in a war.
“I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?” Vance said at a campaign stop in Michigan. “He has not spent a day in a combat zone … I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”
Vance appeared to be referring to a clip of Walz, which the Harris campaign shared on social media, in which the governor says while speaking about gun control, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.”
Walz has not served in combat. Supporters of Walz have pointed out that Vance admitted in his memoir that he never saw real combat either, and that Walz has never misrepresented his rank.
Jacob Thomas, communications director and a spokesperson for the progressive veterans’ group Common Defense, said it was “weird and desperate” to attack a fellow veteran’s military record.
“That just doesn’t seem like a winning message,” he said. “We don’t need to spend this time hitting each other on things that don’t matter. We all served. And like I said, frankly, it just reeks of desperation.”
Walz and Vance stand out as veterans on national tickets, the first since the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran for president in 2008. Former President Trump famously avoided the draft during the Vietnam War after being diagnosed with bone spurs, and Vice President Harris did not serve in the military.
Either man would be the first veteran to serve as president or vice president since President George W. Bush, a former lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard.
For Harris and Trump, choosing a veteran with a notable military record was likely a factor in selecting their vice presidential candidates, said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way.
“I think it was a factor, but not the factor,” Bennett said. “I don’t think either Harris or Trump said, ‘We’ve got to have a veteran.’ I think they said, ‘Oh, the fact he’s a veteran is definitely a positive.’”
Walz, who grew up in Nebraska, enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 to help pay for college after he graduated from high school in 1982. During his years of service, he deployed to Italy in support of U.S. operations against terrorism in Afghanistan. He also responded to natural disasters such as floods and tornadoes on American soil.
Walz retired after 24 years at the rank of command sergeant major and later became the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to have ever served in Congress when he won his first election in 2006. He would go on to become the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
“He is more well-versed on our community than a lot of elected leaders, period, and has a record of fighting on behalf of his fellow veterans,” Allison Jaslow, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said of Walz’s time in Congress.
“He’s somebody who I know from working on the Hill as well,” she added. “Our organization has a long relationship with Gov. Walz. He was there fighting side by side with us for the post-9/11 GI Bill.”
Jaslow also said that Walz’s time in the National Guard gives him “a unique eye towards that component of our overall force in a way that many other elected leaders” don’t have, which she said could be valuable given the National Guard’s increased responsibility at the southern border.
But less than a day after the announcement that Walz would join Harris on the Democratic ticket, the attacks from the right came fast and furious.
Critics have latched onto the fact that Walz left the military ahead of his unit’s deployment to Iraq, suggesting he retired to avoid serving in a war zone.
“When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did?” Vance said at the Michigan campaign event. “He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”
And Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) likened Walz’s departure from the National Guard to “the quarterback of a big team walking away from their team right before they go to the Super Bowl.”
“I’ve never heard of a commander or a sergeant major stepping away from their unit before they go down range,” he said in a video posted to the social platform X.
Kevin Poindexter, a GOP political strategist based in Minnesota, said he had “a lot of questions” about what he called a dodge of deployment.
“It’s going to seriously have the folks in the veteran community taking a second look at what’s going on there,” he said. “They all fulfilled their orders and served the country rather than [Walz who] headed up to D.C. and left his troops high and dry in the process.”
Supporters of Walz, who served in an artillery unit, which damaged his hearing, say he was preparing for a run for Congress when he retired honorably from the military ahead of his unit’s deployment.
Mark Mellman, a national Democratic strategist, said the attacks don’t “make any sense.”
“Are they sending people in their mid-40s to Iraq? I don’t think so,” he said. “The man served in the National Guard for [24] years, I don’t think anybody can reasonably say, ‘Well you really had to be in for 28.’”
In an infographic circulated online by Vote Vets, a liberal veterans’ political group, the organization pushed back on the GOP accusations, saying Walz submitted his retirement request months before his unit’s deployment, which was fully staffed.
Critics have also hit Walz over his rank, which he has described over his political career as a sergeant major. While Walz was promoted to command sergeant major while in the service, he was dropped back down to master sergeant after retirement, since he did not complete certain training to retain that rank. However, the National Guard has approved the higher rank in retirement because he served under it.
But the barbs thrown at Walz over his service may be blunted by the fact Vance himself has never seen combat, and the heavy criticism Trump has taken for avoiding the military entirely.
Vance, who served in the Marines from 2003 to 2007 and deployed to Iraq, has said in his memoir that he never saw real combat and that he worked in the public affairs department while on deployment.
“Let’s be clear, you served honorably, including 6 months in combat in a public affairs unit,” said Alexander Vindman, the Trump whistleblower and retired Army lieutenant colonel, wrote Wednesday on X.
“Walz retired after 24 years and achieved the rank of command Sergeant Major. I do not think you want to compare service records.”
Trump received four deferments during the war for education, and then a medical waiver for bone spurs, a diagnosis that New York Times reporting suggests was “a favor.”
“He has no understanding of service because he’s too busy servicing himself,” Walz said of Trump at a campaign stop Wednesday.
The Harris campaign defended Walz’s record.
“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform — and as Vice President of the United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our veterans and military families,” the campaign said.
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