PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepted his party’s nomination for vice president Wednesday night with a well-received and relatively brief speech in which he emphasized his personal history, including his 24 years in the National Guard.

But as KDKA-TV political editor Jon Delano reports, a local Republican lawmaker has joined others questioning Walz’s military service.

Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, is proud of his military service.

“Everyone belongs and everyone has a responsibility to do their part,” he said Wednesday evening. “For me, that was serving in the Army National Guard. I enlisted two days after my 17th birthday and proudly wore our country’s uniform for 24 years.”

But in a letter to Walz, 50 Republican members of Congress, including veterans like Guy Reschenthaler of Peters, accused him of “lying about his service” and “abandoning his post by retiring two months before his unit received warning that it could be sent to Iraq.”

A few months earlier, Walz had announced his candidacy for Congress.

Reschenthaler could not be reached for comment on the allegations, but former Congressman Conor Lamb, also a veteran, said it was just politics.

“These guys are afraid of Tim Walz and the way he tells the American story,” Lamb said. “I enlisted, served for many years, and learned important lessons about how to take care of other people. Because their people, JD Vance and especially Trump, are not known for taking care of anyone but themselves.”

Lamb served with Walz on the House Armed Services Committee and said Walz personally contacted him there.

As for the Republican attack, Lamb says Walz has every right to call himself a command sergeant major, even if it was not the same rank when he retired, and he has the right to leave the military to run for Congress.

“Tim served 24 years,” Lamb said. “What was he supposed to do? Forever? And I would say the one position he never gave up was that of public servant.”

“When he talks about his rank, that was the rank he wore when he looked at his collar during his last deployment,” he added. “He was a Command Sergeant Major, so he can rightly say that he served in that service and took on an incredible amount of responsibility.”

Lamb seemed particularly upset when his Republican running mate for vice president, JD Vance, attacked Walz’s military service.

“I couldn’t tell you anything that Vance actually did as a senator to care for veterans or try to improve their lives,” Lamb said. “That’s the problem here.”