By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and military veterans are demanding answers from the Pentagon and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz about his military service after several allegations resurfaced. Walz was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate; the two are the presumptive Democratic nominees for president and vice president.

Criticism of Walz’s military career has been around since 2006, when he first ran for Congress. Republican members of Congress and veterans are raising their concerns again, including vice presidential candidate U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio), a Marine veteran who served in Iraq; U.S. House Representatives Jim Banks (R-Indiana) and Cory Mills (R-Florida), both Marine and Army veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other places.

Walz, who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years, claimed in 2018 that his goal was to ban Americans from purchasing “weapons of war that I carried in war,” and claimed he fought in combat himself. He also claims he resigned from the Guard in 2005, before his unit deployed to Iraq, to ​​run for Congress, and that his rank was command sergeant major.

His deployments have been questioned for years. Walz, who served in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, was deployed to Vicenza, Italy, in 2003 to support Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. He did not take part in combat operations in Afghanistan.

Vance has taken issue with Walz’s portrayal of his military service, saying at a recent campaign rally in Michigan: “I’m wondering, Tim Walz, when were you ever in a war? What was that weapon you carried into war? What bothers me about Tim Walz is this nonsense about stolen valor. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. I would be ashamed if I were him and he lied about my military service.”

Similar allegations have been made before. In 2018, when Walz was running for governor, retired National Guard leaders posted an open letter on Facebook accusing him of “embellishing and selectively omitting facts from his military career for years.”

In 2009, a veteran confronted Walz’s former congressional staffer, claiming he had violated the Stolen Valor Act of 2006 by making claims about Afghanistan even though he was never stationed there, according to a video released by the Calvin Coolidge Project.

In July 2006, veterans sent letters to local news outlets, the Mankato Free Press (archived by Bluestem Prairie News) and the Winona Daily News, claiming that Walz had misled voters about his military service in Afghanistan. Walz published a response in the Winona Daily News stating that he had never misled anyone and was proud of his military service.

Others pointed to a CSPAN interview with then-US Representative Walz, who apparently did not clarify that he had never fought in Afghanistan.

With similar concerns resurfacing, Banks sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday requesting official information on Walz’s service record.

“The American people have a right to transparency regarding the military records of soldiers who serve in public service, particularly when they misrepresent such service as qualifications for public office,” he wrote. “False statements and deceptions designed to mislead the public about their service undermine the integrity of our military and impact all Americans who choose to serve.”

Banks, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, asked for Walz’s service dates, including when he applied for retirement, and documents to support claims that he had served “overseas, in Iraq or Afghanistan, in combat” or had completed a military security clearance.

He also asked for clarification on whether Walz’s “false claim to have carried a combat weapon in war constitutes theft of valor.” The 2006 law, which was amended in 2013, makes it a federal crime for individuals to make fraudulent claims about their military service.

Mills argues that Walz could provide further clarification on his record.

“Walz should have at least come back and said, ‘I was promoted to Command Sergeant. I never went to the academy and was actually demoted to Master Sergeant,'” Mills said in a statement on social media. “But he doesn’t. This guy is trying to perpetuate the lie to gain military favor with veterans when the real war veteran and future Vice President is JD Vance.”

The Harris campaign partially addressed the criticism on Friday. “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for risking his life for our country. That’s the American way,” a Harris campaign spokesperson told NBC News. “When he made the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke. He has held weapons of war and firmly believes that only military personnel trained to carry these deadly weapons should have access to them.”

The former chaplain of Walz’s field artillery regiment also spoke out, saying: “In our world, it’s cowardly to get out after a WARNORD (warning order), especially for a high-ranking soldier,” retired Captain Corey Bjertness, now a pastor in North Dakota, told the New York Post. “Running for Congress is no excuse. I gave up everything and went to war. I left my wife, three teenagers and a six-year-old, and was gone for 19 months.”

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