Tim Walz represents exactly the kind of stupid, smug left-wing politics you’d expect from a Minnesota public school teacher. Republicans’ attempt to criticize his military service instead is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long, stupid political season.

Walz and his Republican counterpart, JD Vance, have something in common: Both are veterans who never actually fought. Vance is a Marine who served in a public affairs capacity in Iraq, while Walz served a quarter-century in the National Guard, including tours in Italy, a mission that was — in our stupid times, the phrase has become somewhat controversial — “in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.” Neither man spent much time rappelling out of helicopters in combat zones or kicking down doors in Fallujah. Which is to say, both men had military careers that were very similar to most military careers.

Anyone who wants to scoff at this kind of service should do themselves—and all of us!—a favor and read a book. Maybe even two. Because you don’t have to be a veteran, just an educated person, to know what military commanders from Julius Caesar to Napoleon to Dwight Eisenhower understood: Soldiers may perform great feats of heroism and courage in battle, but wars are won by the support staff, the logistics teams, the boring office workers, truck drivers, and back-office workers who make sure the troops and the bullets and the food and the bandages are where they should be when they should be. Eisenhower never fired a shot at an enemy in the course of his long military career, in which his chief talents were administrative and organizational. He didn’t kill a single enemy in battle, but he organized D-Day – 160,000 soldiers, 7,000 ships and boats, 12,000 planes, etc. – and that has to count for something.

Walz’s unit served primarily as guards on military bases — not exactly what Chris Kyle spent his days doing, but there’s a reason they give these guys guns. Vance’s role as a self-described “public affairs Marine” (he was a combat correspondent) was part of a larger effort to make sure the combat he was writing about had the desired impact. Armies and navies are large, unwieldy entities with many different roles, none of which is unimportant. One of the most admirable military careers I know of was primarily communications-oriented.

These are important jobs. But at the same time, Walz was a middle-aged high school teacher when he left the National Guard to run for Congress. And rest assured that I write these words with the appropriate amount of self-awareness: He was not exactly a lean, mean fighting machine in middle age, and he didn’t need to be: It wasn’t as if he was about to be sent into the field to hunt down the bad guys in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The kind of service Walz performed required real sacrifice. (I love Italy, but Walz wasn’t necessarily stationed at Villa d’Este.) But it’s different than climbing Bunker Hill: inconvenience, separation from family and community, the dreariness of routine military work, disruption of professional and personal plans, etc. Walz devoted 24 years of his life to this kind of unglamorous service. No one will ever make a movie about his exciting military career. I’m sure much of it was deadly boring. That doesn’t make it any less important. He did his part and then some before he left to run for the House of Representatives.

The worst I’ve seen of Walz’s alleged exaggeration of his military career is his statement that the AR rifle was something he “carried in war” while making some predictably stupid and banal comments about gun control. That’s a pretty thin thread to hang him on. For one thing, there’s the fact that his statement TRUE: He was in the war, in a necessary role. The fact that his role was modest and opaque does not change that – and to his credit, he never claimed it was anything else. You cannot say “thank you for your service” to soldiers on Mondays and then mock during the actual service that most soldiers perform on Tuesdays – that is not how gratitude works. And that is not how armies work either.

In any case, you can strongly criticize Tim Walz for his stupid policies. And he deserves to be criticized on the serious matter – the truly character-illuminating matter – of his deliberate, shameful personal dishonesty to J.D. Vance, to whom he owes an apology. Vance, for his part, will have a hard time convincing anyone that Walz’s military career was anything but honorable from his current undignified position on his knees before Subcommandant Bonespurs, a draft-dodging coward who spent years mocking the service and courage of better men. That Vance’s position also makes it difficult for him to complain about dishonesty for the sake of mocking does not make Walz’s dishonesty any less dishonest. It just means that American politics offers voters the opportunity to choose from a colorful and diverse bouquet of assholes.

So, Tim Walz: Thank you for your service. And thank you, but no thank you for the stupid politics.