By Mary Jones, Tony Bruce and Ben Emos | Thursday, August 8, 2024 | 3 min read
In a recent campaign twist, JD Vance made headlines by falsely accusing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz of going AWOL (Absent Without Leave) during his military service prior to the Iraq War. Walz, a former member of the Army National Guard, has a well-documented service record, making Vance’s allegations both baseless and misleading.
Vance made the statement while taking questions from reporters at a campaign rally in Detroit. A reporter asked Vance about Walz’s attempt to frame him as a member of the elite who attended an Ivy League school.
“I came from a family where nobody in my family had ever gone to law school. I grew up in a poor family. The fact that Tim Walz wants to turn it into a bad thing, that I actually worked myself through college, through law school and made something myself — to me, that’s the American dream. And if Tim Walz wants to insult it, I think that’s frankly pretty bizarre,” Vance said before launching into an attack on Walz.
“As a Marine who served his country in uniform when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably,” he said. “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with.”
Vance continued, “I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you’re going to follow through, and then to drop out right before you actually have to go.”
Contrary to Vance’s statement, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz served in the Army National Guard, achieving the rank of command sergeant major, the highest non-commissioned officer rank. When he left the Guard in 2005, the Minnesota National Guard confirmed his rank. However, Walz retired at the lower rank of master sergeant because he had not completed the required military coursework necessary to receive retirement benefits at the higher rank of command sergeant major.
Walz’s retirement came two months before his battalion received deployment orders for Iraq, a timing that has drawn scrutiny. Despite this, his service record remains honorable, and he was not AWOL, as falsely claimed by JD Vance. Instead, his decision to retire was linked to his eligibility for retirement benefits, not any dereliction of duty.
Interestingly, while Vance attempts to tarnish Walz’s military credentials, a closer look at Donald Trump’s family history reveals a pattern of avoiding military service. Trump’s own grandfather, Friedrich Trump, left Germany to avoid mandatory military service, a fact that has colored the family’s legacy. Donald Trump himself famously dodged the Vietnam War draft by obtaining medical deferments, including a controversial diagnosis of bone spurs.
This juxtaposition between Vance’s false claims against Walz and the Trump family’s history of avoiding military service has not gone unnoticed. Critics argue that Vance’s accusations are not only unfounded but also hypocritical, given the military service records (or lack thereof) of those he aligns with politically.
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