National Guard Release Report
Hey folks, there’s a video making the rounds that’s stirring up some controversy involving Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who’s just been tapped as Kamala Harris’s running mate for the 2024 presidential election.
The video shows Walz making a bold claim about his military service, specifically stating that he carried “weapons of war” into an actual war. But according to some of his former colleagues and the Minnesota National Guard, that claim doesn’t quite add up.
In the clip, which you can find on X (formerly Twitter), Walz says, “I spent 25 years in the Army and I hunt. I’ve been voting for common sense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.”
His remarks seem aimed at convincing voters that his military experience gives him the authority to speak on gun control issues.
But not everyone is buying it. Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends, who served in the same battalion as Walz, pushed back hard against the governor’s claims. Speaking on The Ingraham Angle, Behrends pointed out that Walz’s language could easily lead people to believe that he was in combat, facing enemy fire and drawing combat pay. However, there’s no record of Walz ever being in a war zone.
The Minnesota National Guard confirmed to Fox News that Walz was part of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) while stationed in Italy in 2005, but they made it clear that he retired before his unit was deployed to Iraq.
Walz left the National Guard in May 2005, just a couple of months before his unit received deployment orders. The Guard also clarified that even though Walz was deployed overseas in support of OEF, he was stationed in Europe and never set foot in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The timing of Walz’s retirement has also drawn criticism. During a recent event in Michigan, J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate and a Marine Corps veteran, accused Walz of deserting his fellow soldiers right before they were sent into combat.
“You abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq,” Vance said, adding fuel to the fire.