Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), a Marine veteran and the Republican vice-presidential nominee, slammed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) — arguing that he should feel “ashamed” for lying about his military service and falsely claiming to have carried firearms “in war.”
It was recently revealed that Walz — who Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen as her running mate — quit the military two years before his service was up to run for office, conveniently leaving just before his unit was supposed to be deployed to Iraq. Meanwhile, Walz has tried to attack Vance, who actually served in Iraq as a combat correspondent, claiming that the Republican senator was a member of the elite because he went to Yale and worked in Silicon Valley after leaving the military.
Vance fired back at Walz for the comments, pointing out that he had grown up very poor and worked his way through college and law school — noting that it is “bizarre” to try to insult him for achieving the American dream.
“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,” he began.
Vance went on to cite Walz’s lies about his military service, noting that Walz — a retired Army National Guard sergeant major who was demoted upon quitting the military because he had been conditionally promoted to Command Sergeant Major, but failed to meet the requirements before leaving — dropped out of the military just before his unit deployed to Iraq. He also pointed out that, despite abandoning his unit before deployment, Walz has claimed that he carried weapons “in war.”
“What really bothers me about Tim Walz — it’s not even the positions that he’s taken, though certainly he has been a far left radical,” Vance said.
“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 added. “And I’m very proud of that service. 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. 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.”
J.D. Vance fires back at Tim Walz after he mocked him for attending Yale:
"What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I'm proud […] I was able to… pic.twitter.com/0qt3waifq2
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 7, 2024
In his comments, Vance also referenced a video clip shared on X by the Harris-Walz campaign, which included Walz’s false claim that he used weapons “in war” — a statement he made in order to push gun control measures.
Vance stated: “What was this weapon that you carried into war, given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq? And he has not spent a day in a combat zone. What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud … I was able to make something of myself and I would be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.”
Gov. @Tim_Walz: 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,… pic.twitter.com/3IVaXi2RP2
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 6, 2024
The report that Walz abandoned his unit was confirmed by former command sergeant major Thomas Behrends, who reportedly took Walz’s place in the unit and deployed to Iraq, and former command sergeant major Paul Herr.
In 2018, when Walz was first running for Minnesota governor, Behrends and Herr published a scathing letter on Facebook, which read: “On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war.”
A Newsweek article from Dan Holloway, who served in the 82nd Airborne, also noted: “Walz would have been the Battalion Command Sergeant Major, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer and arguably the most important leader in his unit. And in the moment they needed him most, when they were about to deploy to Iraq, Walz chose to abandon his men to run for Congress. According to sources within the unit, three of his soldiers died on that deployment.”
