I’ve lost track of the mess that has become presumptive Democratic VP candidate Gov. Tim Walz’s military record.
Well, another shoe dropped.
Chuck Ross at The Washington Beacon discovered that Walz’s Congressional office never corrected his claims that he served in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom, the name of the war in Afghanistan.
Walz described himself as an Operation Enduring Freedom veteran in 2006 when he first ran for Congress.
We also learned from Jordan Schachtel that a 2006 profile of Walz in The Atlantic described him as someone who served in that war overseas.
In 2004, Walz organized a protest against then-President George Bush. He carried a sign that said “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry.”
That title is only awarded to those who “served on the ground in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terrorism.”
Iraq war veteran David Thul decided to confront Walz over his claims, filming his encounter at Walz’s Mankato office in 2009:
Thul filmed the encounter, in which a staffer told Thul she was “not aware” of Walz serving in Afghanistan. Thul went on to present the 2004 photo of Walz, as well as Walz’s website, to another aide, who acknowledged that constituents could get the false impression that Walz served in Afghanistan.”Operation Enduring Freedom is limited to Afghanistan and the airspace directly above,” Thul told the aide. “Congressman Walz is clearly claiming … to be an Enduring Freedom veteran. Nobody disputes the fact that he is not an Afghanistan or Enduring Freedom veteran. So this represents a fairly serious issue.” Asked whether he understood how constituents could falsely “assume that means [Walz] served in Afghanistan,” the aide responded, “Perhaps, I guess.”The aide did not dispute that Walz was pictured in the 2004 photograph, and, indeed, a 2006 Atlantic article describes the spectacle of the future governor protesting the Bush visit with a group of high school students. The aide told Thul he would follow up with him. A source familiar with the situation said neither Walz nor his staffers followed through with that pledge.
Thul explained to the aide that “there’s a huge difference between being deployed to a base in Italy and being in a combat zone in Afghanistan.”
In 2018, Walz told Minnesota Public Radio he never saw combat.
In fact, he “spent time in Norway in support of NATO forces and in Italy working in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.”
The criticism has followed Walz since those days.
Walz’s battalion spoke out against him in 2018.
Tom Behrends gave an in-depth interview in 2022.
Behrends came out again yesterday to The New York Post.
A few even tweeted their disgust towards Walz.
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