‘Deserter’ and ‘Traitor’: Four Veterans Who Served With Walz Unload on Megyn Kelly Show
“What comes through most strongly is how much these men – the men who worked with Walz for years and who knew him best – detest him. They consider Walz a thoroughly repellent character. We should listen to them.”
Republicans were shocked last month when Vice President Kamala Harris bowed to the radical pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party and tapped hard-left Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) to be her running mate.
Within 24 hours of the announcement, stories began to swirl around Walz’s lies about his rank in the National Guard. Next, a video recorded during his 2018 gubernatorial run surfaced in which he implied he had served in a combat zone.
Walz is heard telling a group, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.” Most disturbing were reports that he retired from the Guard after learning that his unit was being deployed to Iraq.
On Monday, podcast host Megyn Kelly conducted a long-form interview with four veterans who served with Walz in the National Guard. Their detailed and compelling testimonies make it impossible to believe the spin served up by the Harris-Walz campaign.
Kelly’s guests included Tom Behrends, the retired command sergeant major “who replaced Walz after his retirement,” Paul Herr, a retired CSM “who was present when Walz was informed his unit would be getting a notice to deploy to Iraq,” Tom Schilling, a “retired sergeant first class who was part of said deployment,” and Rodney Tow, “a retired first sergeant who was Walz’s peer.”
Kelly asked the men to “[r]aise your hand if you think Tim Walz is guilty of cutting and running as opposed to serving in Iraq.” In the clip below, each man raises his hand.
Megyn Kelly asks four of Tim Walz’s fellow guardsmen:
“Raise your hand if you think Tim Walz is guilty of cutting and running as opposed to serving in Iraq.”
Every hand goes up: “Absolutely” pic.twitter.com/aAopjw9OXd
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) September 3, 2024
Kelly asked the men why they came forward. Their responses were brutal.
At various moments, the men described Walz as a “habitual liar,” a “coward,” a “turncoat,” a “traitor,” and worst of all, a “deserter.”
Herr called Walz’s decision to retire after learning about the deployment “morally indefensible. He didn’t care. It was all about him.”
Later in the discussion, Herr said that “Walz is a habitual liar. He lies about everything. He lies about stuff that doesn’t make sense.”
Regarding accusations of “stolen valor,” Herr told Kelly, “You’re [Walz] taking a piece of their thunder [veterans who actually served in harm’s way]. And you’re trying to capture it and put it in a bottle for yourself and use that for your own benefit.”
Herr continued, “Fear is a reaction, bravery is a decision, and Walz has made the wrong decision. He is not brave. I call him a coward because he is … He took the easy path. He took the path of least resistance.”
Behrends called Walz a “military impersonator.” He said, “The rumor went across the state that he’d quit. And, it was like, who the hell does that? It was just unbelievable that a CSM abandoned his troops, with 500 soldiers basically, but beyond that, there’s a thousand parents out there that expect that person to lead those people into combat.”
Behrends explained, “He basically said, ‘I’ve got better things to do. Go pick someone else to go on a mission.’ And if you’ve sold out your guard and abandoned them, what are you going to do at the national level?”
Good question.
“He did [serve] for 24 years and, all of a sudden said ‘no,’ Behrends said. “I just call him a ‘deserter’ because he left his post, he left his duty station, and he walked off into the sunset. … He slithered out of the armory. … He was gone.”
The following clip provides some of the highlights of the interview.
Four veterans who knew Tim Walz spoke with @megynkelly about his service in the National Guard, referring to him as a 'habitual liar,' a 'coward,' and 'morally indefensible.'
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 3, 2024
Kelly noted that if Harris and Walz win in November, Walz would be “a heartbeat away from the presidency and from being the commander in chief in charge of all the armed forces and saying who deploys and when.”
Herr replied that “even as vice president,” Walz could be dangerous because he would be part of decisions to “determine rules of engagement” and to “shape strategy.”
Behrends pointed out, “He [Walz] can be in the Situation Room like Kamala was when Afghanistan fell. She was the last one in the room. You’re not raising your hand and saying, ‘Well, this is bulls***. What’s going on? This is ridiculous?’”
All four men agreed that the only way for Walz to move beyond this scandal would be to apologize to the American people for his lack of candor. Herr said, “If you’re in the military and you give him a pass when he left in the middle of the night, left his troops, lied about everything, you need to reevaluate.”
Powerline’s John Hinderaker, provided perhaps the best description of the interview. He wrote: “Apart from the details of Walz’s military history, what comes through most strongly is how much these men–the men who worked with Walz for years and who knew him best–detest him. They consider Walz a thoroughly repellent character. We should listen to them.”
Watch the full interview below.
Finally, it’s worth noting that a Reddit post about the interview was taken down by the site. Its title, “IT’S OVER: Megyn Kelly Interviews National Guard Veterans Who Served With Tim Walz …What They Say About Him Is DEVASTATING,” proved to be more than the moderators could bear.
In its place was the following message, “Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators.”
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
the whole dnc are deserters and hypocrites of the american agenda for the free market = freedom for the people
I don’t think the point is whether or not he was entitled to retire, he was. The point is when he did. The other point is that he has made multiple claims over the years such as retiring as a CSM which he wasn’t or implying he served in a war zone which he didn’t. His service was entirely respectable, he didn’t have to lie about it or let others lie without correcting them.
Hell, when he was introduced in Congress after winning his seat by Pelosi, she said he was a retired CSM and he never corrected her. If he didn’t want to embarrass her he could have waited till the news conference was over and then met with the reporters to set the record straight or have his office do a press release. He didn’t.
https://www.thefp.com/p/is-tim-walz-really-guilty-of-stolen-valor
I disagree that Walz was ‘entitled’ to retire. First he had accepted a conditional promotion to E-9 which obligated him to an additional term of service which he didn’t complete. Secondly the ‘Stop Loss/Stop Move’ policies were being vigorously applied and Retirement eligible Soldiers were supposed to have a one year period of service from submission of retirement paperwork to effective date of the retirement and /or the completion of a 12-18 month deployment +30 days post deployment before their retirement became effective whichever was longer. This included NG Soldiers.
Maybe being the a-hole they’re now saying he is they were glad to be rid of him at the time.
Now it’s payback for Tampon Timmy.
I don’t believe you are correct in this. I’ve read a great deal on this, more than I really wanted to, and it does appear he could retire when he did. Stop/Loss was only in effect after a unit was notified it was being mobilized.
“The Army National Guard and Army Reserve, on the other hand, adopted a unit-based program that precluded separation or retirement from the time the unit was alerted for mobilization to 90 days following the redeployment.”
Walz’s unit had not yet been notified, officially, although it was strongly suspected and he hit that little window to retire before they had.
As for his extension for his conditional promotion, he never completed the requirements for the promotion so no extension was effective. He was demoted or actually returned to his proper rank when he retired. This would be like an Acting Jack going back to E4.
I want to be clear. Although it looks as though Walz played the game perfectly to avoid deployment to a war zone instead of vacationing in Italy, he is a complete POS for doing it. I firmly believe that if he had not got wind of his unit’s immanent deployment he would never have retired when he did. His actions since then of not correcting his retirement rank and directly lying about his deployment, “weapons carried in war” etc is revolting to those of us that proudly served.
He is that guy all Vets make fun of and mock with little respect.
Did Tim Walz get 5 deferments to keep his fat ass from being shot at in Iraq? Trump did, during the height of the Vietnam War.
How many deferments did Joe Biden get, dingus? Five, you say?
Hell… how many deferments did YOUR fat ass get?
What did you say your MOS was?
Oh… right.
You really are a shit.
Trump got his for bone spurs which are a real thing. Biden got his 5 by being a student. Slight difference
We’re discussing Walz. Stay in the lane, Junior.
.
That final paragraph describes something that happens at Reddit routinely. Congress should strip Reddit of ALL of its Section 230 protections. I’m not sure why it doesn’t get more coverage in the conservative media. But, Reddit is unbelievably partisan, appreciably worse than Google/YouTube and Meta/Facebook/Instagram. I think if Reddit wants to be partisan, that’s fine. But, it can’t enjoy the protections Congress created to foster robust public policy debate and dialogue when it doesn’t allow any contrarian opinions on the platform. It’s a publisher that carefully and distinctly curates every thread on the platform. It should be treated that way.
Reddit joins the rest of the state media in suppressing free speech. It is particularly egregious when the free speech so censored is that of one party and not the other.
Gutless cowards and/or socialist sellouts.
The protection was not created “to foster robust debate”, or with any expectation of neutrality. The protection was created to allow sites to remove offensive content without having to fear that they would thereby assume liability for everything else on the site, that they hadn’t removed because they hadn’t even read it. Without that protection online forums such as this one would be impossible.
Remember the original purpose was because the bill required sites to remove certain content, if they became aware of it. The sites said they couldn’t do that if that would make them liable for everything else, so Congress threw in the protection as well. Then the courts struck down the requirement, so the sites were left with the option but not the duty.
But in fact the protection wasn’t strictly necessary, because it’s required by the constitution. Online forums aren’t publishers, and it would be unconstitutional to treat them as such. What they are, without any statutory meddling, is distributors, and the intent was to confirm that status so there wouldn’t be any more stupid court decisions like the one that hit Compuserve.
Tim Walz has been accused by his former superior of using a “backdoor process” to get his military retirement approved. His superior was Sgt Maj Doug Julin.
There were multiple meetings to discuss deployment months before he sought retirement. Walz was at each of these meetings. Julin stated that in the lead up to deployment Walz assured him that he was going to join the battalion in Iraq.
Walz lied to Julin. Walz retired from the military in May, though Mr Julin says he was not informed until June 2005. “The issue that had come out of this was, first of all, how did Tim Walz quit without discussing it with me – because I was his next level of leadership,” said Mr Julin.
“The other issue … was that the person that approved this was two levels higher than myself…”
“Walz knew the process and procedures, he went around me and above and beyond me. basically went in there to get somebody to back him. It was just a backdoor process.” (Some comments are from Fox News dtd Aug 11, 2024)
He weaseled out of his deployment. That’s why I call him Weasel Walz; perfect moniker and has a nice ring to it. Someone should forward it up the chain of command to Trump so he can use it.
He did. He wanted to be in Congress which he could have done if his unit had remained stateside and used his service as cred. What he didn’t want was to be deployed overseas for a year or more delaying his run for office so he retired.
Tampon Tim
Or Weasel Walz,
Either way
He’s got no b-lls
A posed photo was posted online this morning of Tim Walz’s family – brothers, sisters and perhaps even own mother – wearing custom ‘Nebraska Walz’s for Trump’ shirts. Quite the statement. I wonder how much coverage this will get, the same as the Kennedy family rebuke of Bobby?
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1831345408607736091
Well, from everything else that’s been exposed over the last few weeks, the “habitual liar” charge rings true.
As much as it pains me to say, I don’t think many Americans care about military service related controversy. Remember Bill Clinton’s weaseling out of service in college? He was up against heroic WWII veteran GHWB in 1992, and it didn’t seem to matter; nor in 1996.
That being said, the Swiftboat thing did hurt John “Gengis” Kerry in 2004.
John McCain’s service didn’t matter up against Bronco Bama’s “Hope n Change.
Who knows this time around?
What Kerry did when he got back from Vietnam was to stab everyone who served in the back then throwing his medals over the WH fence. When he ran for Congress he tried to portray himself as Sgt York. Large difference between that and strategically retiring like Walz did but they both are POS.
He didn’t throw his medals; he threw someone else’s. He kept his own against a day when they’d prove useful.
He also made up literal blood libels against his former comrades in arms, and orchestrated a hate campaign against them. And then he conducted private negotiations with an enemy of the USA, not only in violation of the Logan Act (which is likely unconstitutional) but also probably in violation of the UCMJ, to which he was still subject.
I’ve forgotten the details, but weren’t we once in a War on Terror?
Admittedly, Congress never declared a war, so it was totally illegal, but everyone I am aware of called it a war. I know Bush 43 sure did, and he;s the one who unilaterally and unlawfully “declared” it.
And wasn’t the National Guard a big part of that?