CV NEWS FEED // According to an unearthed 2018 letter penned by active and retired officers of the Minnesota National Guard, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz “has embellished and selectively omitted facts and circumstances of his military career for years.”
The paid letter to the editor of the West Central Tribune was published in the local Minnesota newspaper just four days before Walz won his initial bid to become the state’s governor.
“We, retired Command Sergeants Major of the Minnesota National Guard, feel it is our duty and responsibility to bring forth the truth as we know it concerning his service record,” the four military officers wrote.
“According to his official Report of Separation and Record of Service, [Walz] re-enlisted for six years on September 18th, 2001,” the letter noted:
However, in his response he says that he re-enlisted for four years, conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq. Even if he had re-enlisted for four years following Sept.11, his retirement date would have been September 18th, 2005. Why then did he “retire” on May 16th, 2005, before his supposed four-year enlistment was up?
“The bottom line in all of this is gut wrenching and sad to explain,” the command sergeants stated. “When the nation called, he quit.”
Walz “failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy,” the officers continued:
He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers.
“And he failed to lead by example,” they concluded. “Shameful.”
>> HARRIS PICKS WALZ: HERE’S A LOOK AT HIS RECORD <<
As many observers have recently pointed out, Walz’s heavily scrutinized history with the Minnesota National Guard does not end with his own controversial service in the military force.
Critics have further point out that he neglected to call the National Guard to quell the violent riots that began in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd.
Walz failed in his “duty to protect the lives and property of the citizens of the Twin Cities by allowing rioters free run for four nights in May that year,” wrote John Phelan, an economist at the Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota-based think tank.
Phelan pointed to the words of then-President Donald Trump, who said
I couldn’t get your governor to act. He’s supposed to call in the National Guard or the Army. And he didn’t do it. I couldn’t get your governor. So I sent in the National Guard to save Minneapolis.
After a lengthy analysis, Phelan concluded that “an earlier deployment of the National Guard in the areas worst affected would have saved much violence and destruction.”
