Thomas Behrends, the National Guardsman who went to Iraq in place of Gov. Tim Walz, says Kamala Harris’ VP pick is a “traitor” for retiring before deployment.
When Minnesota governor Tim Walz chose to leave the military on the eve of his deployment to Iraq, Thomas Behrends went in his place.
“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” said Behrends of the 500 soldiers under his command. “For a guy in that position to quit is cowardice.”
Behrends, a 63-year-old farmer in Brewster, MN, called the Democratic vice-presidential candidate “a traitor” for retiring from their Minnesota National Guard unit just before their deployment to Iraq in 2005.
“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” the retired command sergeant major told The Post Tuesday. “He ran away. It’s sad.
“He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice-president.”
Walz, 60, joined the National Guard after high school and served 24 years in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, rising to the rank of command sergeant major. He retired in 2005 — months after a warning order that the battalion would be deployed to Iraq — to run for Congress. He was elected to office in 2006.
“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,” Behrends and fellow retired Guardsman Paul Herr wrote in a letter posted to Facebook during Walz’s first gubernatorial run, in 2018.
Behrends and Herr wrote that Walz could have requested permission from the Pentagon to seek Congressional office while on active duty.
When Walz left the unit, he offered to raise funds to cover his fellow soldiers’ bus trips home for Christmas — a gesture that was seen as a cynical ploy by some of them, according to Behrends.
