The problem with Walz\u2019s military service is that he appears to have lied about it for years\u2014 and gotten away with it.<\/b>
\nMinnesota Gov. Tim Walz\u2019s military service has come under well-deserved scrutiny following his selection as Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s running mate. As a career politician, Walz has long touted his service in the National Guard, yet this service is only now getting close attention as questions arise about how and where he served.
There is no question that Walz bailed on his National Guard unit when it was called up for deployment to Iraq. But it also appears that he has been mischaracterizing his military service since at least 2005. The Harris campaign tacitly acknowledged as much by correcting the record this week. As first reported in Politico on Thursday, the Harris campaign quietly revised their campaign website to remove references of Walz being a \u201cretired Command Sergeant Major\u201d in lieu of the more technically accurate claim that \u201che once served at the Command Sergeant Major rank.\u201d
As I wrote in The Federalist earlier this week, Walz failed to follow through on his commitment to serve and had his promotion to command sergeant major retroactively revoked shortly after retiring, with his final retired rank being master sergeant. At the time of this writing, Walz had still not changed his official Minnesota biography or other social media posts to reflect the \u201ctweaked\u201d messaging.
A deeper analysis of Walz\u2019s historical campaign messaging reveals that the recent tweaking may not be the first time he\u2019s tried to carefully thread the needle on messaging about his military service, and suggests an intention to mislead voters that runs all the way back to his first campaign for Congress in 2005.
A review of Walz\u2019s records shows that he did initially retire as a command sergeant major on May 16, 2005, but it was quickly revised and updated on Sept. 10 of that year. Yet Walz continued to publish his superseded discharge certificate with the command sergeant major rank as part of a media packet until the week after his election victory in 2006.
To what extent did this intentional misinformation, spread by his own campaign, skew media coverage? And why did Walz tighten up his messaging after his election victory? These are questions the American public deserve prompt answers to. Here are eight more.
1) At what point did you learn of the Sept. 10, 2005, revision of your May 16 discharge paperwork showing you were demoted from command sergeant major to master sergeant?
2) Why did you continue to publish this inaccurate and superseded (that is, false) discharge paperwork on your campaign website and only remove it the week after your victory in November 2006?
3) At what point did you first become aware that apart from The Wall Street Journal\u2019s David Rogers (in his March 30, 2006, and Oct. 30, 2006, articles) referring to you, correctly, as a \u201cretired master sergeant,\u201d other media coverage, which you promoted on your campaign website, erroneously referred to you as a \u201cretired command sergeant major,\u201d even though you were not one?
4) Did you or anyone affiliated with your campaign ever encourage media on background (or otherwise) to adopt your campaign\u2019s revised messaging and change their characterization to \u201cformer command sergeant major?\u201d
5) At what point did you first become aware of media reporting, including a book you favorably endorsed which stated you served in Afghanistan, that erroneously described your military service?
6) At what point in time (if ever) did you attempt to correct or clarify this false characterization of your service?
7) Even today, in various communications and most notably your official gubernatorial biography, you continue to adopt the honorific \u201cCommand Sergeant Major Walz retired\u201d or formulations like \u201cachieved the rank of\u201d or \u201conce served as\u201d when referencing your service. But isn\u2019t that false, with \u201cretired Master Sergeant Walz\u201d being the correct characterization?
8) In your March 20, 2005, campaign press release, you acknowledged the potential of your unit\u2019s upcoming deployment to Iraq and stated \u201cI have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on.\u201d Why, and at what point during the ensuing 58 days before your second retirement was effective did your views on this change?
It remains to be seen if the controversy around how Walz characterized his military service will spin out of control for the Harris-Walz campaign. But if Walz is proud of his service and has nothing to hide, he should have no problem holding a press conference to address all these questions without delay.<\/p>\n