Speaking in Shelby Township, Michigan, on Wednesday, GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance blasted Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz for ducking out of fighting in Iraq when it was time for him to serve.
According to former command sergeant major Thomas Behrends, who reportedly went to Iraq in Walz’s place, and former command sergeant major Paul Herr, Walz retired from their National Guard unit in 2005. Months before Walz retired, he had received a warning order that his battalion would be deployed to Iraq.
“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” Behrends told The New York Post of the 500 soldiers who had been under his command. “For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice. When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way. 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.”
Vance responded to the accusations on Wednesday.
“What really bothers me about Tim Walz, as a Marine who served his country in uniform?” Vance asked rhetorically. “When the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. … When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq … he dropped out of the Army.”
.@JDVance: "You know what really bothers me about Tim Walz, as a Marine who served his country in uniform? When the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it…When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq…he dropped out of the Army." pic.twitter.com/h8Wce3QNAi
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) August 7, 2024
Vance, the first military veteran on a major presidential ticket since John McCain in 2008, joined the U.S. Marines in 2003. At roughly the same time, Walz allegedly ducked out of serving in Iraq, Vance served as a combat correspondent there for six months.
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In 2018, when Walz first ran for governor of Minnesota, Behrends and Herr wrote on Facebook, “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.”
“Walz would have been the Battalion Command Sergeant Major, the highest-ranking non-commissioned officer and arguably the most important leader in his unit,” Dan Holloway, who served in the 82nd Airborne, noted in Newsweek. “And in the moment they needed him most, when they were about to deploy to Iraq, Walz chose to abandon his men to run for Congress. According to sources within the unit, three of his soldiers died on that deployment.”