Attacks on Tim Walz’s military service echo false smears leveled against John Kerry in 2004
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/democrats-push-back-as-trumpworld-dusts-off-swift-boat-attack-on-walz-b2593010.htmlTwo decades after false allegations of stolen valor against his opponent helped George W Bush win a second term in the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign isn’t letting the same thing happen to her or her running-mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
The Harris campaign is defending Walz, an Army veteran who spent nearly a quarter-century in the Minnesota National Guard, from Republicans who are claiming he deserted to avoid deployment to Iraq and falsely accusing him of claiming to be a combat veteran.
His GOP opponent, Trump running-mate and Ohio senator JD Vance, made the disturbing allegations during a media availability in Wisconsin ahead of a massive Harris-Walz rally in the Badger State. He told reporters that Walz, who retired from the Minnesota guard after 24 years of service to run for Congress in the 2006 election, had “dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go [to Iraq] without him.”
Vance also accused Walz of falsely claiming to have seen combat, citing comments the Minnesotan had made about not wanting “weapons of war” to be available on American streets.
The Ohio senator’s accusation that his opponent ditched his guard unit rather than deploy to combat is patently false.
According to military records, Walz officially retired from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005, two months before his unit received word that it would be deployed, four months before deployment preparations began and ten months before the unit deployed.
