The evidence against the pro-abort, anti-gun, and anti-courage Democrat nominee for vice president, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, is overwhelming. When faced with the possibility of deploying to Iraq as the senior noncommissioned officer in his artillery battalion, Walz hastily retired and took a one-rank demotion rather than go. He did this despite his campaign announcing that he would deploy to Iraq when the mobilization of his battalion was made public. This announcement was made even though Walz had already submitted his request to retire before his enlistment had expired; he was two years short of meeting that obligation. Since that time, he has given at least one interview that indicates he told a journalist that he had served in Iraq and is on video claiming to have been in combat.
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BACKGROUND:
A Tale of Two Veterans: What the Service of Walz and Vance Tells Us About the Men – RedState
Tim Walz Goes Full Metal Stolen Valor in Anti-Gun Rant – RedState
As Walz’s Military Record Combusts Under Casual Scrutiny, the Left Goes for Whataboutism – RedState
JD Vance Rightly Calls Tim Walz Out for Being a Sheep and a Coward – RedState
Tim Walz’s Campaign Claimed He Was Going to Iraq Even As He Was in the Process of Deserting His Men
As I point out in As Walz’s Military Record Combusts Under Casual Scrutiny, the Left Goes for Whataboutism, the media has resorted to running interference for Walz. That interference has gone from trying to defend the indefensible to claiming that JD Vance serving as a Marine Corps public affairs specialist in Anbar Province, Iraq, doesn’t really count as combat. Here is CNN’s noxious Brianna Kielar floating that trial balloon.
I also think that JD Vance, as a messenger on this, may be an imperfect messenger. Because we have, as you introduced him as a combat correspondent which is what his title was. But when you dig a little deeper into that, he was a public affairs specialist. Someone who did not see combat, but certainly the title combat correspondent tends to give you a different impression. So he may be the imperfect messenger on this.
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Vance responded.
Brianna this is disgusting, and you and your entire network should be ashamed of yourselves.
When I got the call to go to Iraq, I went.
Tim Walz said he carried a gun in a war. Did he? No. It was a lie.
Kielar’s statement is the worst sort of dishonesty. Vance served in Anbar Province for six months in “late 2005.” During 2005, Anbar was ground zero for Iraqi insurgent activity. Kielar says that being a combat correspondent makes you an “imperfect messenger” for criticizing someone who abandoned their soldiers as they were preparing to deploy. If you served in Iraq or Afghanistan, you were in combat. Suicide bombers, insider attacks, and rockets and mortar rounds hit Forward Operating Bases. The largest one-day loss in CIA history took place at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Chapman_attackin Afghanistan when a suicide bomber killed ten people and seriously wounded six. By Kielar’s metric, none of those people were actually in combat because they were safe and sound on a defended base.
Just because you were a public affairs specialist doesn’t mean you weren’t in danger.
McClung, who was 34 at the time of her death, was serving as a media relations officer when a roadside bomb killed her instantly in Ramadi, Iraq, Dec. 6, 2006. She and two other service members assigned the Army’s Brigade Combat Team, Capt. Travis Patriquin and Spec. Vincent Pomante, III, were also killed. The convoy McClung had been riding in was escorting Newsweek journalists when an improvised explosive device struck their vehicle. The Newsweek journalists were in another vehicle and escaped without injury. McClung had been escorting retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North and a Fox News Channel camera crew earlier in the day and were devastated when they learned the news of the attack.
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More to the point, whether Vance served in combat or even served at all is immaterial. Walz connived to retire two years before he should have. He started the retirement process after discovering his unit was going to Iraq. His campaign announced less than two months before Walz took a demotion and retired that he was deploying with his battalion. Anyone who did not abandon their troops as they were heading into combat is a perfect messenger for the story on Walz.