PolitiFact Tries to Set JD Vance Straight About Tim Walz’s Retirement

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz bailed on his unit after being informed that they were going to be deployed to Iraq. That would be fine — he ran for Congress instead — if it weren’t for the fact that he keeps suggesting that he’s a combat veteran of Iraq or Afghanistan or both.

Guardsman who served with Walz have also written letters about his claims of combat service.

There’s no question anymore: Walz retired knowing his battalion was being deployed to Iraq. Fortunately, PolitiFact is there to set the story straight.

Mostly false?

Vance’s statement misleads by distorting the timeline. Walz had not been “asked by his country to go to Iraq,” as Vance said. He had been given a two-year window for a potential, not definite, deployment. And the official deployment notice came after Walz’s retirement. 

Walz has said since before his Army retirement that he left to run for Congress. He filed his candidacy paperwork in February 2005, before the March 2005 notification about the potential deployment.

Right, the timeline shows that Walz retired before the order had been given to deploy. Except the order had been given at least a year before. CNN interviewed Walz’s former superior, who said, “We had already received our notification of sourcing …Yes, he had been notified.” Then CNN suddenly had technical problems and had to cut off the interview right then.

“On Aug. 3, 2003, Walz and his battalion were deployed to Italy to support U.S. operations in Afghanistan under Operation Enduring Freedom. Walz returned to Minnesota in April 2004,” PolitiFact reported. We have no doubt that Walz was deployed to Italy, just not to either Iraq or Afghanistan. So yes, he served under Operation Enduring Freedom … in Italy.

PolitiFact somehow thinks this timeline absolves Walz from dropping out of the Army and allowing his unit to go without him. But as we said above, according to just about everybody in his unit, Walz knew they were being deployed.

“In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy,” retired Capt. Corey Bjertness, now a pastor in Horace, North Dakota, told the New York Post.

So Vance, along with everyone in the Minnesota Army National Guard is “distorting the timeline.”

“You guys are flat-out lying.”

“Even if he had retired without knowing about his deployment(he knew), he still lied later on about serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq.”

That’s it — he chose politics over deployment. He knew full well that his unit was being deployed when he filed his retirement papers. PolitiFact and the rest of the mainstream media can keep saying he didn’t know, but he knew.

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