From the New York Post: Veterans have accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of “embellishing” his military career and abandoning his National Guard battalion, highlighting that the now-vice presidential pick for the Democrats never served in combat and retired from service ahead of his unit’s 2005 deployment to Iraq.
In a letter posted to Facebook in 2018 as he first ran for governor, retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr said Walz retired from his 24-year tenure in the National Guard after learning that his battalion would be deployed to Iraq, despite allegedly assuring his fellow troops he would join them.
“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,” Behrends and Herr wrote.
Walz, 60, wrapped his military career just in time for him to launch his political career the following year, successfully running for Congress in 2006.
Behrends and Herr noted that Walz could easily have just requested permission from the Pentagon to seek office while remaining on active duty with the National Guard, but said “instead … slithered out the door.”
The Daily Wire first announced in a report that they had discovered the letter posted on Facebook.
In a statement to the New York Post on Tuesday, Behrends, now a 63-year-old farmer in MN, slammed Walz for bailing out of the National Guard just before their unit’s deployment to Iraq.
“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” the retired command sergeant major said of Walz. “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.”
WATCH:
In 2005, Tim Walz abruptly quit the Army National Guard to run for Congress right before his unit was deployed to Iraq.
The Guardsman who took his place told @AlphaNewsMN in 2022 that Walz said he would be going on the deployment before leaving them.
“He abandoned us.” pic.twitter.com/SOb2lk8zTu
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 6, 2024
Below is the letter posted to Facebook by Behrends on October 18, 2018. Behrends shared screenshots of the full letter, along with the following statement:
Traitor – a person who betrays a friend, country, principal, etc.
I told someone I was thinking of getting a banner made about Tim Walz. They asked, “Are you going to make it yellow?”Last summer, as I stood over the grave of Staff Sergeant Greg Gorter paying my respects, I was humbled. Humbled by a Patriot, Soldier, and recruiter; who had quit recruiting as it was a non-deployable position so that he could volunteer to go to Iraq with the 1-151st Field Artillery Battalion.
Following is a 2004 quote from SSG Gorter in regards to his decision to go from recruiter to Soldier in Iraq: “I wanted to do something different. This is my chance. It’s something I feel compelled to do and I don’t know how to explain it any more than that. I have vowed to uphold the constitution of the United States against its enemies, foreign and domestic. I felt this was the time for me to do it, because it’s probably my last chance. I want to make the world a better place so my kid doesn’t have to go through a 9/11.”
On 9/11, as I lowered the flags to half-staff at the Brewster Veterans Memorial, I gazed at the bronze likeness of Sergeant Kyle Miller, who was killed in action in Iraq on June 29th, 2006 at age 19, while serving with the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. I wondered what that Patriot thought that day in 2001, a teenager in school. And I wondered what all the other Patriots who had joined the service after 9/11 thought on that day. When they joined, we were at war, which we still are, and getting the call to go is probably going to happen. What if everybody said, sorry I’ve got better things to do?
We are the land of the free, because of the brave. We are not the land of the free, because of those who ran.
The citizens of the state of Minnesota deserve to hear this side of the story, not just a slithery politician’s version of what he wants people to hear.
Sincerely,
Thomas Behrends
CSM USA Retired
Walz ‘Embellished And Selectively Omitted Facts’ About His Military Career: Retired National Guardsmen https://t.co/hqRKb3YkEz
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 6, 2024
RADICAL ALERT: Just who is Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s VP pick?
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