Trump's campaign on Wednesday published a letter signed by 50 Republican lawmakers who are military veterans criticizing vice presidential nominee Tim Walz for what they called “egregious misrepresentations” of his time in uniform.
“To be blunt, when you falsely claim to have served in the military that was not performed and then walk away from your post, you are disregarding the real sacrifices made by veterans who did serve in combat,” reads the letter, which included Florida Rep. Brian Mast, chairman of the Veterans and Military Families for Trump coalition.
The letter is part of a sustained attack by the Trump campaign — led by Sen. J.D. Vance, a vice presidential candidate and Marine Corps veteran — on the military record of Walz, who served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring to run for Congress. Republicans have criticized Walz for retiring in May 2005, two months before his unit was ordered to deploy to Iraq.
The letter accuses Walz of “abandoning the men and women under his leadership just as they were preparing to deploy” and calls his decision to leave the service “dishonorable.”
“When America asked you to lead its troops into war, you turned your back on them,” he says. “You have violated the trust of our brothers and sisters in arms… Until you admit that you lied to them, there is no way you can be trusted to serve as vice president.”
The letter also highlights Walz's characterization of his military rank, which critics say was exaggerated.
The Minnesota governor rose to the rank of command sergeant major, one of the highest ranks in the military, but retired as a sergeant major because he did not complete the courses required to maintain the higher title. biography website calls him “Command Sergeant Major Walz,” and he and Vice President Kamala Harris Note from the campaign site: He rose to that rank.
The authors of the letters include Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents parts of San Diego and Riverside counties; Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst; Florida Sen. Rick Scott; and Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as Interior secretary during the Trump administration.
On Wednesday night, the Harris campaign, in an email to The Times, shared a statement from VoteVets, a progressive political action committee made up of military veterans and their families, claiming that many of the signers misrepresented their own service.
“If you are looking for a classic example of stolen valor, look no further than Donald Trump’s campaign and the 50 veterans who signed this letter,” the statement reads.
The “most egregious example,” it reads, is Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson, whose retired U.S. Navy rank was reduced from rear admiral to captain after a Pentagon investigation found he had behaved inappropriately while serving as White House physician.
“Despite the demotion, Jackson has continued to refer to himself as a retired rear admiral, including in statements published since the Navy reclassified him as a retired captain,” the Washington Post reported.
Vance, who has repeatedly accused Walz of “stolen valor,” repeated his attacks in a speech this week in Philadelphia, joking: “Before the campaign is over, Tim Walz is going to talk about how he carried an M16 through the jungles of Vietnam.”
“The closest Tim Walz came to combat … was when he let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground” after the police killing of George Floyd, said Vance, who deployed to Iraq for six months in 2005 and did not see combat.
Walz addressed scrutiny of his service during A speech to union workers in Los Angeles last week.
“I am very proud of my service to this country,” Walz said, “and I firmly believe that one should never denigrate another person’s service record. To anyone who has put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I have only a few simple words: thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
The military service of the vice presidential candidates — and Trump’s lack thereof — has been a frequent topic during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
Trump never served in the military, and a series of deferments allowed him to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. After graduating from high school at the New York Military Academy in 1964, he received four deferments to attend college.
In 1968, at the age of 22, he was granted a medical deferment for having… bone spurs on their heels.
In a speech Tuesday night at the Democratic convention, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army veteran who lost both legs while serving in Iraq, called Trump an “old cadet with bone spurs.”
“I went to war to protect American rights and freedoms, so I take it personally when a coward like Donald Trump, who has evaded the draft five times, tries to take away my rights and freedoms in exchange,” Duckworth said.
In recent days, Trump has been criticized for saying that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, is “far better” that the Medal of Honor, the country's highest military decoration, because recipients of the latter are “either in very bad shape from being hit by bullets so many times or they are dead.”
