Tim Walz has played fast and loose with his military service record

In an era of declining trust, the military retains widespread public confidence — 61 percent as of a Gallup poll this year. Large majorities of Americans look up to those who wore the uniform and associate serving in the military with positive stereotypes like self-discipline, loyalty and responsibility. Politicians and our political system? Not so much.

Only 26 percent of Americans have confidence in the presidency, and confidence in Congress stands at 9 percent. It’s no wonder that both parties recruit military veterans to run for office, hoping that the halo from their service will soften the sharp edges of political reality and garner crossover appeal come election day.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s selection of Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate this week spurred adulation from groups as varied as the Democratic Socialists of America and mainstream pundits — but it also brought renewed scrutiny of Walz’s service record as a retired senior non-commissioned officer in the Army National Guard. There is no dispute that Walz enlisted in 1981 and retired in 2005 after twenty-four years of service, including several peacetime/non-combat rotations. Yet Walz’s characterization of his service record raised questions that deserve close appraisal, not scattershot attacks.

When Walz first enlisted, nearly one in five Americans had served in the military; today it’s closer to one in twenty. Fewer Americans understand service from personal experience; most rely on media depictions shaped by over two decades of conflict. As a result, the image of a veteran in many Americans’ minds is someone who put their on the line fighting overseas. While reality is quite different — there are roughly ten support personnel for every combat arms soldier — the political temptation for a candidate to wrap themselves in the warfighter narrative is hard to resist.

The year before he first ran for Congress in 2005, Walz cloaked himself in that image, holding a sign that read, “Enduring Freedom Veterans for [John] Kerry” at an event for the then-presidential candidate. In a technical sense, this was not a lie: Walz had mobilized to Europe that year to provide base security, a mission characterized as “in support of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the overarching name of the post-9/11 anti-terrorism mission. At the time, Kerry’s own service record in Vietnam was under attack — and his criticism of then-President Bush’s prosecution of the Iraq War led some to question Kerry’s patriotism.

The takeaway of “Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry” was clear: attacks on Kerry were baseless; war veterans who put their lives on the line overseas had Kerry’s back. Walz encouraged this deceptive picture, albeit without telling an outright lie himself. Edging up to that line may have had political upside for Walz, but it came with risks too. In 2009, National Guard veterans filmed themselves questioning his congressional staff about Walz’s remarks tying his service to Operation Enduring Freedom, arguing the implication he served in Afghanistan violated the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.

Lying about your service, or falsely claiming experiences or awards not received, is the fastest way to become persona non grata in other veterans’ eyes. Yet the mortal sin of stolen valor can become blurred by the natural tendency to embellish. There’s a reason veterans joke about “no shit, there I was…” tales that get a bit further from the truth with each retelling. That line comes into sharp focus when stakes are considered: bending the truth for a laugh over beers is one thing; claiming undeserved credibility, that others earned at great personal expense, is another.

This habit of encouraging a false impression of his service continued when Walz decided to run for Minnesota governor. In Congress, Walz struck a more moderate tone for a Democrat, earning an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association in the four cycles leading up to his 2018 gubernatorial run. It wasn’t until after the Parkland school shooting that year that Walz reversed his pro-gun stance, pivoting in support of an assault weapons ban by arguing, “those weapons of war, that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”

Walz’s defenders argue he spoke too quickly, that a pause was missed and he meant to say, “those weapons of war, that I carried — in war is the only place where those weapons are at.” The less charitable read is that Walz claimed, “I carried [weapons] in war.” It’s a critical distinction, and frankly arguable. What’s inarguable is that Walz used his authority as a military veteran to argue for an assault weapons ban, encouraging listeners to confer on his stance a battle-born credibility he never earned.

Walz owes it to his fellow veterans, and the voting public, to fully clarify these remarks and apologize for any false impressions of combat service. The absence of such a clarification, along with Walz’s lesser mischaracterizing his retirement rank, has stoked angry accusations of stolen valor from the right. I don’t think this issue is as neatly cut-and-dried as some claim, but if the parties were reversed there is no doubt that every liberal pundit praising Walz’s service today would be eviscerating a Republican with a similar record for stolen valor.

And therein lies the rub. Service members swear an oath to the Constitution. We served the nation, not a party, but when service gets dragged into partisan politics, there is no patience for accurate appraisals. Walz put himself in this position by playing fast and loose with his service record, encouraging a misimpression of his record to further his political career. But training fire on his otherwise respectable service gives Walz a pass on his shapeshifting political beliefs and burnishes the moderate image Kamala Harris needs him to project.