Tim Walz’ Military Record III
A third (and hopefully final) post on the matter.
I was too busy to respond to the flood of comments on yesterday’s post “Tim Walz’ Military Record Redux” in real time. The reactions were in three broad categories.
Too Much Attention to a Trivial Topic/Democrats Get More Scrutiny Than Republicans
First off, I couched the whole post in terms of the perspective of military culture. My late father was a retired Regular Army First Sergeant, I served in the Regular Army and deployed to Desert Shield as a Field Artillery officer, and I’ve spent the last eleven years teaching mid-career officers. As noted in the post, things that seem trivial to civilians can spark heated outrage among veterans and those still serving.
Second, I stated multiple times in the post that this issue would have next to no impact on the election.
Third, the fact of the matter is that Walz is a relative unknown on the national scale. Like his counterpart, J.D. Vance (who was more famous but still unvetted) that means lots of old stories known only to locals suddenly get a national airing.
Vance has already—rightly—been the subject of a massive pile-on, as his introduction to the national stage has not gone well. He comes across as, to coin a phrase, weird. And weird things he’s said and done over the years that got very little national attention are suddenly national stories.
That’s what’s happening with Walz now. He exaggerated his military record, his running mate touted said record in introducing him, and now those old claims are being examined.
This is not unusual. This is what’s happened with Vice Presidential nominees going back as far as I can remember. And the scrutiny is, quite rightly, more intense when they’re unconventional rather than someone who had, like Harris in 2020 or Joe Biden in 2008, been through the scrutiny of their own presidential run. This was true even before our current hyper-polarization. See Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 or Dan Quayle in 1988.
Disdain for the National Guard
Speaking of Dan Quayle, his Vice Presidential nomination was the first time that I understood the disdain that active duty veterans had for the National Guard. At the time, I was a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant who wouldn’t go on active duty for a few months. There was considerable pile-on to the effect that Quayle’s service in the Indiana Guard made him a de facto draft dodger because it was well known that being in the Guard meant that you wouldn’t get drafted and that there was essentially no chance that you’d be deployed.
We saw this resurface years later when George W. Bush ran for President in 2000. Once again the charge was that a well-connected father was able to get his son out of combat service by stashing him in the Guard. This was contrasted with his opponent’s honorable service in Vietnam as a combat correspondent. (Amusingly, very much like the present controversy, in that Vance served as a public affairs Marine.) We saw it again in Bush’s 2004 re-election with the controversy known as “RatherGate” or “Memogate.”
All of the above, by the way, got way more attention than the kerfuffles over Walz’ exaggerations.
To be sure, the National Guard that Walz served in from 1981-2005 wasn’t quite the Guard of the Vietnam era. As part of the reorganization of the armed forces in the wake of the abolition of the draft in 1973, the Guard became somewhat more deployable.
As noted in the post, it was well understood prior to the mid-aughts that the Army Guard (unlike the Army Reserve) was a Break the Glass in Case of Emergency force, not a ready reserve.
First, a post-Cold War reorganization put most of the Reserve Component’s combat arms units into the Army National Guard and its service and service support units into the Army Reserve. Pretty much any deployment of scale meant that assets that were only or mostly in the Reserves would be called up; we didn’t need Guard combat units. Famously, a Georgia Guard unit was called up for Desert Storm but wasn’t certified as sufficiently trained to deploy until the war was over.
This is further complicated by the fact that the Guard has a primary role as a state militia available for the governor to call up to handle emergencies, especially natural disasters. For another, the Guard is disproportionately populated by state and local civil servants and first responders. Calling up the local Guard unit can decimate the local police force and fire department. Not to mention school teachers like Walz.
More importantly, the Guard is simply poorly trained. This isn’t a knock on them but a reality of the organizational construct. A Regular Army Field Artillery unit trains regularly. A Guard artillery unit, by contrast, has weekend drills twelve weekends a month and has a two-week annual training period, usually during the summer. Most of this time is spent taking care of routine administrative work, common task training, holiday parties, rifle qualification, and the like. There’s just not much time for training.
Because the Active Duty force was not large enough for the demands of the Global War on Terror, the decades-long understanding of what the Guard was changed. Around the time Walz left, we started calling up Guard units for combat deployments with some regularity despite all of the aforementioned issues. It caused considerable consternation. It’s literally not what people thought they were signing up for.
Regardless, over time, the nature of the Guard simply changed. People who didn’t want to deploy got the hell out. And, while “one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer” remained inadequate to have proficiency in combined arms operations, a regular deployment schedule produced seasoned units with a lot of experienced veterans to train up the new hands. The Guard of 2024 or 2014 and the Guard of 2004 were simply not the same animal.
By the way, this clip of Walz “insulting” the Guard by referring to them as “19-year-old cooks” is going around as a gotch smear. But that’s not how I interpret him at all. He’s just stating a fact: these are volunteers with a modest amount of training, not seasoned riot police. They’re not a magic bullet and can often make a situation worse. (See also: Kent State.)
I would acknowledge, though, that my comment that “24 years in the National Guard of Walz’ day is not 24 years of real service” was over the top. As @James R Ehrler and others pointed out, Walz’ unit was available for disaster response missions. And, of course, he did deploy to Europe to support the war in Afghanistan. What I should have said was simply that 24 years in the National Guard is not the same as 24 years of active military service. For that matter, considering that Walz spent most of those 24 years as a high school teacher and coach, he was certainly serving the public in a very valuable fashion.
Joyner Hates the Dems!
These takes always amuse me. As noted in the OP, I’ll vote for the Harris-Walz tickets despite various misgivings about it. The alternative is a Lunatic-Weirdo ticket.
Beyond that, my track record on analyzing these things fairly is pretty strong. More than twenty years ago, I defended John Kerry—for whom I did not vote—from slurs against his exemplary military service. When the first inklings of the group who would eventually call themselves the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth came out in May 2004 (“Former Mates Allege Kerry ‘Unfit’“), I wrote,
There’s nothing new here, just a renewal of the debate over the Winter Soldiers hearing and Kerry’s anti-war activities. Presumably, these things have been factored into voters’ minds at this point, to the extent anyone much cares thirty-odd years later. Further, this is in some sense the mirror image of the chicken hawk argument. Since all they’re doing is assessing purely political matters, I’m not sure why the opinion of Kerry’s former Navy mates should have any special weight.
What is relevant to the question of Kerry’s fitness to serve as commander-in-chief is his present maturity on defense matters. Given the advantage of thirty-odd years additional seasoning and reflection, what are Kerry’s views on Vietnam now? More importantly, what is his vision for the war on terror and our future in Iraq? It’s still very early in this campaign but Kerry will need to give a much more coherent view on those issues than he has so far.
When the full-fledged charges came out two months later (almost 20 years to the day ago), I wrote (“Swift Boat Nuts?“):
Drudge is continuing to flak the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth who, frankly, sound increasingly like lunatics.
[…]
Kerry has charged other Vietnam vets, with a rather broad brush, of war crimes and included himself in that number. I’ve never given much credence to either of those things. While I think those statements, which he’s never repudiated, help make him unfit to be commander-in-chief, these sort of allegations strike me as wholly incredible.
And I won’t rehash my long series of posts about Sarah Palin here.
While I’ve certainly been a partisan at the past, I’ve just never had problems criticizing individual actions of those I support or defending those I don’t support from charges I consider unfair.
The elevator speech facts here are pretty clear:
Walz had a long but uninteresting military career that did not put him in harm’s way. He is not a hero.
Vance had a short and uninteresting military career that could have put him in harm’s way, but did not. He is not a hero.
Trump was a draft dodger who has repeatedly expressed contempt for the military, military values, and the entire concept of public service. He is the opposite of a hero.
None of them present themselves in these terms, as a rule.
James, I didn’t get a chance to comment on your post yesterday. I personally thought it was fine and was more or less what I expected you would write.
I expected your feelings would be much stronger than mine–even if we landed in the same place. I think our only disagreement was about the Special Forces hat and I appreciate your point of view on that.
I think the big challenge is that it’s uncomfortable for people to think in terms of “AND” and not “OR.” By that I mean that we can have strong feelings that appear to be in contradiction with other feelings/and opinions.
I think it’s this, especially combined with the nature of communicating through text, that makes real online engagement on sticky topics so difficult.
From my POV the disdain for the Guard was largely or especially limited to the Viet nam era. Rich kids had ways to avoid the draft, but joining the Guard was a way to avoid the draft while still looking like you weren’t AND looking like you were all patriotic. IOW it preserved your possibility for future politics or running things in general. We non-rich kids were very much aware of this. Once the draft went away I dont know that most people every really detested the Guard other than that they weren’t, as you noted, especially well trained. (As a side note reserve and Guard medical units are different and during Desert Storm were much more prepared than the full time military units.)
Steve
Today’s sermon comes from Matthew 7: verse 3:
What we have here is the reverse situation. Thanks to the incompetent media, we are obsessing over the mote and paying less attention to a beam the size of Trump tower. But that doesn’t mean the mote isn’t there.
Look, I have a great deal of earned experience when it comes to lying. I’m a fucking brilliant liar. But when I was finally off the legal hook, I made a radical change. I stopped lying. And oh my god, the weight that just levitated up off my shoulders. It is so hard lying and maintaining a lie in all its permutations. Telling the truth is so much easier. And the gain in power is a rush. You go from a constant cringe to strutting around feeling invulnerable.
Don’t exaggerate, don’t boast, don’t lie – that’s not a moral prescription, it’s just good advice for life. We’re dealing with the mote because the mote is there. When you get caught with your mote, there is really only one way out.
“I did exaggerate a bit, and I regret it. While it is true that I performed the duties of a CMS, I retired from the Guard as a master sergeant. And if some of the brave men and women I worked with in the Guard have issues with my decision to retire, I am distressed to hear it. I am happy to explain my decision if anyone cares for the details, but I have to respect the feelings of my friends. And I continue to see them as my friends.”
There you go, all done. If you catch a lie and the liar confesses and repents, the accusation deflates like a balloon with a slow leak. Confess, repent, and then and only then, pivot to the counterattack. Pluck out the mote, then swing the beam like a fucking baseball bat.
The Lefty club set of commentators here has a rather low tolerance for not-Lefty Left views and inputs, and rather adolescent habits with some rather reflexive straw-man to ad hominem reaction to anything outside their views. The Activist BoBo Left. Rather boring and tedious.
Your comments were entirely understandable and should have rather been absorbed by the readers as bringing a certain perspective and insight to their closed views.
Oh, FFS.
Was there intent to deceive?
Nope. Which makes all the “fact-checking” sanctimonious bullshit.
Thank you for acknowledging that Walz’s service in the NG was a service. Agree, as I mentioned to Michael Reynolds, that it is not the same as service in combat but it is valuable and did require sacrifices, including the deployment to Europe.
@steve:
Right. But, as noted, that soon changed, as those type of units are now mostly in the Army Reserve, which was always (well, since the shift to AVF in 1973 at least) intended to be a ready reserve rather than an emergency (WWIII-only) reserve.
Not noted in the post but it’s also decidedly not true of the Air National Guard. Its pilots are, almost if not exclusively folks with years of active duty experience who now fly for the airlines and the like. They’re fantastic pilots.
@drj: As noted in the previous post, I firmly believe there was indeed an intent to deceive. He clearly wrapped himself in the cloak of a combat veteran to enhance his credibility on gun control. He clearly enjoyed the prestige of the Command Sergeant Major title, even though he didn’t do what was necessary to earn it. He clearly gave the impression that he couldn’t have possibly known that the unit would deploy to combat when he put in his retirement papers when that was why he put in his retirement papers. (Not, in my judgment, because he was a coward—there’s no evidence of that—but because he decided he had a calling to serve in Congress and deployment would have detailed that. I’m 93.4% okay with that. But he clearly dissembled on this point.)
@James Joyner:
What do you mean by “earn” it? No disrespect to your knowledge of the military, but I still think that you’re applying a standard not shared by others.
Star-Tribune story from 2022:
Adam Kinzinger:
Your critique of Walz was mild, at best. Amd warranted. As I wrote yesterday, some of the reactions you got were the stuff of drama queen land. It’s not like you started yelling F*** Tim Walz.
This election is really causing people to lose it, and we are all weirdos now (albeit more fun and cool weird like Pee Wee Herman and Dame Edna, less creepy weird like Pennywise and Trump). I’ll keep saying it: turning off the screen and going outside to touch grass is always am option. And more than a few ought to take it.
Is no one enjoying the Olympics?
Thanks for the additional perspective. While us civilians may understand that claims of service are a sensitive subject, we just don’t have the experience to know exactly how much effort or danger different military roles entail. Some of yesterday’s post *seemed* a little harsh, but it was still a good read and, in my opinion, well within the reasonable and thoughtful viewpoints we’ve come to expect from JJ.
Pushing back on your analysis. But first I thank you for your service and your father’s service.
First, America has decided that the National Guard is an essential part of our preparedness for disaster and, possibly, combat. Whether deployed under Title 10 (unit deployment during war), Title 32 (national emergency), or state Active Duty, the people who serve in the National Guard do make a pledge to defend the Constitution with their lives. They may never experience the glamor and risk of combat, but then many service members on Active Duty don’t either.
Military 101: Understanding the Differences between Active Duty, National Guard and Reserves
Veteran’s Administration description of duty and benefits
USAA’s description of duty and benefits
Secondly, to recruit and retain people to serve in the National Guard, their sense of patriotism and understanding of the costs and benefits of serving must be maintained. Current messaging for recruitment for the National Guard delineates the differences with Active Duty as follows:
“Army National Guard vs. Active Duty Special Forces
The main difference between Active Duty service and Guard service is Operational Tempo (OPTEMPO), or number of training and deployment days.
Your National Guard Special Forces training is one weekend (three to four days) per month plus an additional two to four weeks of training per year. Deployments are also less frequent. You will generally be deployed once every two to three years for six to 15 months. This allows you to live as a civilian as well as a Soldier.
A National Guard Special Forces Soldier must maintain the same certifications, currencies and qualifications, as well as attend the same military courses and schools, as Active Duty Army Special Forces.” (https://nationalguard.com/special-forces-arng-vs-active-duty)
No where does the messaging say, “You are the dirt bags of our national preparedness structure. You may never consider yourselves equivalent in dedication and training to those who served on Active Duty in direct engagement with the enemy.”
I believe your analysis display unconscious bias toward Americans who were willing to serve, suffer hardship, and if so ordered, put their lives on the line to protect the American people through National Guard service. They are told repeatedly during their service that they must train and be prepared to deploy for war or disaster response (and now capital and border protection). Then, when they describe their service in these terms, the long knives come out to ensure that they know their place in military culture and hierarchy.
If you have a beef, may I suggest it be with those in places of command who train and deploy National Guard or use the crony system to protect VIPs and their family from deployment. Not with those who were heroes in their civilian life and willing to be heroes in National Guard service.
@James Joyner:
By being careless with his words once in the twenty years since he retired?
Really?
@DK: The Olympics? Why no, I hadn’t noticed. Are they going on now?
@James Joyner: Just when I thought you were being reasonable you say “He clearly enjoyed the prestige of the Command Sergeant Major title, even though he didn’t do what was necessary to earn it. ” As mastermix (and Kinzinger) point out you are once again being ungracious. How about you try this:
“He did the work and exercised the authority of the position when it was asked of him but never completed the coursework necessary to retire with that rank.”
Nothing, as Kinzinger noted, is disreputable about that.
@mistermix and @James R Ehrler: My understanding comports with this from the Minnesota National Guard page:
I gather that Walz was frocked to CSM and served in that position but was never actually promoted to pay grade E-9 because he did not complete the SMA.
@Skookum: I do not know how I could be more clear on this point: the National Guard of the past 20 years or so is not the Guard in which Walz served. While Guard combat support units occasionally deployed in the 1990s, we hadn’t deployed Guard combat arms units, such as the artillery unit to which Walz was assigned, to combat since Vietnam until the GWOT made that necessary in the mid-aughts. (And very few Guard units were sent to Vietnam because it was considered politically fraught to do so.)
@James Joyner:
In addition to the schooling of 2 years, Walz would have had a 2 year service commitment after the schooling was completed so to keep the rank he had to serve until 2007
This military youtuber goes over the facts. Includes some color opinion from retired Sergeant Majors near the end. But there is also an image of a Walz challenge coin when his was in the House that includes the Command Sergeant Major patch. Search results are so trashed on any of the candidates I couldn’t verify it is real. But if it is, that is his deception stamped in metal.
James, I’ll have to take issue with your claim that the National Guard is poorly trained. I was a Marine Corps pilot in Viet Nam and our contempt for the National Guard of that era was justified. After six years in the Corps I left and went to law school and after a more than eight year break in service I joined the local National Guard. The guard I joined was a much different animal than that of the Viet Nam era. First, the unit was composed mostly of Viet Nam veterans with thousands of hours flight time, far better than the comparable active duty Army units. True, we were flying older aircraft. When I joined we were still flying Huey gunships while the active duty units were flying Cobras. As the active duty units got the modernized and F model Cobras we got their older G and S models. Later we got the AH-64 Apache just like the active duty units. All the while our training requirements were the same as active duty. We had the same minimums and operational readyness requirements as active duty. To enable meeting these requirements in addition to the twelve weekend drills and two week summer duty we had 48 AFTP (additional flight time periods) annually and 3 days each semiannual period for flight simulator training. The result is we were fully trained and ready. I retired at the mandatory retirement age of 60 in 2003 so I didn’t get to deploy with my unit’s several trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. Each time they deployed they did so fully combat ready. I don’t know about Walz’ unit but if they were like my States armored units which also deployed, they were as combat ready as any active duty unit.
@James Joyner:
You know what you call a guy who’s frocked to CSM?
Sergeant Major.
The level of nitpicking some people are engaging in on this nothingburger is really stunning.
@James Joyner:
I still respectfully disagree. Do we judge those who served in earlier decades by the training and organizational learning of the present? So your message is:
“If you served in the National Guard prior to 2006, you are the dirt bags of our national preparedness structure. You may never consider yourselves equivalent in dedication and training to those who served on Active Duty in direct engagement with the enemy.”
N U T S !
I certainly didn’t serve to support a military class that considers itself irreproachable on determining who among those who were willing to sign the dotted line, take the oath, and serve their county is worthy of our Country’s gratitude.
…are worthy…
@James Joyner: I’ll repeat. What is wrong with this framing, “He did the work and exercised the authority of the position when it was asked of him but never completed the coursework necessary to retire with that rank.”
I agree with Mikey,” You know what you call a guy who’s frocked to CSM?
Sergeant Major.”
@a country lawyer: Aviation units are an anomaly because flight school is so long, which means Guard pilots spent considerable time flying on active duty before transitioning and, as you say, get additional training time. That’s just not the cause for artillery units.
As one who has never been in the military, had no interest in the military, or things military, I chose not to comment as my input (one way or another) would not matter to those who have served.
However, as this is the third and final installment of the OTB Walz with the Tin Soldiers, I must say: Who the fu%k really cares.
If Harris were only a meter maid, and if Walz was only a third-grade teacher, they would still be eminently VASTLY more qualified to be the next administration in comparison to Trump/Vance.
We move on beyond the swiftboating attempt and continue to watch Trump lose his mind as his numbers continue to drop.
Huzzah!
@Liberal Capitalist:
Those who serve in the military often something to the effect, “I disagree with you, but I would die for your right to say it.”
As apparent, how valor is apportioned in our country is a passionate topic, especially among those who may benefit from being considered a hero–or not.
I’m not saying the Walz deserved the Medal of Honor or suffered from physical and emotional wounds that many veterans endure. I don’t pretend to know his motivation for joining the National Guard or when he decided to become a politician.
My point is that Dr. Joyner was extremely emotional in his article about Walz. He’s judging the man by current standards and not the standards of the time in which men of Walz’s generation served.
Further, unlike many who are from multi-generational military families, Walz likely had few mentors and VIP connections to help him climb the ladder. So if he was assigned a billet that according to the Table of Organization should have been assigned to an E9, then good for him. I doubt he got paid for the privilege. But I don’t think it is incorrect for him to be proud that he served as a Command Sergeant Major.
You may not think it’s important, but the United States has developed a multi-generational military class of whom many believe they the only True Patriots. This has profound effects upon how people get perks in life that others don’t, especially in high command, choice billet assignments, consulting opportunities, board membership, and politics.
I respect Dr. Joyner, but I believe the tone and attacks in his articles on this subject display a bias that is not in proportion to the perceived errors in Walz’s biography and remarks.
And I’m a Marine who doesn’t give up and I definitely don’t STFU.
@Skookum: BTW, I’m married to a retired E9. We met long after we both separated from our respective services.
@Lounsbury:
Yes, Miss Othmar.
I didn’t speak up, but my take on this phrase: “Weapon of war, that I carried in war” strikes me as more addressing intention, than physical presence in a war zone. He was in the military, during a war, and he carried the weapon with warlike intention. It’s more of a poetic use of “in war”, but honest to Marr, that’s how it landed on me the first time.
And while Walz comes off as plain spoken, analyze his rhetoric and you will see that while it uses simple words and phrases, it is very, very well put together. This is someone who is good at communicating, especially with, well, enlisted soldiers, rather than other lawyers, academics, or literary types. And you know what? The kinds of people he talks to like a good turn of phrase, as long as they don’t think their being talked down to.
@Lounsbury:
Speaking of tedious; ‘The Lefty club set,’ The Activist BoBo Left’
But, please continue.