The battalion commander who ran Tim Walz’s former unit has slammed the vice presidential nominee over claims of ‘stolen valor’.
Kamala Harris’ running mate has already been forced to backtrack on claims of having ‘carried’ weapons of war in combat during his 24 years in the Army National Guard and faced claims of being a ‘coward’ from family members of soldiers.
Harris has also been put in the unenviable position of confronting claims that Walz misrepresented his rank when he retired from the National Guard.
Now Lieutenant Colonel John Kolb, the man who would take over Walz’s unit after the governor quit in 2005, has obliterated the Democrat for claiming the rank of Command Sergeant Major and for retiring before deployment to Iraq.
Kolb wrote in a Facebook post that Walz ‘did not earn the rank’ and added that ‘it is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title.’
Kolb continued: ‘By all accounts and on the record, he was a competent Chief of Firing Battery/Gunnery Sergeant and First Sergeant. I cannot say the same of his service sitting, frocked, in the CSM [command sergeant major] chair. He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9 [the highest rank for non-commissioned officers].
‘It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title.
‘I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path.’
Walz retired from the Minnesota National Guard in May 2005 to pursue a political career. In August of that year, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit. The unit mobilized in October before it deployed to Iraq in March 2006.
Kolb became lieutenant colonel, a rank senior to CSM, of the battalion in August of 2005. Walz’s role as CSM went to Thomas Behrends upon his retirement, Kolb stated.
Indeed, Kolb began his post by laying out why he did ‘not regret’ Walz retiring early from the Minnesota National Guard because it allowed Behrends, a ‘great leader’, to succeed him as CSM.
‘I do not regret that Tim Walz retired early from the Minnesota Army National Guard, did not complete the Sergeants Major Academy, broke his enlistment contract or did not successfully complete any assignment as a Sergeant Major,’ Kolb wrote cuttingly.
‘Unwittingly, he got out of the way for better leadership. Thomas Behrends was the right leader at the right time. He sacrificed to answer the call, leaving his family, business and farming-partner brother to train, lead and care for soldiers. He earned the privilege of being called Command Sergeant Major.
‘Like a great leader he ran toward and not away from the guns.’
High-profile conservatives like Donald Trump Jr. and Charlie Kirk gleefully shared the post, with Trump Jr. asking: ‘How long is the left wing media going to ignore this?’
Kolb’s not the only one criticizing Walz this weekend, as the media finally took a hard look at the governor’s military service.
Minnesota National Guard Command Sergeant Major Doug Julin questioned the timeline of Walz’s retirement in a CNN interview.
He said that the VP nominee knew that their unit was likely to deploy and had several meeting ‘including my boss, commander, and the command team’ discussing it.
Julin also claimed that Walz had assured him that he would be deploying with his unit.
However, in June 2005, Walz got a superior to back his retirement without telling Julin, a break in protocol.
‘Tim Walz knew the process and procedures, he went around me and above and beyond me… basically went in there to get somebody to back him… it was just a backdoor process,’ Julin added.
The Minnesota National Guard said in a statement that Walz’s unit did not receive deployment orders until July 2005 and he’d put in retirement papers about five to seven months before stepping down in May of that year.
The Harris/Walz campaign pointed to the statement of Joseph Eustace, an ex-National Guard member who served under Walz.
‘From what I know of the situation, they’re lying,’ he said. ‘He was as good as a solider as you’ll find… What I’m trying to do is defend someone who served his country. I’m not voting for him… But I don’t think it’s fair to characterize his service the way they have.’
Walz referenced his 24 years in the Army National Guard during a political event in 2018 while explaining his support for gun legislation like background checks and restrictions on high-powered firearms.
‘We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at,’ Walz said in the clip, which was filmed when he represented Minnesota in the House of Representatives.
The Harris campaign shared the footage Tuesday on social media in an attempt to illustrate the Minnesota governor’s views on gun control.
The claim drew the ire of some top Republicans, including former President Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who accused Walz of ‘stolen valor.’ Stolen valor is a federal crime carrying a penalty of up to a year in jail, referring specifically to military awards and trying to gain money or benefit from claiming them.
‘What bothers me about Tim Walz is this stolen valor garbage,’ he said at a campaign event in Michigan this week. ‘Do not pretend to be something that you’re not.
‘I’d be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.’
A Trump surrogate also hit out at Walz for the claims.
‘Tim Walz is a fraud who wants to ban firearms like the ones he claimed to carry in war – except Tim Walz never deployed to a combat zone and lied about his record of service in the National Guard,’ spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told NBC News.
‘If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: Just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.’
The Harris campaign now says that the Minnesota governor simply misspoke – and did not try to lie to anyone about his military service.
‘Gov. Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country – in fact, he thanks Sen. Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,’ Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Harris-Walz campaign said in a statement Saturday.
‘In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the governor misspoke.
‘He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance, who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.’
But Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung questioned, ‘Why won’t Tim Walz address his lies himself? Why does he need to send out lowly spokespeople to clean up his own mess.’
Walz formally retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005, as he prepared to run for Congress.
Some Republicans now suggest he abandoned his team to pursue the campaign.
In fact, as he prepared for the Congressional run in 2005, Walz’s campaign issued a statement saying he planned to run despite a possible mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to Iraq.
According to the National Guard, he retired from service in May of that year, and his unit was deployed.
There is no evidence that Walz timed his departure with the intent of avoiding deployment, but Vance has seized on the issue.
‘When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, do you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him – a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with,’ the vice presidential candidate said at a news conference on Wednesday.
‘I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you’re going to follow through, and then to drop out right before you actually have to go.’
Walz has faced such attacks before, including in his re-election campaign in 2022 – when his Republican opponent questioned his decision to leave the service.
Walz’s campaign responded with a letter signed by 50 veterans praising his leadership on veterans’ issues in politics – a tactic the Harris campaign is now trying to reproduce.
Some of the criticism has drawn comparisons to critiques John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, faced when he ran for the nation’s highest office.
Kerry – who was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and, for wounds he sustained in battle, three Purple Heart medals – drew the ire of many veterans for his advocacy against the Vietnam War after he returned home.
When he ran for president, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran ads accusing him of lying about his service on 50-foot aluminum crafts that ran dangerous missions in the Mekong Delta waterways of South Vietnam.
Some of the veterans featured in the ads even said he won the awards under false pretenses.
But the Wall Street Journal editorial board has said the comparisons between Walz and Kerry were ‘far different’ – noting that Walz has emphasized several times that he did not serve in combat.
During a CNN interview last month – when anchor Jake Tapper said that Walz deployed to Afghanistan – Walz corrected him and said he served in Europe as the Iraq War was going on.
In a 2018 interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Walz also said of his military career: ‘I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did.’