The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has made a subtle but significant change to the online biography of her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), following criticism from Republicans over his military record. Initially, the biography described Walz as a “retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard,” but it has since been revised to simply state that he is “the son of an Army veteran who served as a command sergeant major.”
The alteration comes after intense scrutiny of Walz’s military credentials revealed that he did not actually retire as a command sergeant major. According to an Army spokeswoman, Walz spent over 20 years in the Army National Guard and served as a command sergeant major, but he failed to complete the necessary coursework required to achieve the higher rank. As a result, he retired a step lower, under the rank of master sergeant.
This is not the first time Walz has faced criticism for misrepresenting his military credentials. In 2018, two retired command sergeant majors complained that Walz was misleading voters with his army titles during his gubernatorial campaign in Minnesota.
The controversy has been seized upon by Republicans, including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), a Marine veteran who has led the charge against Walz’s representation of his military record. Vance has criticized Walz for claiming to have carried weapons “in war” in a Harris campaign video, pointing out that he never actually served in a combat zone.
Walz did complete a wartime deployment to Italy in 2003, but he did not serve in combat. He retired from the military in 2005, just months before his unit deployed to Iraq. Vance has portrayed Walz’s retirement as a convenient exit, insinuating that he abandoned his unit just before they went to war.
A former colleague of Walz’s, Allan Bonnifield, has come to his defense, telling Minnesota Public Radio in 2018 that Walz agonized over his decision to leave the military in order to run for Congress.
