One has to wonder... how has Walz gotten away with this for so long?
The list of examples of Tim Walz describing himself or others describing Walz as a war veteran, someone who was deployed to Iran, or someone who has seen combat is growing every day. From his own statements about carrying a gun into battle, to official bios about him being deployed in operation freedom (without clarifying that he as deployed to Italy), to being introduced to crowds as a combat or war veteran, there is little doubt that Walz has pretended to be something he is not. The question is how he got away with it all of these years.
The answer is that the Strib and other Minnesota media is dishonest and have been carrying Walz's water now for years. Even now, the Strib is running stories in Minnesota about how everyone is lying about poor Tim Walz. Not too surprising, the fact checking is not about the facts, but about how these facts should be interpreted. According to the Strib, the issue is in the semantics. The notice of probable deployment of his unit in March was not officially a deployment order. Since Walz quit before the official deployment was ordered in July, then everyone is lying about him abandoning his troops.
Previously, the Strib had also apparently argued that Walz quit before learning anything about the deployment, but that was blown up by actual fact checkers providing his own statements at the time:
“As Command Sergeant Major, I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on,” Walz said in a campaign statement on March 20, 2005. Just three days prior, the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced that at least part of his battalion could be shipped overseas to the Middle East in the next two years. Walz left the National Guard that May. Two months later, his battalion was put on notice that they would be deploying to Iraq.
To be clear, there is going to be more information available to these battalion soldiers than what is provided officially. By all accounts, most everyone believed that their deployment to Iraq was imminent, and people were preparing. More to the point. there is a date where all soldiers are locked into their position, making it legally impossible for people to leave after being called up for deployment. The argument has never been that Walz officially went AWOL or broke any laws. The criticism was that he quit after learning of his battalion's possible deployment so he could continue his run for Congress. Being a politician was more important to Tim Walz than being a soldier. Either that or he was just a coward who was afraid of the idea of combat.
But what we can be certain of is this. Tim Walz knew if he didn't quit the National Guard that he would almost certainly end up in Iraq. He chose to quit so he could run for Congress. This information was hidden from the public by a left-wing Minnesota media who either had no interest in vetting a popular Democrat, or no interest in informing the public of this information. Moreover, not only was his quitting the National Guard to avoid deployment to Iraq covered up, but the Minnesota media also allowed the popular lies about him serving in Iraq, serving in combat, or being a war veteran to be told over and over and over without a single fact check.
Walz has been a Minnesota politician since 2006, nearly twenty years. The Strib and others never figured any of this out or bothered to tell anyone about if they had. He was the Vice-Presidential candidate for less than 48 hours when these stories were uncovered by the national press. The Strib and others in the Minnesota media should be ashamed of themselves. However, I suspect they are actually quite proud of the wool they pulled over on the eyes of their Minnesota electorate. It seems to be what they take the most pride in!
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