Walz’ Leadership and JD’s Spin: The Ethics of Service
JD Vance yesterday made the substance of his and Tim Walz’ military service an issue yesterday. This was a guy who specialized in spinning the Iraq War, attacking the service of a guy who was promoted into leadership ranks as a Non-Commissioned Officer over the course of 24 years.
At a campaign stop in Michigan, JD accused that, “when Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him.”
Thus began the Swiftboating of Tim Walz, led by Chris LaCivita, the mastermind of the original smear campaign against John Kerry.
The substance of the smear campaign that ensued actually pivots on disputed details far less significant than the kinds of lies that JD and his boss tell as easily as they breathe.
The first issue pertains to how to describe Walz’ final rank when he was promoted to Command Sergeant Major, but never finished the relevant training before he retired in 2005, and so was reverted to his prior rank. The second has to do with a single reference to carrying a gun at war, a rhetorical move to support an argument about the proper role for guns. Both of these are arguments about one or two references years ago — the kinds of misstatements that JD and Trump peddle routinely, including JD’s implication that Walz retired solely to get out of deploying to Iraq.
The third issue — the main one — pertains to whether Walz abandoned his men by retiring the year before his unit deployed to Iraq.
By all accounts, however, Walz had retired already before the formal deployment order came in; he retired because he had already committed to run for Congress when the possibility of a deployment came up.
Walz filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission as a candidate for Congress on February 10, 2005. The next month, after the guard announced a possible deployment to Iraq within two years, Walz’s campaign issued a statement saying he intended to stay in the race.
“I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization and I am unable to comment further on specifics of the deployment,” Walz said in the March 2005 campaign release.
“As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq,” he continued, adding: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race. I am fortunate to have a strong group of enthusiastic supporters and a very dedicated and intelligent wife. Both will be a major part of my campaign, whether I am in Minnesota or Iraq.”
Walz retired from the Army National Guard in May 2005, according to the Minnesota National Guard. In a 2009 interview for the Library of Congress, Walz said he left the guard to focus full time on running for Congress, citing concerns about trying to serve at the same time and the Hatch Act, which limits political activities for federal employees.
Once you understand that you’d need a time machine for the literal words of JD’s attack to be true, then it changes the discussion, to one about Walz’ ethical decision about the best way to serve his country.
A story on his retirement from the first time he ran describes that he struggled with the ethics of the decision.
Bonnifield said they also bonded during a deployment to Italy connected to post-Sept. 11 Operation Enduring Freedom. After seven months abroad, the unit returned to Minnesota.
But Walz had already begun thinking about an exit and bounced it off others, including Bonnifield.
“Would the soldier look down on him because he didn’t go with us? Would the common soldier say, ‘Hey, he didn’t go with us, he’s trying to skip out on a deployment?’ And he wasn’t,” Bonnifield said. “He talked with us for quite a while on that subject. He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.”
Walz said it was merely time to leave and he saw a chance to make a difference in the public policy arena.
“Once you’re in, it’s hard to retire. Of my 40 years or 41 years, I had been in the military 24 of them. It was just what you did,” he said. “So that transition period was just a challenge.”
Bonnifield and his brother did deploy to Iraq, in different units. And they both dealt with severe mental health issues upon their return. Bonnifield said Walz the congressman worked to connect struggling Guard members with help and sought to cut red tape.
“If you listen to him, he’s got a very loud, strong voice,” Bonnifield said. “But there’s a very caring person inside. And one very good leader, too.”
Walz saw a chance to make a difference in the public policy arena. And when elected to Congress as an anti-war Democrat, he spent the twelve years he was there trying to end the Iraq War, and when that failed, trying to make the lives of service members better, both before and after service.
As a member of Congress, Walz opposed President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, though he still voted to continue military funding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was an early advocate for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring servicemembers from serving if they came out as members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Walz joined with Republicans in 2016 to oppose cuts to the Army’s troop levels meant to save money — a trend that continues today. He argued doing so would leave the service without the manpower to meet growing worldwide threats. As a Guard veteran and co-chair of the House National Guard and Reserve caucus, Walz advocated for the part-time force, arguing Pentagon strategies and plans should better integrate the Guard and Reserves to make use of scarce Army resources.
Walz’s likely biggest legislative achievement in Congress, however, was clearing bipartisan veterans’ suicide prevention legislation that became law in 2015.
This included opposition to some of Trump’s efforts to bring grift to Veterans Affairs.
As the top Democrat on the committee, Walz was a chief adversary for the Trump administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs. He battled with then-acting VA Secretary Peter O’Rourke in 2018 during a standoff over O’Rourke’s handling of the inspector general’s office, and pushed for an investigation into the influence of a trio of informal VA advisers who were members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. An investigation by House Democrats completed after Walz left Congress concluded that the so-called Mar-a-Lago trio “violated the law and sought to exert improper influence over government officials to further their own personal interests.”
Walz also opposed the Mission Act, the bill that expanded veterans’ access to VA-funded care by non-VA doctors that Trump considers one of his signature achievements. Walz said in statements at the time that, while he agreed the program for veterans to seek outside care needed to be fixed, he believed the Mission Act did not have sustainable funding. VA officials in recent years have said community care costs have ballooned following the Mission Act.
That’s where a sound comparison should focus, in my opinion.
JD only got to Congress, of course, after being recruited by Peter Thiel, after selling out his childhood for fame, after becoming a hedgie — which background got him a seat on the Banking Committee, not the Veterans Affairs Committee. But once JD got to the Senate, he has garnered attention as a member of a later generation of veterans, this time deemed not anti-war, but America First, an anti-interventionist stance conducive to far-right politics.
On April 23, just hours after the United States Senate approved $61 billion in new military aid to Ukraine, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance took to the floor of the Senate to offer a sweeping rebuke of his colleagues’ decision. Standing behind his desk, Vance — who has emerged as a leading critic of U.S. policy toward Ukraine — unspooled a laundry list of objections: that American military capability is spread too thin; that Ukraine is outmanned and outgunned regardless of an increased level of U.S. support; that the Biden administration lacks a clear plan for bringing the war to a close.
Partway through his remarks, Vance suddenly got personal and pivoted to a less frequently discussed source of his skepticism: his time serving as a Marine during the Iraq War.
“In 2003, I made the mistake of supporting the Iraq War, [but] a couple months later, I also enlisted in the United States Marine Corps,” said Vance, who deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a corporal with the public affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Vance’s tenure in the military features prominently in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” in which he recounted how his time in the Marines helped him overcome his troubled upbringing in post-industrial Ohio to become a disciplined and functional adult. But on the Senate floor, his account of his military service was notably less sanguine.
“I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to,” Vance recounted, the emotion rising in his voice. “[I saw] that promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”
[snip]
In Ukraine, Vance argued, the U.S. is doing the opposite: By funding Ukraine and “subsidizing the Europeans to do nothing,” the U.S. is setting itself on a path toward greater involvement in the region, not trying to further extricate itself.
Regardless of the accuracy or intellectual consistency of Vance’s argument, the tendency that it reflects — to ground U.S. foreign policy in a narrower definition of U.S. interests — bears the mark of the failures of the previous wars.
“This idea that it’s in our distinct interest to spread democracy all over the world,” Vance said. “I don’t think that holds even a little bit of water.”
Vance’s opposition to support for Ukraine, in support of which the trained propagandist adopts Russian propaganda, is one of the things that made Trump a fan. And it led him to vote against funding for the military — something that the anti-war Walz did not do.
Vance the propagandist has made the military service of both his and Walz, the NCO, a campaign issue.
But the logical place to bring that scrutiny is not to LaCivita’s parsing of words Walz uttered years ago, but to the ethical decisions both made when they came to an anti-war stance, to the notion of service each took away, to their success at fulfilling that ethic of service.
If the US were trying to spread democracy around the world by supporting Ukraine, Vance might have a point. But it is not, so he does not. What many isolationists ignore is that it is in the interest of the US to have strong alliances and to defend allies who are threatened.
Many of these people are the same ones who complain about any foreign aid (except to Israel) as a waste of taxpayer money that should be spent at home, or better yet, returned to the people. The willful myopia is infuriating.
I think the U.S. government has not done a great job, over the past two and a half years, of explaining to Americans why they should care about the Ukraine war. There are sound strategic, economic and geopolitical reasons for U.S. and all western allies to support Ukraine to the hilt, until Russia loses.
But there are also very strong moral reasons to support Ukraine: they are a democracy, defending their own sovereign territory against an aggressive, authoritarian state trying to completely destroy their culture and people, and seize their territory for itself. Russia is 100% the villain in this piece, and helping Ukraine defend itself should be an easy call.
But Russia makes the moral case even easier by acting the villain, committing war crimes left and right. For example, the Institute for the Study of War reported this yesterday:
In the face of such evil, civilized people everywhere should want Ukraine to win, especially when the cost is only a tiny fraction of our GDP. Ukraine is fulfilling the NATO mission–holding back Russia–and if we let them fail, it will be NATO troops who will be fighting and dying.
Exactly. We cannot “spread democracy” to a nation that already is one. Vance knows the parallel to Iraq is fatally flawed, but counts on his audience (softened by years of Russia-adjacent and Russia-bought propagandists) not to think it through. Not thinking things through but instead relying on *feelings* is the hallmark of the GOP’s appeal.
Ukraine is a domino. If it falls, other democracies who have long considered the US a crucial ally will instantly become threatened. Protecting the first domino in this democratic chain is the opposite of “spreading democracy.” It is how we keep it alive, if barely, for the future.
An important point you bring out early is that Walz was, in fact, promoted to command sergeant major. It’s also true that he resigned before completing the training required for the promotion, which meant that – for purposes of retirement pay and benefits – his rank reverted to master sergeant.
It was a gutsy move to resign so senior an enlisted post in the middle of Cheney/Bush’s war on terror, in order to run for Congress – from a red or purple district in Minnesota. Most MOC with a military background had been officers. Most were millionaires. Walz was neither. The odds were against him. He won. His ability to do that is one reason Harris chose him. It’s a big reason Trump-Vance are afraid of him.
MSNBC’s explanation, that we really don’t know why Walz retired when he did, is false. That ignores the record. It also confuses the timing. We don’t know when Walz “put in” for retirement or how long it took to complete the paperwork. We do know when it went into effect. We also know that he chose to run for and succeeded in being elected as a member of Congress.
MSNBC does correctly describe that Walz had not been a command sergeant major long enough to retire with the pay and benefits of that rank. That’s routine for every rank. If you’re promoted to admiral, but retire before you can take that pay and status into retirement, you retire with the pay and benefits of a navy captain. But you were an admiral in the period before you retired.
Walz also hadn’t completed the associated staff training necessary to retain that rank in retirement. So, Walz was promoted to command sergeant major and held that rank. But beecause he retired “early,” his rank reverted to master sergeant for retirement purposes.
This really shouldn’t be that hard.
Hasn’t Walz said on the record that he retired when he did to make the case against the war from a position where his experience would give him credibility and he would have the power to do something about it?
I hope Trump and the right-wing media keep up the Swift Boating right through Election Day. It‘s an in-kind contribution to the Harris campaign that doesn’t need to be reported to the FEC :)
It’s an interesting plan of attack when JD’s running mate ducked out of military service, spoken with contempt about John McCain’s service, referred to those who serve as “suckers” and “losers” per John Kelly and disrespected a disabled veteran per Mark Milley.
MAGA morons: BUT JOE BIDEN!
Well said, Nutmeg. It seems to me a tight race between Big Trump and Mini Trump here for dishonoring themselves by dishonoring military service.
Luck has a significant part to play in military life and events. What units you get, what assignments they get, and what the adversaries do among many other things determine the path one follows.
It is worth observing that the NCOs are the backbone of the military, and it is very rare indeed that one rises to the level MSGT Walz did by being a smarmy idiot. I’d be interested to see if JD would open his evaluations up as a PA flunky. The enlisted side doesn’t tolerate incompetence for long. I would also note that almost all veteran organizations have jumped on the campaign for floating this garbage.
FWIW, JD also took a potshot at General McCaffrey as being some sort of toy soldier. What an idiot, and the blowback was impressive.
You don’t get extensive evaluations (fitness reports (fitreps)) until E-5 (sergeant). Vance was an E-4 (corporal). He would have been given a numerical score with limited commentary.
‘Stolen valor’s is not just a catchphrase. It has a meaning — claiming military qualifications not earned (“I was in the Rangers”) or honors not earned.
Walz did not do that.
It says a lot about Vance’s character that he tried to use this attack.
Walz had asked rhetorically why civilians need the weapons of war he carried as a gardsman, according to the NPR story I heard this morning. He may have misspoken and said the weapons he carried in war, even though he didn’t see combat. But Vance deflected the original question: why do civilians need the type of weapon that can fire multiple rounds in seconds, like the one that was recently aimed at Trump?
Neither Vance nor Walz saw combat. The head of the ticket, Donald “Bone Spurs”, never saw a uniform since military school. So attacking Walz’ service record requires some pretty delicately aimed stones from their glass house.
ABC has a clip of Walz calling for an assault weapons ban that Vance swiftboated him on. Further down from the clip, they egregiously misquote what he said in that clip (so anyone can instantly fact-check their shenanigans). ABC changed the end of Walz’s sentence “is the only place those weapons are at.” to “are only carried in war.” The subject of Walz’s actual phrase is clearly “in war”; ABC’s misquote changes the implied subject to assault weapons.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/walzs-military-record-vances-accusations-stolen-valor/story?id=112618991
One detail not in the post, how many NatGuard deployments did Walz experience, doing what, with what risks. Walz should clear that. Then, the venue for this discussion would be a debate between the two, if each is willing to debate. It is possible that the Vance service (under his then last name) involved security details apart from a vanilla job title, which might complicate things. It appears this was not the case but it is unclear. Vance seems to need to go into more detail about his disillusionment, when and why, and into why he asserts the U.S. is doing an unfair share of Ukraine support compared to NATO allies – as well as his take on NATO itself, whether aligned with Trump’s view, or differing.
It is early in the campaign after sides have been fleshed out, but this whole thing is a minor side issue. There are differences beyond service careers, long or brief. The two tickets are quite different in outlook, and focus should be kept on that.
It’s not important, except for debunking the lies. Or, possibly, in Vance’s case, exposing them. Don’t give them air.
You can be in a Guard unit and deployed in the US for things like disasters – or riots. Where they’re armed, but without ammo, as one acquaintances was during the 1992 riots in L.A. (They said it was weird being armed and deployed in your own city.)
The word “story” beginning the 9th paragraph in Marcy’s post links to Minnesota Public Radio story – 3 Oct 2018; |‘Citizen soldier’ Walz honed leadership in uniform|.
It provides some history of Walz’ deployments, Italy and Norway (drills in the snow minus 30 below. Walz describes hearing loss as result of his 21 years in field artillery unit.
A self propelled 155 howitzer sneaked past me as my team we slept during stateside division training exercise circa 1967. When that mutha fired the earth moved and I woke up suspended in air.
Digby posted Walz’ 2006 radio ad where he speaks about inner ear surgery. Highly recommended.
Reply to P J Evans – In the ‘60s active duty soldiers were deployed to US cities. Chicago and Detroit were on the list.
To slow on the edit. Should read “sneaked past my infantry team as we slept”
Riot duty, national disasters (hurricanes, floods), etc. can be plenty risky. And not everyone posted to a war zone fights. J.D. Vance is a prime example. Nowhere near the front lines in Iraq, he was a reporter at an air base. Imagine the sociopathic ambition he must have to compare that to a 24-year command sergeant major.
“Once you understand that you’d need a time machine for the literal words of JD’s attack to be true, then it changes the discussion, to one about Walz’ ethical decision about the best way to serve his country.”
I think the discussion changes to one about JD Vance’s unethical decision to attack a fellow veteran with baldfaced lies. This has nothing to do with Walz; it’s about a candidacy so empty and desperate that they can’t make coherent policy arguments and have to resort to mudslinging.
We already know Trump won’t debate Harris without his Fox crutches; it’ll be interesting to see if the veeps go at it, or if Vance turtles up as well.
I’m noticing a common thread in MAGA world: time machines.
That phrase seems to pop up with great regularity as Marcy takes down bogus claims.
The MAGA conception of time might be described as Runyonesque, e.g., “Yesterday I am walking down the street…”.
“I feel more like I do now than when I first got here !”
About Harris debating Trump on Fox. I don’t think Kamala should debate on Fox, for the simple reason that you are bringing Fox ratings that they don’t deserve. One reason Trump wants to debate on Fox is to prop up Fox ratings.
In his press conference just now, trump claimed to have debates just about set with NBC and ABC, although with poison pill ground rules.
You may suppose that he is setting up Tar Babies to ensnare Harris and does not expect her to agree, But what if she does?
(I listened on Dan Bongino’s show, and he was chuckling off and on. It sure sounded like he was laughing at trump, but perhaps I am mistaken.)
Paging US Army National Guard Lt Col. (ret.) Tammy Duckworth . . .
No one is better at getting under Private Bone Spurs’ skin than her.
Verdad.
“Tammy Duckworth eviscerates Trump for painful comments about disabled Americans”
[snip]
“But we know this is nothing new for him — he mocked a reporter with a physical disability, dismissed traumatic brain injuries as ‘not very serious,’ attempted to slash support for disabled veterans and so much more. Any human being who suggests that people with disabilities ‘should just die’ is fundamentally unfit to serve.”
Eric Garcia
The Independent
July 26, 2024
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tammy-duckworth-trump-disability-dnc-b2586652.html
I meant this in reply to Peterr’s spot-on observation and reference.
“Trump complains about campaign, calls facing Harris ‘unfair’”.
Is this a sandlot ball game or a snowball fight?
Bone spurs do not cure themselves. They get worse over time. One does not play golf everyday for 50 years on untreated bone spurs. Dems should turn the table. Demand medical reports or proof that the top of the ticket had surgery to repair his feet. Continue to point out how Dems are helping we the people and not we the rich people, but don’t let up on draft dodging. We can do both at the same time.
Everyone here knows that this Swift Boat 2.0 LaCivita has cooked up is pure BS. But so was Swift Boat 1.0, and it did severe damage to Kerry’s campaign, because he couldn’t believe anyone would swallow the lies and didn’t react strongly and quickly enough.
Harris/Walz needs to hit back hard, quickly, and often.
A lot of people *are*. Veterans who know how much notice for retirement, people who were in, others.
All they have to do is ask when has the Army ever deployed a service member with a hearing disability into a combat zone? There have been cases, but they are exceedingly rare.
I have no doubt that they will, because the Swiftboating of Kerry made Walz so angry that it was one of the main reasons he entered politics in the first place.
Interesting plot twist, if true. Wouldn’t I like to see LaCivita fail this time around!
Since Vance thinks it’s fine to revert to time machine thinking, just remember what Trump said in reference to McCain, “I like people who weren’t captured.”
Vance and Trump are fabulists (aka liars) and swindlers, out to make money off their own supporters. Grift is what they do. It’s who they are. For Christ sake, Trump grifted off the tragic death of Corey Comperatore.
And, also, remember when Trump took a Purple Heart from a veteran, eight years ago. Here is what a real Marine thought of Trump taking that Purple Heart, JD:
“Marine: Trump, you don’t have a clue about what a Purple Heart means” –
By Sean Barney – 8/7/16
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/07/opinions/trump-purple-heart-sean-barney/index.html
Trump took shrapnel from an assassin’s weapon of war. To his MAGA ear, he hears the song of a hero’s victory of survival. What bone spurs? To his sycophantic supporters, it’s tantamount to a Purple Heart in the The blood sport of red meat politics.
You mean Trump accepted as a gift a Purple Heart earned by a veteran supporter. But, yeah, he thinks he earned it.
The public still doesn’t know what damaged Trump’s ear. Whatever it was, the wound was so superficial, it healed about as fast as a paper cut.
No, EoH, I meant something much more comparable to a Hatch Act violation, even though there is not something like that for what Trump did. The way you phrased it sounds way too benign. There was an unequal relationship. It was more like taking than receiving, even though you are technically correct. It was an abuse of power.
FYI corporal (E-4) is an NCO (non-commissioned officer) rank. What I find ludicrous is a 4 year press boy in the air wing trashing the military service of a man who enlisted before Vance was even born.
[Thanks for updating your username from “johnc” to meet the 8-letter minimum. /~Rayne]
Minnesota has fairly open records policies – and people don’t have to rely 100% on reporters to get facts for themselves (I bring this up with some trepidation, because I think shutting down these resources is something fascists will/want to do, plus journalists are, in theory, held to higher standards.)
My teen asked me about the reports on Walz’s service, and I had to confess to him that I had already done a bunch of “my research” (he, of constant social media attachment, hates that I dig into people’s stories.) Scratch the surface of what was going on in 2004-2007 in Walz’s House district and you find a MN version of Hillbilly Elegy – DUIs, divorce, drugs, domestic abuse, disability, death (including, sadly, of children). About the only thing that is striking vs. the stereotype is that unemployment and poverty aren’t always central (except for maybe when the custody hearing rolls around).
And here is where I differentiate Walz and Dems, from Vance and Reps – When I come across, for example, someone 82 years old with guardianship of her 58 y.o. adult son with a traumatic brain injury, I don’t just say to my kid – I don’t want that future for me or you – I say I don’t like it for him or her either. What can we do to ameliorate their burden? And when we find out it is a not as rare as one would think, then what?
I’ll save my thoughts on why both the discussion about and the solutions proposed for problems like these have become so twisted, and who has been doing the twisting. As highlighted in this piece, it clearly isn’t the guy they are targeting.
Thank you. Fate had me spend five weeks in that district (Rochester, MN) at the beginning of 2004. I found it fascinating: a bas relief composed of stark contrasts between semi-suburban struggle and anxious upperish-middle-class appearances, plus jewel colored skies in the early dusk rendered into stain glass by the naked black branches of the many trees.
It’s easy to imagine the problems in your litany. Harder to imagine fighting for solutions year after year, as Walz has done, but that is one. more reason to value what he brings to the ticket.
I just got an excellent and semi-potty mouthed text from VoteVets debunking Vance’s erroneous and incendiary rhetoric with a downloadable graphic, which they suggest be shared.
Good to see a grassroots answer to the “Bullshit.”
‘Hope it’s widely shared.
To repeat others: bone spur boy should not throw stones.
Additionally, Walz was 41 when he retired.
JD Vance is 40 now.
Is JD suggesting he wants to re-enlist to prove his superior manhood?
Or does he assume his 4 years yielding the pen r mightier than Walz’s decades teaching about weapons of war?
“…to run for Congress when the possibility of a deployment came up.”
A.K.A., “Serving your country”? The easiest slap-back ever. I swear it’s like Harris/Walz planned this minefield.
These guys are stepping on rakes all the way down, and this swift boat idiot thinks he can huff his story this time in less than 3 months? Anyone remember how long they had to let the Kerry story stew?