Tim Walz falsely claimed he served in Afghanistan. When a local vet called him, his office did nothing.

Walz launched his first congressional campaign as an “Operation Enduring Freedom veteran”

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has described himself as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the official name for the US government's war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. September

But Walz never deployed to the Middle East. And, when an Iraq War veteran confronted Walz's aides with evidence of what he called “stolen value,” his aides did little to address his concerns.

As a first-time candidate for Congress in 2006, Walz's campaign announcement described him as “a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” an archived version of the news release shows. Two years earlier, in 2004, Walz organized a protest against then-President George W. Bush in Mankato, Minnesota. photo from the rally shows Walz holding a sign that reads “Veterans of Enduring Freedom for Kerry.”

Tim Walz protests outside a Bush rally in 2004 (@mbrodkorb / X)

Historically, this title applies to someone who served on the ground in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terrorism. Walz, a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard, spent time in Norway in support of NATO forces and in Italy working in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He had never seen combat he said Minnesota Public Radio in 2018.

Walz's claims prompted Iraq War veteran David Thul, a Minnesota National Guard sergeant, to approach Walz aides at the Democrat's Mankato office in 2009. Thul filmed the encounterin which a staff member told Thul he “didn't know” Walz was serving in Afghanistan. Thul presented the 2004 photo of Walz, as well as Walz's website, to another aide, who acknowledged that voters may be under the false impression that Walz served in Afghanistan.

“Operation Enduring Freedom is limited to Afghanistan and the airspace directly above it,” Thul told the aide. “Congressman Walz clearly states … that he is an Enduring Freedom veteran. No one is disputing the fact that he is not an Afghanistan veteran or an Enduring Freedom veteran. So that presents a pretty serious problem.” He was asked if he understood how voters could “falsely assume that means [Walz] he served in Afghanistan,” the aide replied, “Maybe, I guess.”

The aide did not dispute that Walz was photographed in the 2004 photograph and, in fact, a 2006 Atlantic article describe the show of the future governor protesting Bush's visit with a group of high school students. The aide told Thul that he would follow him. A source familiar with the situation said neither Walz nor his employees followed through on that promise.

Walz, who has called himself a “citizen soldier,” has been accused before of embellishing his military service. Two Minnesota National Guardsmen he said in 2022, Walz falsely claimed to have attained the rank of command sergeant major. But Walz did not fulfill the duties necessary to maintain that rank before leaving the service in 2005.

And Walz, in a video released this week by the Harris campaign, called for a ban on the kind of weapons “that lead to war,” the Washington free lighthouse informed.

Walz served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1981 to 1996 and the Minnesota National Guard from 1996 to 2005. That year he resigned, left his teaching job at Mankato West High School and ran for Congress.

The photo Thul quoted in the meeting was taken by Minnesota political consultant Michael Brodkorp. Brodkorp, which has identified Walz in the photo, endorsed the Democrat in his 2022 gubernatorial re-election campaign.

The Harris campaign defended Walz's military record, citing his deployment overseas during the war in Afghanistan. “Governor Walz was deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom while serving in the National Guard,” Harris campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. Walz's assistant gave a similar defense in 2009, which Thul rejected.

“We appreciate your service and appreciate your deployment, but there's a big difference between being deployed to a base in Italy and being in a combat zone in Afghanistan,” Thul told Walz's aide at the meeting of 2009.

Walz retired from the National Guard in 2005 and launched his congressional campaign the following yearsince his unit was sent to Iraq.

“On May 16, 2005, [Walz] to abandon, to betray his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without his senior NCO as the battalion readied for war,” two retired command sergeants majors. he wrote in a 2018 Facebook post publication during Walz's first gubernatorial bid. That post was recently unearthed for the daily thread.

A source who served in the Minnesota National Guard at the time said Beaco freen that Walz's retirement “left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.”