Tim Walz said he wants to ban the guns he “carried into war.” He never saw combat.

The Minnesota governor's deployments took him only as far as Europe

Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz claimed to have carried guns “in war” during his career in the Army National Guard, according to a video released by the Kamala Harris campaign on Tuesday. There is an obvious problem with your claim.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, served 24 years in the Army National Guard but never saw combat, according to his own resume. Walz responded primarily to natural disasters in Minnesota and Nebraska, he he said Minnesota Public Radio. He served overseas on a few occasions, but far from any war zone: in Italy to support the European Security Force during the war in Afghanistan and in Norway for joint training exercises with the forces of the NATO.

According to Minnesota Public Radio, Walz said he re-enlisted in the National Guard after the 9/11 attacks but did not see combat before his retirement in 2005. “I know there are people who do a lot more than I do. I know that,” Walz told the outlet in 2018.

But Walz left a very different impression of his military service at a town hall event the Harris campaign highlighted shortly after his selection as vice president.

“I spent 25 years in the military and I hunt,” Walz said he says at the beginning of the clip. He said he supports “common sense legislation” that “protects the Second Amendment,” but said he favors thorough background checks.

“We can be sure that these weapons of war, which I carried to war, are [sic] the only place where these weapons are found,” he said.

Walz handled firearms and heavy artillery during his time in the National Guard. According to Minnesota Public Radio, he said he won competition awards in marksmanship and hand grenades. Walz suffered hearing loss from working with heavy artillery, a condition he cited after his 1995 DUI arrest.

Walz's military service is reportedly one of the main reasons Harris tapped the 60-year-old Midwest governor to serve as his running mate. A Harris campaign spokesman released a photo of Walz in uniform shortly after he was added to the ticket. And Walz has made his career as a “citizen soldier” a central theme of his political appeal.

But Walz has been accused of exaggerating his military career before.

Walz, who served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1981 to 1986 and the Minnesota National Guard from 1996 to 2005, has repeatedly said he reached the rank of command sergeant major. But in 2022, retired Master Sergeants Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr claimed Walz did not meet the qualifications to hold that rank before leaving the National Guard in 2005. They said he retired after learning he would be sent to Iraq.

The Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to requests for comment.