CHICAGO – Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, during his Democratic National Convention speech Wednesday, praised Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s military career and for completing the “mission,” despite ongoing criticism over Walz retiring from the Army National Guard before his unit deployed to Iraq.
“My fellow veteran, my brother and the next vice president of the United States, Tim Walz,” the Maryland Democrat said from the Chicago stage at the United Center Wednesday evening.
“Tim knows that in the military, you count the days towards mission completion,” Moore, an Army veteran, continued. “So guess what, y’all? We have got 75 days and a wake up until Election Day. Seventy-five days and a wake up for us to prove what Americans can do when the pressure is on.”
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“Patriots do not whine and complain. We put our heads down, and we get to work.”
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005, when he launched a successful congressional campaign and served as a member of the U.S. House representing Minnesota from 2007 until 2019. Walz left the House upon his 2018 election as the Gopher State’s governor.
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Criticisms have mounted that Walz retired just months before his battalion deployed to Iraq as war raged in the Middle East following the 9/11 attacks. Walz put in his papers for retirement at least five months before his battalion received deployment orders, according to the Minnesota National Guard.
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“He subverted the chain of command, and he went around the chain of command. The brigade [sergeant] major had no clue. These are all important facts, and he did it to continually feather his own bed… That was the shameful part of it,” retired Command Sgt. Maj. Paul Herr told Fox News earlier this month.
Following Harris naming him as her running mate, Walz has been slammed by a number of veterans for allegedly misrepresenting his service in the military, including identifying himself to the public as a retired “Command Sergeant Major.”
Walz was promoted to the command sergeant major rank following a deployment to Italy in 2004, but he did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy to retain the rank in retirement. Walz instead retired as a master sergeant, one pay grade below command sergeant major.
“For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a command sergeant major, which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies,” Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain, told The New York Post this month of Walz.
Walz also took the DNC stage on Thursday evening, when he spoke to the arena about his small town roots in the Midwest and his career as a teacher before diving into politics in the early 2000s.
“I grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people. I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale. But I’ll tell you what. Growing up in a small town like that, you’ll learn how to take care of each other. That that family down the road, they may not think like you do. They may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do. But they’re your neighbors. And you look out for them, and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver her acceptance speech before the DNC on Thursday evening, following three nights of other high-profile Democrats such as former President Barack Obama, President Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrating her candidacy.
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