OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
2:04 PM – Friday, August 22, 2024
Tim Walz, vice presidential nominee for Kamala Harris, previously claimed that despite being able to retire from the military the same week as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he courageously felt obligated to his country to re-enlist. However, Walz wasn’t qualified to retire and receive benefits until 2002, according to the Minnesota National Guard.
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During a 2009 interview with the Library of Congress’ Veteran History Project Collection, Walz asserted that the same week as the 9/11 attacks, he chose to re-enlist even though he had reached the mandatory 20 years of service in the National Guard, which is equivalent to retirement in the military.
“It was—the notice as I said came in early 2003, I think many of us after September 11—my 20 years was actually, ironically enough, up that week of September 11, 2001, of the time that I had off and made up, so I re-enlisted, like I think the vast majority of people did. A real sense of uncertainty of what was going to—but a real sense of wanting to do something. I think many of us in those early days—that sense of Afghanistan and the Taliban and where that, you know, that attack came from,” Walz said, according to Breitbart.
The Democrat VP nominee also wrote in a 2006 op-ed, while he was a U.S. congressional candidate, that “after completing 20 years of service in 2001, I re-enlisted to serve our country for another four years following Sept. 11.”
Nevertheless, the truth is that Walz was not eligible to retire until August 2002, as Army Col. Ryan Cochran, Director of Manpower & Personnel for the Minnesota National Guard, just recently acknowledged in a statement emailed to reporters on August 13th, 2024.
“Governor Tim Walz received his notification of eligibility for retirement on August 3, 2002. He was promoted to sergeant major (E-9) on September 17, 2004, and immediately began serving as the command sergeant major for the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery while his packet was submitted to the National Guard Bureau to appoint him to command sergeant major (E-9). Once approved by NGB, he was laterally appointed to command sergeant major (E-9) on April 1, 2005. He retired from the Minnesota National Guard on May 16, 2005. Our records do not indicate when he made his request to retire. Leadership reviews and approves all requests to retire. He was administratively reduced to master sergeant (E-8) on May 15, 2005, because he did not complete all required U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy coursework,” Cochran stated.
In response to a request for additional information on Thursday, the Minnesota National Guard reiterated to reporters that Walz was qualified for retirement on August 3rd, 2002, and not anytime earlier.
Walz did re-enlist on September 18th, 2001, and signed a new contract to continue serving, according to another veteran who served with him. However, if he had decided to leave the military at that time, he would not have been regarded as “retired” or qualified to receive the perks that come with it.
This specific claim by Walz has also been published in a number of articles and on programs aired by mainstream news outlets.
The Washington Post‘s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, previously reported, “September 2001 — Though Walz qualified for retirement at 20 years of service, he said in an interview for a Library of Congress oral history project that the Sept. 11 attacks persuaded him to reenlist.”
The left-wing website Snopes, who prides themselves on being the purveyor of the truth, stated: “Though Walz’s initial commitment to the Guard ended in 2001, he re-enlisted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also asserted the same claim on August 11th, 2024, while she was on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
“So first of all, he was in the National Guard [for] 20 years, he thought he’d stay 20 years. But then 9/11 happened, so he signed up for four more years. He retired from that to run for Congress months before his unit was assigned to being deployed,” Pelosi said.
Meanwhile, the New York Times recently revealed a number of false claims by Walz, including when he said that he and his wife utilized in vitro fertilization (IVF) to conceive their two children, and when he heavily “misrepresented” his military ranking.
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