Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has described himself as "a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom," the official name of the U.S. government’s war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks.
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 valor," his aides didn’t do much to address his concerns.
As a first-time congressional candidate in 2006, Walz’s campaign announcement described him as "a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom," an archived version of the press release shows. Two years earlier, in 2004, Walz organized a protest against then-President George W. Bush in Mankato, Minn. A photo of the rally shows Walz carrying a sign reading "Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry."
Tim Walz Protests Outside of a Bush Rally in 2004 (@mbrodkorb / X)
Such a title historically 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 told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018.
Walz’s claims spurred Iraq war veteran David Thul, a sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard, to approach Walz's aides at the Democrat’s Mankato office in 2009. Thul filmed the encounter, in which a staffer told Thul she was "not aware" of Walz serving in Afghanistan. Thul went on to present the 2004 photo of Walz, as well as Walz's website, to another aide, who acknowledged that constituents could get the false impression that Walz served in Afghanistan.
"Operation Enduring Freedom is limited to Afghanistan and the airspace directly above," Thul told the aide. "Congressman Walz is clearly claiming … to be an Enduring Freedom veteran. Nobody disputes the fact that he is not an Afghanistan or Enduring Freedom veteran. So this represents a fairly serious issue." Asked whether he understood how constituents could falsely "assume that means [Walz] served in Afghanistan," the aide responded, "Perhaps, I guess."
The aide did not dispute that Walz was pictured in the 2004 photograph, and, indeed, a 2006 Atlantic article describes the spectacle of the future governor protesting the Bush visit with a group of high school students. The aide told Thul he would follow up with him. A source familiar with the situation said neither Walz nor his staffers followed through with that pledge.
Walz, who has called himself a "citizen soldier," has been accused before of embellishing his military service. Two Minnesota National Guardsmen said in 2022 that Walz falsely claimed he reached the rank of command sergeant major. But Walz did not fulfill the duties required to maintain that rank before he quit the service in 2005.
And Walz, in a video posted this week by the Harris campaign, called for a ban on the kind of guns "that I carried in war," the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Walz served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1981 to 1996 and the Minnesota National Guard from 1996 to 2005. He resigned that year, quit his teaching job at Mankato West High School, and ran for Congress.
The photo Thul cited in the meeting was taken by Minnesota political consultant Michael Brodkorp. Brodkorp, who has identified Walz in the photo, endorsed the Democrat in his 2022 reelection campaign for governor.
The Harris campaign defended Walz’s military record, citing his deployment overseas during the Afghanistan war. "Governor Walz was deployed to Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom while serving in the National Guard," said Harris campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt. Walz's aide gave a similar defense in 2009, which Thul rejected.
"We appreciate his service and we appreciate his being deployed, but there’s a huge difference between being deployed to a base in Italy and being in a combat zone in Afghanistan," Thul told the Walz aide in the 2009 encounter.
Walz retired from the National Guard in 2005 and launched his congressional campaign the following year, as his unit was sent to Iraq.
"On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war," two retired Command Sergeants Major wrote in a 2018 Facebook post during Walz’s first gubernatorial bid. That post was recently unearthed by the Daily Wire.
A source who served in the Minnesota National Guard at the time told the Free Beacon that Walz’s retirement "left a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouths."