So not only did he falsely claim he was in a war zone, he turned tail and abandoned his men when they shipped to Iraq.
"I carried a weapon of war in war” - Tim Walz
“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” Thomas Behrends told The Post of Tim Walz. “He ran away.”
nypost.com
Tim Walz a ‘coward’ and ‘traitor’ for retiring from military before Iraq, says Guardsman who replaced VP pick
By
Isabel Vincent
Published Aug. 6, 2024,
When Minnesota Gov.
Tim Walz chose to leave the military on the eve of his deployment to Iraq, Thomas Behrends went in his place.
“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” Behrends said of the 500 soldiers under his command. “For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice.”
Behrends, a 63-year-old farmer in Brewster, Minn., called the Democratic vice presidential candidate “a traitor” for
retiring from their Minnesota National Guard unit just before their deployment to Iraq in 2005.
“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” the retired command sergeant major told The Post Tuesday. “He ran away. It’s sad.
“He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice president.”

Fellow National Guardsmen who went to Iraq in place of Gov. Tim Walz say Kamala Harris’ VP pick is a “traitor” for retiring before deployment.REUTERS
10
When Democratic vice presidential pick Tim Walz retired from the National Guard on the eve of his battalion’s deployment to Iraq in 2005, Tom Behrends (above) took his place as command sergeant major overseeing 500 troops.courtesy of Thomas Behrends
10
Behrends (above) called Walz a “coward” for retiring from the National Guard on the eve of his unit’s Iraq deployment in 2005.courtesy of Thomas Behrends
Walz, 60, joined the National Guard after high school and served 24 years in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, rising to the rank of command sergeant major. He retired in 2005 — months after a warning order that the battalion would be deployed to Iraq — to run for Congress. He was elected to office in 2006.
“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,” Behrends and fellow retired Guardsman Paul Herr wrote in a letter posted to Facebook during Walz’s first gubernatorial run, in 2018.