Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is facing accusations of “stolen valor,” or using a veteran’s identity to get material rewards, according to two high-ranking former military commanders.
Former Minnesota National Guard Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr sent an endorsement letter to the Willmar, Minnesota, newspaper West Central Tribune in 2018 detailing their extensive experiences with former governor Walz.
Despite facing domestic criticism, the state’s top executive found himself thrust to the forefront of the Democratic Party’s leadership on Tuesday when Vice President Kamala Harris chose him as her running partner.
Both Behrends and Herr detail, on a very personal level, Gov. Walz’s record of disdain for protocols and his decision to run for office in 2018 on the strength of military service he never completed.
“For years, Tim Walz has embellished and selectively omitted facts and circumstances of his military career,” the men allege. As former command sergeants major of the Minnesota National Guard,
we believe it is our moral obligation to reveal the facts as we understand them in relation to his military career. Accordingly, we have compiled a chronology of his service after to 9/11.