Accusation of treason

Trump team takes aim at Walz’s military career

Tim Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years.

(Bild: AFP/JUSTIN SULLIVAN)

Tim Walz has started the election campaign alongside presidential candidate Kamala Harris with great vigor. In order to slow down the US Democratic candidate for Vice President early on, the Republicans are launching their first waves of attacks. The focus: his military career.

Donald Trump's opponent's camp is not only trying to label the down-to-earth governor of the state of Minnesota as a "radical leftist", but also as an impostor - by accusing him of having inflated his military merits.

Strategy is not new
The attacks are reminiscent of a campaign 20 years ago in which a group called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" accused presidential candidate John Kerry of having obtained military medals with hoaxes about heroic deeds in the Vietnam War.

Kerry had commanded speedboats in Vietnam. The campaign is partly blamed for the fact that the then Democratic candidate lost and the Republican George W. Bush was re-elected.

Republicans accuse Walz of treason
Since then, there has been a term for this type of attack, which is now also being used against Walz: "swiftboating". One of the originators of the swift-boating campaign against Kerry, Chris LaCivita, is now part of the management of Trump's campaign team.

The attacks against Walz are reminiscent of those against Vietnam veteran Kerry.

(Bild: AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

The attempts to pick apart Walz's military career focus primarily on the fact that he left the National Guard in May 2005 before his unit was deployed to Iraq the following year.

When Walz "was asked by his country to go to Iraq," he resigned and "allowed his unit to go without him," Trump's vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance railed - calling it "shameful." In their account of Walz's departure from the National Guard, however, Vance and other Trump supporters are not particularly precise with the chronology.

Walz left before marching orders
At the time, Walz had justified the end of his military service with his application for a seat in the US House of Representatives. And according to US media reports, he submitted the documents for his application for the congressional seat even before his battalion was first informed in March 2005 that it might be sent to Iraq. The Iraq marching orders for the unit did not come until two months after Walz's departure.

The Republicans are falling behind in the polls:

The future congressman and governor served in the National Guard for 24 years, making it to the rank of Command Sergeant Major (NATO rank code OR-9). As a part-time soldier, he also worked for years as a high school teacher.

In the National Guard, Walz learned how to handle heavy artillery and was also an accomplished sniper, but he never served in a combat zone. Between 2003 and 2004, he was stationed in Italy, from where his battalion supported the US mission in Afghanistan. He suffered severe hearing damage as a result of his service.

Trump team brands Walz a liar
However, Vance and other Republicans accuse Walz of falsely claiming to have been on a combat mission. They are referring to a statement from 2018 in which the governor argued for a ban on particularly dangerous firearms: "Weapons like the ones I carried in war" should only be allowed in war, he said. Walz "misspoke" at the time, commented a spokesman for the Harris-Walz team a few days ago.

J.D. Vance sees "problems" with Tim Walz's statements:

So far, however, there is no indication that the "swift boat approach" could be as effective against Walz as it was against Kerry at the time.

Political scientist Jeremy Teigen, who specializes in military service issues, also considers Walz to be less vulnerable than the presidential candidate at the time: This is because, unlike Kerry, Walz did not place his military service at the center of his campaign; it was not his "core identity".

Trump shirked military service
The attacks could also backfire, says Teigen - by drawing "renewed attention" to the fact that Trump avoided serving in the Vietnam War in the 1960s. This may also be why Trump is not leading the attacks on Walz's military record. He sends Vance forward, who was a soldier in Iraq - where he did not take part in combat, but worked as a reporter for the military.

Trump had been exempted from the military service four times because of his university studies - and then a second time after graduation because of so-called heel spurs, which a doctor had diagnosed in him.

The diagnosis has repeatedly led to criticism and ridicule in the past - partly because Trump was a keen sportsman as a student and pupil, playing football, baseball and tennis, among other sports.