https://www.mediamatters.org/tim-walz/right-wing-media-push-old-debunked-smear-walzs-military-record-despite-his-24-years

«Walz resigned two months before the unit received orders, and Walz likely submitted his retirement papers even earlier.

…

During Walz’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign, retired Command Sgts. Maj. Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr wrote a “paid endorsement letter” just days before the election accusing Walz of “abandon[ing]” his unit in order to run for Congress. Specifically, they claimed that he retired in mid-2005 to dodge a unit deployment to Iraq the following year. This smear was repeated by Walz’s gubernatorial opponent in October 2022.

GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who wrote that he “was lucky to escape any real fighting” during his four-year stint in the Marine Corps, joined in on this smear today during a campaign event in Michigan.

…

Additionally, one guardsman who served under Walz recalled an open discussion within the unit around his congressional campaign during a deployment roughly a year prior to his eventual retirement — further shattering the notion that Walz “quit” and left his unit “hanging” in an attempt to dodge a second deployment. The guardsman said Walz “talked with us for quite a while on that subject. He weighed that decision to run for Congress very heavy. He loved the military, he loved the guard, he loved the soldiers he worked with.” The guardsman additionally told Minnesota Public Radio that Walz used his position as a member of Congress to help struggling National Guard members.

Another guardsman who served with Walz has said that Walz “did nothing wrong with when he chose to leave the service” and stated that he was “a great soldier.” That same guardsman said that Behrends’ smears “are ill-informed and possibly sour grapes by a soldier who was passed over for the promotion to command sergeant major that went to Walz.”»