A new attack from Sen. J.D. Vance against Gov. Tim Walz related to his military service was subject to intense CNN fact-checking, finding many inaccuracies. CNN analyst Tom Foreman went through charges from both Vance, and the candidate himself about his service.
Foreman began with the background of the two politicians, which has proved as different as day and night: Walz spent 24 years in the National Guard, while Vance had been in the Marines for four years. Vance, in a speech in Michigan, savaged Walz’s record of service, saying it was not honorable because he had dodged deployment to Iraq. Vance challenged Walz’s combat experience by making it look like he had never taken part in a real war.
Foreman, though, countered Vance’s arguments with one about the timing of Walz’s service. He resigned from the National Guard two months earlier, before his unit would have been called on to go to Iraq in 2005. “There’s nothing in the record at all that shows, in fact, that after 24 years with a clean record, that he somehow dodged his deployment,” Foreman said. “It defies logic that someone would be so afraid of combat that they would spend 24 years doing everything they were supposed to do and then somehow work to get out of it.”
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Foreman added that Walz has also given public recognition and respect for the military background of Vance. But, ironically, even Walz’s statements have not gone unnoticed. Walz, during a rally in Philadelphia, once spoke on gun control issues, and said, “We can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place where those weapons are at.”
Foreman said that the term “carried into war” actually means something to military families, and that usually it is understood to have suffered through actual combat. He said that Walz was being disingenuous in using the term because it implies a combat role that Walz did not have.
This detailed fact-check might show how tricky military service records could be and the importance of accuracy in public statements, especially by such high-profile political figures.
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This detailed fact-check might show how tricky military service records could be and the importance of accuracy in public statements, especially by such high-profile political figures.