The mother of a 19-year-old soldier who was killed on the Iraq deployment that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was supposed to lead in 2006 expressed anger at Walz for taking the “coward’s way out.”
In an interview with the DailyMail.com on Thursday, Kathy Miller, mother of Kyle Miller, who was killed in Iraq on June 29, 2006 by a roadside bomb, said she will never trust him again, after he retired two months before the unit deployed.
“My son stepped up to the plate. All our sons stepped up,” she told the outlet. “My son wasn’t even 21 years old. He couldn’t even buy alcohol. Yet he took the step to serve our country, while Walz found the best way to run away.”
She added, “It was the coward’s way out.”
At the time, Walz was serving as the battalion’s top senior enlisted leader, which is a position in charge of the welfare of the enlisted troops under his command. It was an important role, as the unit prepared to head into war. Then, Iraq was an active battlefield, with troops facing the worst combat casualties since the Vietnam War.
While his supporters say Walz did not retire to avoid the deployment, they also acknowledge he knew of the upcoming deployment before he decided to retire.
A man named Allan Bonnifield told MPR News in 2018, “He weighed that decision to run for Congress very, very heavy. … He loved the military, he loved the Guard, he loved the soldiers that he worked with, and making that decision was very tough for him. Especially knowing that we were going on another deployment to Iraq. He didn’t take that decision lightly at all.”
Miller also blasted Walz for misrepresenting his rank when he retired.
Walz for decades has claimed to be a retired command sergeant major, which he was serving as at the time as the battalion’s top enlisted leader. However, he retired at the lower rank of master sergeant, or E-8, not a sergeant major, or E9.
Walz has also claimed to have been “in war,” and failed to correct people who identified him as an Afghanistan War veteran.
In a 2007 video clip recently resurfaced, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is heard thanking Walz for his service on the “battlefield.”
“I don’t think it’s fair that (Walz) takes credit when he didn’t step up to the plate,” Miller said, according to the DailyMail.com.
“Walz claims a rank he never earned. When he was called to serve and protect our country he didn’t,” she said. “‘To publicly present false prestige of his unearned rank, an inaccurate representation, is a falsehood of who he truly is.”
The DailyMail.com report provided heartbreaking details about her son, such as that before his death, he had recurring dreams of being blown up in an explosion in Iraq.
When he told a chaplain, the chaplain said someone else could go on operations instead, but Miller refused, saying he could not bear someone dying in his place.
The next day, Miller was killed after his convoy hit a roadside bomb. He died on the way to the hospital.
Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), former President Donald Trump’s running mate and a Marine and Iraq War veteran, told DailyMail.com: “Your job as a senior enlisted guy in a unit is to keep your people safe. That’s not a job you can switch out of on a moment’s notice.”
A Walz spokesperson told the outlet: “The Governor honors Kyle Miller’s service and mourns him and all those fellow guardsmen and service members who made the ultimate sacrifice.”
She added, “After 24 years of service, Governor Walz retired from the Guard to run for Congress, where he was a tireless advocate for our men and women in uniform and their families – speaking out about the unacceptable human cost of these wars and increasing funding and mental health resources for the military members who served in them.”
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