Retired military leaders who served with Democrat vice-presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) in the Minnesota National Guard slammed him for retiring after he knew his unit would deploy to Iraq, during an interview on the Megyn Kelly Show that aired Monday.
Army Command Sergeant Major (Ret.) Paul Herr called Walz leaving his unit “morally indefensible.”
Herr explained that, at the time, Walz was the senior enlisted leader of his battalion, and his job was to prepare troops under him as they readied to deploy to Iraq.
“Us as non-commissioned officers … I don’t think people [have] a good understanding of our role in the military. When push comes to shove, we got officers that are appointed over us, and our jobs, to make sure that those soldiers are motivated and educated and trained to the best of their ability with all the assets at hand to carry out the orders of the president of the United States and the officers appointed over them,” Herr said.
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“Back in World War I, when we were doing trench warfare, the officer would blow the whistle to leave the trenches and charge the enemy across the line. The non-commissioned officers’ job is to make sure that they’re motivated to the hilt, to come out of those trenches, and I’m going to be the point of the spear,” he added.
Herr said if he had told his troops, “Not today, I’m not going — you guys go right ahead,” that would be “a morale crusher.”
“It chews away at the fabric of the military and its ability to do its mission. It may not legally be wrong [but] it is morally indefensible,” Herr said.
Supporters of Walz argue that he retired from the National Guard in May 2005, two months before his unit was officially alerted of an upcoming deployment, but the retired leaders said that, as a senior enlisted leader, he likely knew of the deployment months before.
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Indeed, in March 2005, Walz put out a statement about a possible upcoming deployment for his unit, and said, “As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq.”
Herr said he and other senior enlisted leaders could have retired like Walz.
“We didn’t. We had other soldiers that put their lives on total lockdown because of this, because they went to defend their country,” he said. “I’m not going to let my soldiers go forward without me. I trained them. I put myself right there with them. I’m going to suffer every hardship that they do. And that’s the position [Walz] was in. That’s the exact position he was in. And he walked away from it. He wasn’t gonna, he didn’t care. It was all about him.”
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