Al Bonnifield was an armorer for the 1st Battalion, 125 Field Artillery, when then Command Sergeant Major Tim Walz buttonholed a couple of the guys on drill in 2005 at the national guard unit in New Ulm, Minnesota, to talk about whether he should retire to run for Congress or not.
“I was in that room,” Bonnifield said. “Governor Walz is a very hard person to figure out. He’s all game until something like this comes up, and then he’s, ‘Well, what should I do?’”
It was a fateful moment, he said. The decision to run, which has led to his ascent as the Democratic nominee for vice-president, seems dramatic in retrospect, like a scene from a movie. It has also led to accusations of shirking duty and even stolen valor by Trump-supporting opponents who claim he retired because he knew his unit would be deploying to Iraq.
“As far as I’m concerned, he made the right decision in retiring and going to Congress,” Bonnifield said. “At the time he retired, we hadn’t gotten alert notice. We had no notice other than ‘this could happen.’ It could have, may not have. So when he made the decision, there were a lot of other people that did at the same time, and why everyone was picking on him for retiring, I don’t know.”
Walz has criticized those who denigrate another person’s service record. “Anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
JD Vance, Trump’s running mate and a Marine Corps veteran, responded to thank Walz for his service, but said: “You shouldn’t have lied about it. You shouldn’t have said you went to war when you didn’t. Nor should you have said that you didn’t know your unit was going to Iraq.”
Neither of those accusations are fundamentally true.
Walz’s military record shows 24 years of honorable service in a variety of roles.
According to a synopsis of service records obtained from the Minnesota national guard, Walz enlisted in the army national guard two days after turning 17 and trained as an 11B – a military occupational specialty for an army infantryman, the most ubiquitous job in the army.
Four years later while in college in Houston, Walz transferred to a Texas army national guard unit. Walz was reclassified as a 13B, a field artillery cannon crew member.
While in Nebraska, Walz served as an 11Z, the designation for an infantry senior sergeant typically held by an infantryman serving as the first sergeant of a company or in a senior battalion staff role. He also served in the 71L MOS as an administrative specialist.
According to the Minnesota national guard, Walz joined the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska national guard in 1996. He served as a cannon crewmember and as a 13Z – cannon senior sergeant, the MOS held by a master sergeant of rank E-8 serving as a first sergeant for a field artillery battery or staff roles at the battalion level.
The 125th Field Artillery provides artillery support to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat team. It has three batteries, each of which has six M-109 self-propelled 155mm howitzers, along with a headquarters and support unit.
Walz’s uniform would bear three racks of ribbons for his service. Most are common awards for a soldier of his rank. The Army Service Ribbon is given to every soldier, for example. Walz has an Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal with five oakleaf clusters. Each cluster represents three additional years of continuous service after the first award. The Noncommissioned Officer Professional Ribbon with numeral 3 denotes his completion of training schools for ranks E-5 – sergeant – through E-8 – master sergeant. He has an Army Achievement Medal with one oakleaf cluster, indicating two awards.
National guard troops can be called to active duty service in times of emergency by the governor of the state in which they serve, or to service in times of war. Historically, such call-ups had been rare, but the tempo of reserve component operations increased substantially during and after the Gulf war and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Doug Julin, a retired sergeant major who was the senior enlisted adviser at the brigade level – one step above the battalion level – at the time of Walz’s retirement, said in an interview. “The big frustration was that he let his troops down.” Two people who served with Walz penned a letter in 2018, challenging Walz’s characterization of his service and accusing him of shirking his duty to his unit. The men suggested that Walz knew he would be deploying and wanted out of it.
The timeline of his retirement suggests otherwise: Walz retired months before the unit was given a formal order to be called to active duty service. Julin suggested that he should have been consulted when Walz filed his retirement paperwork, but legally he wasn’t in a position to prevent the retirement, which is entirely a personnel matter.
Walz has repeatedly referenced his service when calling for a ban on military-style rifles from being available to civilians over the course of his years in Congress and in the Minnesota governor’s mansion. In one instance, he described having carried a weapon of war “in war”, for which he subsequently apologized as a misstatement. Trump campaign surrogates insist this and statements he has made describing himself as a retired command sergeant major constitutes “stolen valor”.
By the legal definitions, they do not. It is a federal misdemeanor to falsely represent oneself as having received any US military decoration or medal in order to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit.
Nonetheless, the campaign has been scrubbing references to Walz as a retired command sergeant major, replacing them with phrases indicating he served at that rank but did not retire with it.
The accusation is gross, said Jacob Thomas, an air force and air force reserve veteran and communications director for Common Defense, a progressive activist group for veterans.
“It’s something that we shouldn’t be doing without kind of real, hard facts of stolen valor. And you know, it’s a serious, a serious thing … It feels a little gross to kind of be having to go back and ask these people all that and kind of thrust them into this political argument.”
The politicization of Walz’s service is equally disturbing, he said. “What we’re hearing from our members is, most people don’t care about what you did in the service, or what your exact job was, or where you got stationed, or anything like that,” Thomas said. “We care that you served, that you raised your right hand and that you did what was asked of you, and it’s clear from Walz’s record that that’s exactly what he did.”
Two of Walz’s awards – the Army Commendation Medal and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal – have the “M” device for mobilization, denoting active-duty service after an involuntary or volunteer mobilization. He also has a Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon with a bronze 4 device, indicating four separate instances of training overseas for more than 10 days.
Walz also has a Global War on Terrorism medal. The Minnesota national guard said it was unclear if it was the service medal issued to anyone serving for 30 continuous (or 60 non-continuous) days on active duty after September 11, or the expeditionary medal for soldiers who deployed overseas in support of one of the nine designated operations.
Walz deployed in a support role to Italy and Turkey in August 2003 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, returning from Vicenza in April 2004, said Army Lt Col Kristen Augé, Minnesota national guard’s state public affairs officer. This would appear to qualify him for the expeditionary award.
Walz was promoted to command sergeant major of the battalion – an E-9 rank. Army regulation 600-8-19 requires soldiers who do not finish the sergeants major course to revert back to their prior rank. The first two phases of the course are conducted online in distance learning, while the third phase is conducted in-person at the Sergeants Major Academy. Walz retired before attending the academy.
“When a service member reaches 20 years of service, they can submit a request to retire even if there is time remaining on their enlisted contractual agreement,” said Army Col Scott Rohweder, Minnesota national guard’s joint chief of staff. ‘Their request is reviewed and must be approved by leadership.”
Walz’s retirement is standard fare and similar to the attacks to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that waylaid John Kerry’s bid for the presidency in 2004, said Mike Lavigne, a retired army sergeant major and spokesman for VoteVets, a progressive veterans organization.
“All these people that are connected with the Minnesota national guard have an ax to grind,” Lavigne said, noting how two of the people who have been critical of Walz from the unit have social media accounts dripping with rightwing invective. “It’s got nothing to do with army service. It’s got nothing to do with the army values. It’s all politics.
“If you do 20 years and a day and you reach retirement eligibility, you have done much more than many,” Lavigne said. “There’s absolutely no shame in the game in dropping your papers and walking and moving on with your life after 20 years of service. Twenty-four years of service is beyond the pale. The argument that comes from the people who are attacking him right now is disingenuous at best, absolutely dishonest at worst.”
Bonnifield, the retired sergeant and fateful confidant from Walz’s unit, has received hate mail from some people since speaking about Walz, he said. He was invited by his old sergeant major to go to Chicago next week to appear at the Democratic national convention. Bonnifield declined.
A video made by the campaign describing his conversation will go in his stead, he said.
