Retired military leaders who served with Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) in the Minnesota National Guard criticized 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’s decision “morally indefensible.
At the time, Walz was the senior enlisted leader of his battalion, and his responsibility was to prepare troops under him as they readied for deployment to Iraq. Non-commissioned officers like himself have a crucial role in the military, ensuring that soldiers are motivated, educated, and trained to carry out orders effectively.
Herr explained this by drawing an analogy from World War I, where non-commissioned officers were responsible for motivating their troops to leave the trenches and face enemy fire. In such scenarios, it would be demoralizing if a leader announced that he was not participating in the battle, leaving his soldiers to go it alone.
According to Herr, this decision could compromise the military’s mission and overall morale. While it may not have been legally wrong for Walz to retire before deployment, it is considered morally indefensible by these retired leaders.
Walz’s supporters argue that he retired from the National Guard in May 2005, two months before his unit was officially alerted of an upcoming deployment. However, the retired leaders claim that Walz likely knew about the deployment several months earlier due to his position as a senior enlisted leader.
Indeed, in March 2005, Walz released a statement discussing the possibility of an 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.” Herr emphasizes that he and other senior enlisted leaders could have retired like Walz.
We didn’t,” he said. We had other soldiers that put their lives on total lockdown because of this, because they went to defend their country. 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.