For the first time in 20 years, both Republicans and Democrats have a war veteran on their presidential ticket. The last time this happened was in 2004, when President George W. Bush ran against Senator John Kerry.

Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance have different political views, but both have completed military service.

Walz served for 24 years as a member of the Army National Guard after volunteering at age 17. According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz served in Nebraska as a senior sergeant and administrative specialist before being transferred to Minnesota as a cannon crewman and senior sergeant of field artillery.

From 2003 to 2004, Walz deployed to Italy for eight months to support Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and assist with security missions in various locations in Europe. He did not participate in combat operations.

Walz ended his career as the battalion’s command sergeant major, but “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for pension reasons because he had not completed additional courses at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé, spokeswoman for the Minnesota National Guard, told VOA.

Vance, then known as James David Hamel, served for four years as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps after volunteering at age 19. According to the Marine Corps, he was deployed to Iraq for six months as a military journalist in 2005-06 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Like Walz, he did not take part in combat and said he was “lucky not to escape any real fighting.”

“Veterans bring a unique level of leadership and experience to government,” Carl Bedell, chairman of the Virginia Board of Veterans Services, told VOA. “Having the next vice president bring military experience to government is a good thing for our country.”

Controversy over “stolen heroism”

Vance on Wednesday accused Walz of talking “nonsense about stolen valor” and claimed the Democratic vice presidential candidate “abandoned” his unit “just before it invaded Iraq.”

Walz decided to leave the National Guard in 2005 to run for Congress. Federal Election Commission records show Walz filed for Congress in February 2005. National Guard records show he officially retired in May, about two months before his unit received a deployment alert for Iraq and about a year before the unit deployed to the country in March 2006.

“The Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, received an alert order to mobilize to Iraq on July 14, 2005. The official mobilization order from the Department of the Army was received on August 14, 2005, and the unit was mobilized (for pre-deployment training) on ​​October 12, 2005,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Rossman, Minnesota National Guard director of operations.

In the 2006 election, Walz won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which gave a decisive boost to his political career. In 2018, he was elected governor of Minnesota and is now the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Walz’s fellow guardsmen publicly criticized his decision to leave their unit this year because, although there had been no official order to do so, some soldiers suspected they would soon be sent to a war zone.

Doug Julin, a retired National Guard soldier who worked with Walz, said in an interview with The Washington Post “The biggest disappointment was that he abandoned his troops.”

Another veteran who served with Walz, Tom Schilling, told Fox News that Walz had “let his team down.”

However, Al Bonnifield, a veteran of the Minnesota National Guard, told NewsNation that Walz spent more than half an hour talking to him about what to do next, weighing whether he could be a better person for his soldiers and his country by staying in the National Guard or running for Congress.

“I know this was not a cowardly move. I know in my heart of hearts it was not,” Bonnifield said.

Retired Command Sergeant Major Joe Eustice, who served with Walz for several years, told CNN on Friday that while he disagreed with the political views of many of his colleagues, allegations that Walz escaped his battalion were “unfounded” and an “unfair assessment of events.”

Unofficial alerts before an alert order for mobilization, now known as the Army’s “Notification of Sourcing,” only began in 2009, according to the National Guard.

“Any communication prior to the official order in 2005 would be considered an unofficial announcement of a possible deployment and was subject to change until an official mobilization order was received,” the Guard added.

Some veterans have now criticized Vance for his criticism of Walz’s record. Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman compared Vance’s four years of public service to Walz’s 24 years and eight promotions.

“I don’t think you want to compare records,” he wrote on X.

Bedell, of the Virginia Board of Veterans Services, said citizens “deserve leaders who are who they say they are and who have done what they say they have done, especially with respect to their military service.” But he cautioned that any review should be an “honest assessment – politics tends to distort that.”

Not in war

Vance also called Walz “dishonest” for a claim he made during his first campaign for governor in 2018 when he spoke to a group about gun control.

In the video, Walz spoke about his resignation from the National Rifle Association, saying, “We can ensure that the weapons of war that I carried in war are the only place where those weapons are.”

Eustice, who disagrees with Vance’s attack on Walz’s resignation, told CNN that Walz “did not carry a weapon in the war. That statement is untrue.”

In a 2009 interview, Walz said his fellow soldiers had expected to be able to “shoot artillery” in Afghanistan, as they had trained to do, but that did not happen.

“I think at first a lot of my soldiers were disappointed,” Walz said in the interview. “I think a lot of them felt a little guilty because they weren’t on the front lines when this happened.”

Following Vance’s comments, the Harris campaign said in a statement that Walz had “fired and trained others in the use of weapons of war countless times” during his 24 years of service.