The military record of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has been under scrutiny since he was announced as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate.

His counterpart, Republican JD Vance, who himself served in the military, has revived historical allegations made by some veterans.

Mr. Vance says Mr. Walz intentionally avoided combat in Iraq by resigning shortly before his unit was to deploy there and that he was dishonest about his role in the military.

We have reviewed Mr. Vance’s record and military service.

Mr Vance claimed: “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He left the Army and let his unit go without him.”

Several former National Guard colleagues had previously publicly expressed their displeasure with Mr. Walz’s decision to leave their unit before deployment to Iraq, but others dismissed claims that he retired to avoid combat duty.

Mr. Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, a military force typically deployed within the United States to respond to events such as natural disasters, but which is also part of the U.S. Army Reserve.

In February 2005, when he was still in the National Guard, submitted an application to run for Congressman from Minnesota.

The following month, it was announced that there would be a “possible partial mobilization of approximately 2,000 Minnesota National Guard troops” to Iraq within the next two years. According to a press release from 2005 from Mr. Walz’s congressional campaign.

In the statement, Mr Walz said: “I do not yet know whether my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization.”

He added: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am inaugurated, but I have no plans to drop out of the race.”

In May 2005, Mr. Walz retired from the National Guard so that he could, as he later said, concentrate fully on his candidacy for Congress.

It’s unclear exactly when he submitted his resignation letter. We asked both the National Guard and the Harris campaign when that was.

His National Guard unit received orders to mobilize to Iraq in July 2005 and was sent there in March 2006. according to the battalion’s history page.

Mr. Vance also says Mr. Walz made “dishonest” claims about his combat deployment in a video promoted by the Harris campaign.

During a Clip in which he talks about gun control In the USA, according to a transcript of the election campaign, he himself is said to have said that he had carried weapons during the war.

What he actually meant by this, however, is not entirely clear.

In 2003, Mr. Walz went to Italy with the National Guard to support the U.S. war in Afghanistan, but he was never deployed to an active war zone.

A Harris campaign spokesman responded to this claim about Mr. Walz: “In his 24 years of service, the governor has carried, fired and trained others in the use of military weapons countless times.”

The Trump campaign claims that Mr. Walz “continues to spread the lie that he retired as a Command Sergeant Major.”

Be official biography on the Minnesota State website says “Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1st-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005.”

Although he reached the rank of Command Sergeant Major toward the end of his service, he officially retired one rank below as Master Sergeant.

A National Guard spokesman told the BBC that “on May 15, 2005, his rank was reduced to master sergeant for pay reasons because he had not completed additional courses at the US Army Sergeants Major Academy. He retired the following day.”

Mr. Vance served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years.

In 2005, he was deployed to Iraq as a military journalist for about six months, but did not experience combat.

“I was lucky not to have to avoid any real fighting,” he said in his 2016 memoirs.

He left the Marine Corps in 2007 as a corporal to attend Ohio State University.