The Republicans are trying to swiftboat Tim Walz

[jmowreader]

Here's the situation: CSM Walz - who retired as a Master Sergeant because he hadn't attended the Sergeants Major Academy, a school sergeants major must attend - retired from the National Guard in May 2005. It takes roughly a year from filing your retirement packet until your retirement date, so he probably applied for retirement in 2004.

In July 2004, two months after CSM Walz' retirement ceremony, his unit was alerted for deployment to Iraq. Two months.

Now JD Vance, who served in the Marines as a combat correspondent, apparently did one hitch and a tour in a war zone, and left the Marines as a Corporal, is running around claiming that CSM Walz, who served over twenty years in Field Artillery, abandoned his unit just when they needed him most. Please understand that when CSM Walz retired his unit was still doing the "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" thing and wasn't preparing to go to war any more than any other unit in the Army was. And Walz' battalion commander claims Walz was a great soldier and had every right to retire when he did.

Just so you know, Vance's MOS was the same one Matthew Modine's character in Full Metal Jacket held, 4341 Combat Correspondent. So, "Private Joker" would be a good nickname for this eight-ball.