Former National Guard battalion commander Tim Walz has become the latest to attack the vice presidential candidate for stealing his honor, calling it an “insult” for Walz to claim a title he didn’t earn and accusing him of running because the job had become too tough.
John Kolb, who became a lieutenant colonel in the Minnesota unit months after Walz resigned to run for Congress, joined the attack shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged that she had made “false statements” about running for vice president Walz retiring as a master sergeant.
In a widely shared Facebook post, Kolb said Waltz, a Democrat, not only “discharged early” and “broke his enlistment contract,” but also “failed to complete Sergeant Major Academy” and “failed to perform any duties as a sergeant major.”
Kolb scathingly said he had “no regrets” about it because Walz “gave way to better leadership.”
But he said Waltz “is a [command sergeant major] chair.”
“He did not earn that rank, nor did he successfully complete a mission as an E9,” Kolb said of the unit’s highest rank, E9.
“You can sit in the cockpit of a plane, but that doesn’t make you a pilot,” Kolb wrote in a post using the hashtag #NotmyCSM.
“Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest levels became a reality, he chose a different path.”
Kolb shared his views in a post with Guardsman Thomas Behrens, who replaced Walz after his abrupt resignation, and who has since called Walz a “coward” and a “traitor.”
He drew a sharp contrast between Waltz and his successor, saying Behrens “made sacrifices to answer the call” and “earned the honor of being called Master Sergeant Major.”
This post was shared by many people, Including former First Son Donald Trump Jr.
“Oh my goodness, General Tim Waltz is totally trashing him with his ‘stolen heroics’. How long is the left wing media going to continue to ignore all of this?” Trump Jr. asked.
Walz, who retired from the Minnesota Army National Guard shortly before Kolb took office, has come under fire from veterans for lying about his rank.
The two-term Democratic governor had been under pressure to disclose his military history since a video surfaced in 2018 in which he bragged about his National Guard service as a reason for stricter gun control.
“We can confirm that the weapons of war that I carried in the war are the only place those weapons are kept,” Waltz said. he said in the clip.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, is trying to capitalize on Walz’s missteps.
“What bothers me about Tim Waltz is this rubbish story of stolen heroism. You shouldn’t pretend to be something you’re not,” Vance said. “I’d be embarrassed if I were him and I lied about my military service like he did.”
