When Tim Waltz retired from the Army National Guard ahead of his deployment to Iraq, he barely told his fellow soldiers he was abandoning his unit — he even submitted his resignation without notifying his superiors, The Washington Post has learned.
Thomas Berens, who replaced Walz in the summer of 2005 in preparing 500 troops for combat in Iraq, said the Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota governor “worked behind everybody’s backs.”
Waltz has been dogged by defamation allegations for years, which came to a head last week when veterans on both sides of the political divide questioned his military record after Vice President Kamala Harris announced he would be her running mate.
“If Waltz had any integrity he would have told everybody,” Behrens, the retired Army sergeant, told The Washington Post about the way Waltz resigned. “There was something really questionable about the way he handled it.”
Berens said Waltz failed to report it to Sergeant Doug Julin, the senior commander of the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, or to Waltz’s superiors.
“It’s very unusual. [for Walz] “It’s unfortunate that he didn’t get promoted to the next level, Petty Officer Doug Julin,” said retired Col. John Kolb, who served in Waltz’s unit.
Instead, Behrens alleged, Waltz submitted the documents to two senior officers who were higher than Julin.
Berens said Gen. David Elisiero, commander of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, was required to sign off on the retirement, and Waltz’s application would have also been on the desk of the unit’s human resources chief, Thomas Shoemaker. Neither man responded to requests for comment.
Berens said he, not Waltz, told Julin of Waltz’s plans to retire in the summer of 2005 while the two were at Camp Ripley military training center near Little Falls, Minnesota, preparing to deploy to Iraq.
Julin had apparently expected Waltz to show up, but was reportedly surprised when Behrens, who took over Waltz’s role as CSM, showed up.
“You could see him turn red,” Berens said of Julin. “That’s what pissed him off the most. His bosses were like, [of Walz’s retirement] But he didn’t know anything. Doug was overtaken by [Walz] I knew he would say “no.”
“There was some shady, behind-the-scenes dirty dealing going on,” Berenz alleged, adding that Waltz likely felt other senior executives would be more accommodating.
Julin did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Waltz, 60, had previously told Julin he was preparing to deploy his unit to Iraq, but also told Julin he was interested in running for Congress. He told The Washington Post last week.
Julin said it was “no big deal” to do both, noting that lawmakers have been deployed there in the past, the media reported.
Walz’s congressional campaign said in a statement in March 2005 that he still planned to run, despite the possibility of being called into combat. He was discharged two months later, in May 2005, according to the National Guard.
Walz, who served in the Army National Guard for 24 years in Nebraska and Minnesota, retired to run for Congress before his unit was issued a “stand-by order” in July 2005, according to Berens. At that time, only soldiers who were too ill to serve in combat were exempt from military service, he explained.
The Department of the Army issued mobilization orders to the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery in July 2005. The unit activated on October 12 of that year and, after training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, deployed to Iraq in late March 2006. I will report.
Under National Guard rules, Walz was not required to tell Julin about his plans to retire, but many veterans contacted by The Washington Post said it was “disrespectful” to not inform soldiers, especially those in command positions.
Waltz was the only member of his unit to drop out, said John Erickson, a retired warrant officer with the Minnesota National Guard.
“There’s a process,” Erickson, 57, told The Washington Post that when he retired from the Minnesota National Guard, he gave six months’ notice and made sure to notify his superiors.
“There wasn’t a single person who hadn’t been to Iraq,” he said. “They were all dedicated.”
Other veterans who served in Waltz’s unit said they were disappointed with the way Waltz was discharged.
“Julin was right to expect the communication to come through him. It was unusual that Tim’s request to resign was not conveyed to Doug at the enlisted ranks,” Kolb said.
When he retired, Walz used the rank of master sergeant in campaign literature and later on his congressional website, further angering veterans who said the rank was not earned and that Walz needed to complete two more years of service before he could be said to have retired with that rank, the veterans said.
Last week, the Harris-Waltz campaign Waltz’s online biography updatedThe article removed a statement that he was a “retired master sergeant” and now says that Waltz once served at the rank of master sergeant.
The result of sudden retirement, Kolb said Waltz pushed the responsibility onto other soldiers.
“This is very hard on a lot of people, including Tom Berens, who made great sacrifices to get to his position,” Kolb said, “and it raises the question of whether he was able to fulfill his duties. In the military, it’s a big deal when someone abandons their duty… The sergeant major is a great guy, he sets the standard and he maintains that standard.”
Waltz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
