We now know why Tim Walz, the VP nominee picked by Democrat Kamala Harris for this year’s election, made an incorrect statement – his detractors call it a lie – about his military service.

There have been several of those such statements, such as his claim to be in retirement as a “command sergeant major,” about which he repeatedly boasted even though it was a title for which he never was fully qualified.

This dispute is about his claim to have carried weapons of war “in war.”

A report at the Federalist explained the issue came up during a CNN interview with Harris and Walz.

Interviewer Dana Bash said, “I want to ask you a question about how you described your service in the National Guard. You said that you carried weapons in war but you had never deployed actually in a war zone. A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?”

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It was in 2018 that Walz pushed for gun control by saying, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.”

But the Federalist explained, “Problem is, Walz never served in a combat zone. His unit was called up early in the war in Iraq — to Italy. Later, in 2005, he abandoned his National Guard unit as it was preparing to deploy to Iraq. Walz, who opted to run for Congress at the time, retired not long before the deployment.”

Walz continued, “Well, first of all, I’m incredibly proud. I’ve done 24 years of wearing the uniform of my country. I’m equally proud of my service in a public school classroom, whether it’s in Congress or the governor. … I think people know me, they know who I am. They know where my heart is and, again, my record has been out there for more than 40 years to speak for itself.”

But the gun thing?

“Yeah, I said we were talking in this case, this was after a school shooting, the ideas of carrying these weapons of war. And my wife, the English teacher, told me my grammar is not always correct,” he said.

CNN REPORTER: You said you carried weapons in war, but you never deployed to war.

TIM WALZ: I’m proud of my service and my record. I speak candidly. I wear my emotions on my sleeve.

REPORTER: The idea you were in war. Did you misspeak?

WALZ: My grammar’s not always correct. pic.twitter.com/QPssoHSIov

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 30, 2024

A report from the Twitchy site then pointed out another problem, with that answer, that Walz left unaddressed: His status as an English teacher.

“We will go as far as to say no one believed that excuse—or that the number of people who believe it is so low as to be indistinguishable from zero. Even if you run into people who say they believe it, we don’t believe that they actually believe that. They are simply hoping you are stupid enough to believe it. No. Walz lied. And that claim that he just doesn’t understand grammar runs straight into the teeth of just one fact. We will let Chinese defector Xi Van Fleet explain it to the class,” the report said.

Walz said his grammar is not always right. And yet he went to China to teach Chinese students English

— Xi Van Fleet (@XVanFleet) August 30, 2024

NPR even has confirmed that Walz was in China years ago, to teach English at Foshan No. 1 Middle School.

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.