Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s decision to embellish, exaggerate, and otherwise puff up certain aspects of his military service have rapidly turned into a raging wildfire which the Regime Media are desperately trying to contain and extinguish, lest it also consume the presidential prospects of Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was desperate firefighting across the dial, perhaps none more desperate than MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:

MSNBC's Chris Hayes desperately tries to firefight for Tim Walz and his embellished service pic.twitter.com/6Mg7lmHTgf

— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 8, 2024

MSNBC ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES

8/7/24

8:33 PM

CHRIS HAYES: But there's an experience that is even rarer among the tiny fraction of Americans who enlist, a much smaller share make a career of it, serving 20 years or more with multiple, multiple deployments. Only a tiny fraction of those thought to stay in the service after being disabled on the job, and one of them is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. An enlisted soldier in the National Guard for nearly a quarter of a century, a journey that began on a Nebraska farm as soon as he was eligible to join.

TIM WALZ: My father served during the Korean War and the day after I turned 17, he took me down to an Army National Guard recruiter and I raised my hand and signed up.

HAYES: That was in 1981. Ronald Reagan was president. Now Walz continued to serve for the next 24 years, under four Commanders-in-Chief. He spent most of that time as an artillery soldier, and it took a toll on his hearing. In fact, in 2002 after he'd already done 20 years he qualified for retirement. A medical board considered discharging him because of his hearing impairment. Instead he convinced them to let him complete his final enlistment, which began after 9/11. Walz achieved the highest enlisted rank in the army, Command Sergeant Major, but rather than stay in and complete the schooling for the rank, Walz retired in 2005 at the rank of Master Sergeant. In part, he says, because he wanted at that point to speak freely about political injustice, specifically, the Iraq war. The following year, he was one of more than 60 anti war veterans running for Congress, the Fighting Dems, a group that included Jim Webb, Patrick Murphy and Tammy Duckworth.

One has to laugh at the prospect of Acela Media elite now pretending to care about service members generally, and about the arcane details of promotions and billeting, and E-9 command splits specifically. The fact is that they don’t, but must pretend to do so in order to defend the Regime and its new prospective deputy figurehead. 

Nothing in Hayes’ four minute-plus segment addressed the specific claims made against Walz, or debunked any of what is already on the record. At most, Hayes presents an alternate version of events, without evidence: that of the brave dissident sacrificing promotion in order to fight “political injustice”, as opposed to the man who ditched his unit in order to avoid deployment to Iraq.

But as more details become available Walz becomes harder to spin, and the media begin to look more ridiculous and servile. From Walz’s archived website:

On Thursday, March 17 the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced a possible partial mobilization of roughly 2,000 troops from the Minnesota National Guard. First District congressional candidate Tim Walz currently holds the rank of Command Sergeant Major in the 1-125th Battalion, which is based in New Ulm and largely composed of men and women from southern Minnesota. The announcement from the National Guard PAO specified that all or a portion of Walz's battalion could be mobilized to serve in Iraq within the next two years. Walz, who teaches Global Geography at Mankato West High School, has been an active member of the National Guard since 1981. He has been previously deployed during his 23 years in the National Guard, including an eight month deployment during Operation Enduring Freedom. When asked about his possible deployment to Iraq Walz said, "I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilization and I am unable to comment further on specifics of the deployment."

Walz knew his unit might deploy well before his decision to retire. Just to put a really fine point on it, the item, dated March 20th,2005 is titled, Walz Still Planning to Run for Congress Despite Possible Call to Duty in Iraq. 

It increasingly looks like Walz chose his Congressional run over his unit. That, combined with other embellishments, such as his claims of serving in Operation Enduring Freedom, and his wearing of a Special Forces ballcap despite never serving in such a unit, becomes increasingly hard to defend. Good luck with that.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes on Wednesday, August 7th, 2024:

CHRIS HAYES: Every year about 2 million Americans serve in the Armed Forces either full-time or one weekend a month. They come from all walks of life. All serve in different ways. Many serve as Senator JD Vance did. After high school, he signed up for a four-year enlistment in the Marines including six months in Iraq doing public affairs. He was then honorably discharged. We should say that's a bit of a rarity among politicians. Most politicians serve as officers after college. They don't enlist after high school because serving as an officer after college means better pay, better benefits, and there is a little bit of a division between officers and the enlisted Armed Forces. But there's an experience that is even rarer among the tiny fraction of Americans who enlist, a much smaller share make a career of it, serving 20 years or more with multiple, multiple deployments. Only a tiny fraction of those thought to stay in the service after being disabled on the job, and one of them is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. An enlisted soldier in the National Guard for nearly a quarter of a century, a journey that began on a Nebraska farm as soon as he was eligible to join.

TIM WALZ: My father served during the Korean War and the day after I turned 17, he took me down to an Army National Guard recruiter and I raised my hand and signed up.

HAYES: That was in 1981. Ronald Reagan was president. Now Walz continued to serve for the next 24 years, under four Commanders-in-Chief. He spent most of that time as an artillery soldier, and it took a toll on his hearing. In fact, in 2002 after he'd already done 20 years he qualified for retirement. A medical board considered discharging him because of his hearing impairment. Instead he convinced them to let him complete his final enlistment, which began after 9/11. Walz achieved the highest enlisted rank in the army, Command Sergeant Major, but rather than stay in and complete the schooling for the rank, Walz retired in 2005 at the rank of Master Sergeant. In part, he says, because he wanted at that point to speak freely about political injustice, specifically, the Iraq war. The following year, he was one of more than 60 anti war veterans running for Congress, the Fighting Dems, a group that included Jim Webb, Patrick Murphy and Tammy Duckworth.

WALZ: I spent 24 years in the Army National Guard. I spent the better part of two decades as a public school teacher. I'm a small business owner. I'm a father and I'm a husband. I intend to come here to Washington to provide authentic leadership and to truly represent the people of my district and the people of the United States.

HAYES: After a surprise victory in a red district, Walz became the highest-ranking enlisted veteran ever to serve in Congress and worked to help end the military's anti-gay Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

WALZ: I had students that I taught in the classroom, coached on the football field, trained in my Guard unit and they went off to Iraq to fight for this nation. They went off to Afghanistan to fight for this nation. Not once, not once in my career did the question of sexual orientation ever come up. It's time to erase this mistake for our security and for Americans, and I'll be with you every step of the way.

HAYES: After Donald Trump was elected president, Walz became the ranking Democrat on the House Veteran Affairs Committee. He fought the Trump White House plan for privatizing veterans’ healthcare while using his own experiences with the VA to help other veterans get their benefits. Walz's experience in the Armed Forces is an atypical one for most Americans, particularly for politicians at the national level. There really is literally no one like him. Now Walz is running with Kamala Harris against Donald Trump and JD Vance and perhaps not that surprisingly, Republicans are trying to swift boat Walz, denigrating his service the way they did with Vietnam vet John Kerry 20 years ago, saying he stole valor and left the Army to avoid going to Iraq. It’s a playbook Republicans also used against Walz when he ran for governor of Minnesota and it failed then because they're lies. It turns out when voters hear about the quarter-century Walz spent as a citizen soldier, the time he spent since then fighting for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to get the benefits they deserve, they don't see what Republicans do. They see a rare kind of veteran in politics who can cut through the self-serving BS, rather than adding to it.