Democrat vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has claimed he was eligible to retire from the military the same week as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and implied he chose to re-enlist out of a sense of patriotic duty. However, according to the Minnesota National Guard, he was not eligible to retire and receive retirement benefits until 2002.
In a 2009 interview for the Library of Congress’s Veteran History Project Collection, Walz claimed he reached 20 years in the National Guard — the benchmark for retirement from the military — the same week as the terrorist attacks, but that he chose to re-enlist.
Walz said:
It was — the notice as I said came in early 2003, I think many of us after September 11 — my 20 years was actually, ironically enough, up that week of September 11, 2001, of the time that I had off and made up, so I re-enlisted, like I think the vast majority of people did. A real sense of uncertainty of what was going to — but a real sense of wanting to do something. I think many of us in those early days — that sense of Afghanistan and the Taliban and where that, you know, that attack came from. [Emphasis added].
Walz also wrote in a November 3, 2006, op-ed as a U.S. congressional candidate:
After completing 20 years of service in 2001, I re-enlisted to serve our country for another four years following Sept. 11…
However, Minnesota National Guard’s Director of Manpower & Personnel Army Col. Ryan Cochran recent confirmed in a statement sent to reporters on August 13, 2024, that Walz was not eligible to retire until August 2002. He said in the statement, sent to Breitbart News and other outlets:
Governor Tim Walz received his notification of eligibility for retirement on August 3, 2002. He was promoted to sergeant major (E-9) on September 17, 2004, and immediately began serving as the command sergeant major for the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery while his packet was submitted to the National Guard Bureau to appoint him to command sergeant major (E-9). Once approved by NGB, he was laterally appointed to command sergeant major (E-9) on April 1, 2005. He retired from the Minnesota National Guard on May 16, 2005. Our records do not indicate when he made his request to retire. Leadership reviews and approves all requests to retire. He was administratively reduced to master sergeant (E-8) on May 15, 2005, because he did not complete all required U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy coursework. [Emphasis added].
Asked for further clarification on Thursday, the Minnesota National Guard told Breitbart News that August 3, 2002, was the exact date he was eligible for retirement — not before then.
According to one account by a veteran who served with Walz, Walz did re-enlist on September 18, 2001, and sign a new contract to continue serving, but had he chosen to leave the military at the time, he would not have been considered “retired” or eligible receive the accompanying benefits.
Multiple media outlets have repeated Walz’s lie that he was eligible for retirement the week of the terrorist attacks.
For example, the Washington Post‘s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, reported:
September 2001 — Though Walz qualified for retirement at 20 years of service, he said in an interview for a Library of Congress oral history project that the Sept. 11 attacks persuaded him to reenlist.
The fact-checking website Snopes also implied he was eligible for retirement, writing:
Though Walz’s initial commitment to the Guard ended in 2001, he re-enlisted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
CNN’s Dana Bash outright repeated Walz’s lie, recently asking Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) in an interview: “Governor Walz served 24 years — he even stayed after he could’ve retired because of 9/11 — more than the country asked of him. Do you honor his service?”
And Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) also repeated the lie on August 11, 2024, on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” saying:
So first of all, he was in the National Guard 20 years, he thought he’d stay 20 years. But then 9/11 happened, so he signed up for four more years. He retired from that to run for Congress months before his unit was assigned to being deployed.
While Walz enlisted in April 1981, and thus would have served 20 years by April 2001, he took time off from the National Guard to travel to China between 1989 and 1990. According to the Minnesota National Guard, a member is eligible for retirement after reaching 20 years of “credible service.”
Thus, Walz may have served for a timespan of 20 years by September 11, 2001, but he was not yet eligible to retire.
After Walz re-enlisted on September 18, 2001, for another six years, he left after he was eligible for retirement and retirement benefits but before his six-year-contract was up.
He retired in May 2005, several months after his campaign for Congress acknowledged his unit would potentially deploy to Iraq.
This lie adds to the other lies he has told about his service.
He claimed he was a “retired command sergeant major,” when he retired as a master sergeant, which is a rank below. He even had the command sergeant major rank engraved in coins he handed out as a congressman.
He also claimed he carried weapons “in war,” when he never deployed to a combat zone.
And he has failed to correct journalists and others when they said he deployed to Afghanistan, or was an Afghanistan War veteran.
Recently, the New York Times acknowledged that Walz “misrepresented” elements of his service and recently reported that he lied about he and his wife using in vitro fertilization to conceive their two children.
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