by Isabel Vincent
The chaplain of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s field artillery regiment said there is no excuse for the Democratic VP pick to have abandoned his National Guard unit before a critical deployment — not even running for Congress.
“In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy,” retired Capt. Corey Bjertness, now a pastor in Horace, North Dakota, told The Post.
Bjertness, 61, was the chaplain for the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, of which Walz was command sergeant major before retiring in 2005, two months before the unit deployed to Iraq. Walz has said he did so to run for Congress, and he was elected the next year.
“Running for Congress is not an excuse,” Bjertness said of Walz’s decision to quit. “I stopped everything and went to war. I left my wife with three teenagers and a 6-year-old and I was gone for 19 months.”
Thomas Behrends, the command sergeant major who replaced Walz, previously told The Post of the Minnesota governor: “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States.”
Bjertness added that leaving his troops at such a critical time was irresponsible of Walz, who served for more than two decades with the Army National Guard in Nebraska and Minnesota.
“That means that a new master sergeant needs to come in and to get to know everyone. Their task is to keep everyone safe and healthy,” the pastor said.
“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” Behrends, a Minnesota farmer, previously told The Post of the 500 soldiers under his command. “For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice.”
Veteran Tom Schilling agreed — and said that criticism of Walz’s retirement is “not a political thing. It’s a character thing.”
Schilling, 67, had already served in the National Guard for 16 years when he re-enlisted after 9/11. He deployed with Walz’s unit to Iraq in 2005.
Bjertness stressed that “Gov. Walz should receive the full honors due him for his 24 years of service as a guardsman. However, the other allegations, which the National Guard members I have visited with believe to be absolutely true, make me believe we have yet another politician who has a very loose commitment to the truth.”
Some veterans have long been upset that Walz, the two-term governor of Minnesota, for years publicly identified himself as a retired command master sergeant — despite having been demoted when he retired before completing the two-year commitment required for that rank.
Walz is sounding ess then his worth Harris made a worse choice as her Veep and I hope it Backfires
If this is the kind of trash Kamala dredges up to be VP, just imagine what kind of garbage would make up her Cabinet and department assistants. No doubt, worse than Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden’s choices.
*Yawn*
Yeah, just a potential VP shitting all over the service and sacrifices of other members of the military. No biggie. They’re just our military is all.
Spoken like the true coward and taker that you leftists are.
Tell us, groomer, what do you think JFK would say to your blatant support of someone who is clearly guilty of stolen valor?
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
JFK, January 20, 1961.
How low the Democrat Party has sunk since 1961.
Walz did, in fact, ask what he could do for his country, and he put in twenty-four years in uniform, Oozy Cooze.
Then he lied about the rank he retired at and serving in Iraq. Stolen valor.
Well, you don’t have to imagine. Even without anything to hate on him about, they simply made it up THEN went crazy on it.