What to Know About Pete Buttigieg's Military Service — Did He Go Overseas?

Former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg has had a very interesting career. He went from helming the small midwestern town to running for president, to serving as the Secretary of Transportation under President Joe Biden.

Before he joined politics, the Democrat had a six-year military career that saw him serving in multiple capacities. He has spoken about his service, including how dangerous it actually was. Details are ahead.

Per CNN, the dad of two spent six years as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves. He also went overseas. Indeed, for six months, Pete was deployed to Afghanistan.

Pete talked about his decision to join up, which he made while volunteering for President Barack Obama's campaign in the Hawkeye State.

He said in 2019 while running for president, “I might have dragged my feet on it forever if I hadn’t had that experience in Iowa and just realizing that some communities were almost emptying out their youth in the military and some were barely serving at all."

"And I wanted to be on the right side of that gap," he added.

“You never really know when you sign up what it’s going to be like," Pete admitted about his military service, which ended up involving a position at the Navy Reserve Joint Intelligence Operation Center near Lake Michigan. Per CNN, the politician reported for duty once per month during that time.

However, Pete eventually took a desk job at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. His time there also saw the former mayor serving as an armed driver to Kabul over 100 times.

“Look, it’s not like I killed (Osama) Bin Laden, right?” he previously joked. “I don’t want to overstate what my role was, but it certainly is something that was dangerous.”

At the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Pete took JD Vance to task over his comments about family.

While speaking in Chicago, Pete opined about the Republican's past words, saying, "Someone who said that 'If you don't have kids you have no physical commitment to the future of this country.' You know Senator, When I deployed to Afghanistan, I didn't have kids then."

"Many of the men and women who went outside the wire with me didn't either," he continued. "But let me tell you, our commitment to the future of this country was pretty damn physical."

Meanwhile, Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate served in the Marines as a combat correspondent for four years.

"I was lucky to escape any real fighting but which affected me deeply nonetheless," he wrote about his time in Iraq.

Kamala Harris's running mate Tim Walz served in the military for a quarter of a century — but there's scandal surrounding his impressive 25-year tenure nonetheless.

He has said he left to pursue politics, but critics, including his opponent on the Republican ticket, claim the Minnesota leader would have been deployed to Iraq had he stayed.

In the end, all of the men involved served in the military, and for that, we thank them!