Kamala Harris's VP Pick Tim Walz Is a National Guard Veteran — Here's What to Know About His Service

After news broke that Kamala Harris had selected Tim Walz as her VP running mate for the 2024 presidential election, a whirlwind of questions swirled about who the Minnesota governor was and what he could bring to the Democratic ticket.

As for Walz's background, we know that before he got into politics, he was in the military for years and also worked as a teacher and football coach.

But what exactly was his military record? Here's a quick overview.

Walz joined the Army National Guard in 1981 and served for 24 years while climbing the ranks to command sergeant major before retiring in 2005. (However, because he didn't finish all training requirements, he retired as a master sergeant.) He said he was inspired by his father, who served in the Korean War and attended college on the G.I. bill.

Walz, who didn't see combat during his service, has attributed his leadership abilities to his time serving his country.

"I couldn’t be more grateful for the skills that being a member of U.S. Army National Guard gave me," he said (per Stars and Stripes) in an Army release in 2020, where he noted how his military service contributed to his abilities in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. "In the Guard, you put your community first. Everything you do, you do to ensure the health, safety, and security of the people who are depending on you. And as governor, those are principles of servant leadership that I rely on every day."

After starting as an infantryman at age 17 in the Nebraska Army National Guard, Walz eventually transferred to the Minnesota National Guard in 1996 and went into artillery, per Task and Purpose. He served in disaster response missions in both Nebraska and Minnesota and was deployed in 2003 to Italy, where he served alongside the European Security Force. After his retirement, he was elected to Congress in 2006, kicking off his political career.

Some have criticized Walz for retiring right before his unit would have been deployed to Iraq. In fact, two retired command sergeant majors named Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr posted a letter on social media in 2018 claiming that Walz had assured his battalion that he would serve with them, only to leave them "hanging," per the New York Post.

And though Walz has claimed he left the military to focus on politics, Behrends and Herr said that he could have gotten permission to run for office while still on active duty. They also say that he "slithered out the door" without even filing all the necessary paperwork.

Tim didn't quit the National Guard, he retired. However, the circumstances surrounding his departure have led some to believe he quit. It seems his retirement may have left a sour taste in the mouths of certain service members, with claims that he retired to avoid deployment to Iraq. Tim retired from the National Guard in 2005 and assumed his position in the U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota's 1st congressional district in 2006.

The damage from years of Walz's time in the field artillery unit led him to have surgery for his hearing loss in 2005, per MPR News. In a 2013 claim he filed with the VA for bilateral hearing loss and tinnitus, Walz wrote of how the blasts "would knock us down and after firing I had ringing in my ears."