SAUNDERS: Partisan fights over presidential running mates’ military service

Whatever happens in November, Americans can expect to have a veteran in the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory next year. The Republican vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, served in the Marines for four years, including a six-month deployment in Iraq, and his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, served 24 years in the Army National Guard.

While news stories parse the differences between the running mates’ records — more on that in a bit — I want to recognize the fact that, come January, there will be an elected official in the White House who served in the military for the first time since George W. Bush, who was a pilot in the Air National Guard, was president.

The current president and our previous president, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, avoided military service.

Trump won four student deferments, as well as a medical deferment for bones spurs. Likewise, Biden won four student deferments, as well as a medical deferment because of asthma.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump veep Mike Pence and former President Barack Obama also did not serve in the military.

Older readers know this issue well. There was a time when politically ambitious young men enlisted in the military in part because voters did not want a potential commander in chief who never wore a uniform.

Then, in 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House even though he legally evaded the draft. Still, to check the military box, Clinton picked Al Gore, who had served in Vietnam, to be his running mate.

Back to Vance, who served in Iraq. CNN’s Brianna Keilar opined that describing Vance as a “combat correspondent” was misleading because, “when you dig a little deeper into that, he was a public affairs specialist, someone who did not see combat, which certainly the title ‘combat correspondent,’ kind of gives you a different impression.”

Vance replied on X, “Brianna this is disgusting, and you and your entire network should be ashamed of yourselves. When I got the call to go to Iraq, I went.”

Luis Agostini, a public information officer now with the DEA and a one-time Marine combat correspondent who served in Iraq, went on X to challenge how partisan politics have dismissed comms work in the field “as cushy PR jobs where combat is avoided and A/C is enjoyed.”

Agostini posted the names and photographs of Marine public affairs officer Maj. Megan McClung and Cpl. William Salazar, a photographer from Las Vegas, who gave their lives, and others — Cpl. Aaron Mankin and Sgt. Dorian Gardner — who were wounded on the job in Iraq.

Critics point out that Walz erroneously had listed his retirement rank “Command Sergeant Major,” a rank he reached, but not the rank at which he retired. Others have criticized Walz for retiring shortly before the Guard’s announcement that his unit would deploy to Iraq. But Joseph Eustice, who served in the Guard with Walz, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that while there was speculation, the unit wasn’t notified about deploying to Iraq until after Walz resigned.

I won’t diminish Walz’ non-combat service, because he served our country in the military, which is more than I have done. But I will call out his misleading rhetoric.

At an event on gun violence in 2018, Walz declared, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.” Thing is, Walz never carried weapons in war, because he never served in a combat zone.

CNN fact checker Tom Foreman noted that he came from a military family, and “There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest he was, so that is absolutely false.”

And that’s a problem.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.