Despite lobbing the same questions at Tim Walz, J.D. Vance lost it when pressed about his own military service.
Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance seems perfectly happy to dish out criticism of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over his military record, but he just can’t take it.
Vance blew up at CNN anchor Brianna Keilar on Thursday, after she called Vance an “imperfect messenger” to criticize Walz over his military service.
“At what point did military service become a liability?” Keilar asked rhetorically on CNN’s Inside Politics. “I also think that J.D. Vance as a messenger on this may be an imperfect messenger.”
Vance served a single four-year enlistment in the public affairs section in the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, and according to his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, the Republican nominee was “lucky to escape any real fighting.” Still, that hasn’t stopped Vance from accusing Walz, who served with the Army National Guard for 24 years, of exiting the service before his unit was deployed to Iraq.
Finally someone in the military community with a microphone is clapping back. J.D. Vance wants to talk about commitment? He left after 4 years. While the war was still going on. He wants to talk about combat? 90 percent of his job was in an air conditioned office behind multiple layers of security. He wants to talk about one time Walz misspoke? How about the multiple times J.D. Vance has claimed he saw combat?
As an old Infantryman with a Combat Infantry Badge and a Purple Heart I feel secure in saying the only one here doing a Stolen Valor is the 4 year carpetbagger trying to tear down the record of a man who served honorably for 24 years and reached the highest possible enlisted pay grade. A man who was retired and decided to activate prestige mode after 9/11.
If we let that happen successfully then we will have cheapened us all.
Look, he DID see combat.
In pictures.
In the articles he wrote in his office securely in the middle of the base.
To be fair we know he went out at least once to take pictures of the civil affairs guys doing their thing. And he did have to get to and from the base at the beginning and end. So … 3 times? 3 times from secured area to secured area on a route cleared by someone else, with no expectation to stay and fight unless several redundancies have failed.