The military record of Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walls has come under intense scrutiny amid accusations that he's engaged in stolen valor. Walls has claimed to have retired at a higher level than he did, and that he had carried weapons of war in war despite resigning before his battalion was deployed. Thomas Behrens has drawn attention to this issue for years. Behrens became the Command Sergeant Major of the battalion after Walls left his unit after learning that he was being deployed to Iraq. In this episode, we sit down with the retired Command Sergeant Major to discuss his year's long effort to set Walls' service record straight. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, it's August 17th and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. Every Black Rifle purchase makes it possible for Black Rifle Coffee Company to help provide funding, training, and equipment to our nation's military and first responders. Head to their site now for 20% off your purchase with Code Daily Wire. Joining us to discuss questions about Tim Walls' military record is retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrens, who actually filled the void left by Walls after he announced his retirement from the force in 2005. Tom, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for your service. You are welcome. Thank you. Let's start with what prompted your involvement in this entire story, which has really taken over the national headlines. By 2016, you'd begun to call attention to the fact that Tim Walls was mischaracterizing his military service. What was he saying and what did you initially do about it? Well, you know, it originally started even way before that. When we actually got deployed, he got elected to Congress, I mean, he was retired Command Sergeant Major of this and that. I'm in the first district where he was our congressman and yearly you'd see this advertising out there and be a flyer and a mail, you know, and I brought it up to my colonel. I said, "What are we going to do with this guy?" I mean, he's lying about his rank. He says he's the highest ranking member in Congress and we got pinned. He got acting Command Sergeant Major. He acted in that position for a few months, but he was never a bona fide one. He didn't get it for retirement. He retired as a master sergeant for him to say he's the retired Command Sergeant Major is wrong. So this went on and on, you know, for literally almost 10 years and then 2016 rolled around and he was the speaker here in Lake Veterans Memorial and he was, you know, "I'm Command Sergeant Major of this hit," right up in the paper about him, you know, all of his accolades and how wonderfully he was and everything and not just like, you know, "Is this ever going to end?" I mean, and then my neighbor, he sang a Star Spangled Banner that day and he goes, "Well, I got to meet another Command Sergeant Major and I got to shake his hand," and he was just like, "Boy, I know two of you Command Sergeant Major is not." I said, "Well, he's not one." I said, "He didn't retire as one. He's lying about his record." I said, "He didn't finish the school. He didn't do two years after the school and he's like, "Well, we don't know that at civilians. Somebody needs to bring this forward." And I'm like, "Well, I was battalion." I said, "The division or the state or somebody else should bring it up." And nobody had. And I did the right thing. I wrote a letter, personal letter, as a constituent to him in Congress. I said, "Thank you for your 24 years of service. Thank you for doing what you do for veterans." You didn't achieve the rank of Command Sergeant Major. Please refrain from doing that from now on. You'll just set the record straight, tell everybody that, "Well, I've made a mistake, whatever you got to do, but just come clean and don't do this anywhere." I mean, it's starting to get under people's skin. And I never heard a response. I sent it to all of the people that were on the committees that he was on it, like the Armed Services Committee, because he was the highest ranking guy in the house. Of course, he's on the Armed Services. I heard a word back to anybody, and then two years later, he's run for governor, and it's like August. It was like, "Beatsake." I mean, can you just go crawl under the rocks and we don't have to deal with this crap? I mean, you're spewing all this out again now, and now I got to get off my tractor and go make a banner to put it like bin and do whatever. They're trying to get the public out there knowing that you're a fraud, and it got suppressed by the media then. It got brought out more in 2022 and got out there. But you know, now it's where it's at. All right. So you initially reached out to him, personally got no response back, and then you started to feel when he ran for governor that maybe you had to take this up a notch in terms of public awareness, and the media, you say, just ignored your claims. Well, they not only ignored it, I mean, to start your view on reporter, I sent this to him. He got to hold me. He's like, "These are very serious accusations," and I said, "Well, here's the people you need to contact to verify this," and they said, "Vetta, bet the story if it's true, publish it. If it's not, then sue me for slander," because they said he's a city in Congress, but these are pretty serious allegations. He got back to me. He said, "Well, I bet it your story. It's true. We're looking at publishing an article," and this was like late October of '18, and then he got back to me, and he said, "Well, my editor next it because they said it's too close to the election, and they didn't want to impose the election." Maybe not exact words, but pretty close, and I talked to myself, "What the hell is this, North Korea?" I couldn't believe it. I was like, "Well, this is a true story. This should influence the election. People should be able to read this and determine if this is who they want to vote for governor," and they just hit it. And so it has been absolutely confirmed that he did not retire as a command sergeant major, but instead one level below that, correct? He's a master sergeant, EEA, yep. So that's been confirmed. Yes, I can, and it's really ironic that this came out in the last few days, but he actually filed with the FEC for running for Congress on February 10th of 2005, according to an article that was right on CNN, and in that article, so on the 17th of March, then the warning order came out. I knew it was in March sometime, but that's what they're saying. It was 17 March, and then on 20th of March, his campaign put out a statement that basically said, "No, I do not know if it's my artillery unit that's going to go on this mobilization, but I can't comment any further on it." But he said, "As command sergeant major, I have responsibility not only to ready my battalion through Iraq, but to also serve it all on, I'm dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, on and on and on, and at the end, he always said that he has enthusiastic supporters and a very dedicated and intelligent wife, and both of the major part of my campaign, whether I am in Minnesota or Iraq. Two months later, he walks out of the armory and quits. The statement in March, himself, states that he knew, no doubt absolutely zero, but like I see media, that's been the question, when did he know, and it's coming out now, that he probably even knew in late 2004, because the state knew in the summer of '04, and they were already starting to plan, and more than likely, the battalions and senior leadership found out some tidbit back in '04. We don't have a document. This document right here is two months before he quit. He knew. Damn well, we were going." Now, you've characterized this as him abandoning his men. What was the impact of him leaving? How did that impact these particular men? There's a lot of them, hundreds of them, under his command, correct? Man and women, who mean soldiers across the board, and they think it's like a depleting balloon, and something like that happens. It's like your dad died unexpectedly from a heart attack or from a car wreck or something. The wind has taken out of the sails. Everything is like okay, we're full steam ahead. We're getting ready. We've got our leadership in place. We're going to get ready. We're preparing for war, and all of a sudden, the sails are straight up and down with no wind in there. I mean, that's it. You're just done. Everybody was in just shock, and who does that, who leaves their kids hanging on something like this. And so you filled that role. You took over and led that battalion. Can you tell us about that? What was that experience like? Well, it was an absolute honor to even have that brought out to me. It was like I know I can serve my country in a greater capacity. I mean, if they were to ask any other CSM that I know in my career, they'd have snapped up on that right now. If you're offered a position like that, I honestly said I like I talk to my family, because I had to volunteer to do it. But I mean, I don't know a hell of a lot of them. They had a said yes and a heartbeat and they went home and told their wife, I got asked to go to war. And that's what they would have done. And their wife would have probably told them the wife heard some of them say, like, there's no way you're not going on that before. I don't know what it is, fam. I can't read their mind. I have no idea what happened with them, but I mean, that's really how it was. And, you know, they needed to get somebody in there reasonably soon because, you know, the warning orders in March, that just means there'll be another order coming out, which is going to finalize things more, which was the alert over in July. But they needed me to make a decision quick. It was like three weeks or a month later, early June when I was like, okay, I'm on board now. And I went around to the unit said, well, he's gone on gear. Let's get ready and let's go. And you served for it was about a two year deployment in Iraq, correct? Well, it was 22 and a half months total. I mean, we trained six months at Camp Shelby and then we went to Iraq and we got extended in the surge and we ended up over there for 17 months, whatever it was, damn near a year and a half. How do you believe Walsh's representation of his military service has influenced his political career? Has it helped his political career? Immensely is lying and saying he was a command sergeant major is a big thing. I mean, it's a big thing for the military and I think the general public that watches movies and when they hear command sergeant major, they think of, you know, a supreme leader person basically. It's a very prestigious rank. I mean, it isn't just handed to you. You've got to do the United States Army Sergeant Vagers Academy where they educate you on everything under the sun, you know, on leadership is a big part of it. And then you got to serve two years after that because they put all this taxpayer money into you. And it's a big deal. And some of the innuendos he's put out there about, you know, we were going here in support of operation and during freedom and maybe throw us out in Afghanistan or throw us Iraq and some where in the general public looks at it like, well, yeah, he was he was in support of being in Afghanistan or Iraq and it's just weird how, you know, he spins those things but it's all from political gain. And that's a sad part about where I came out with the soul of Valor side of it. It's like, you know, he's doing all this for extra recognition and to get further ahead. So you're saying this is really driven by ambition. Do you think his decision not to go was cowardly? I honestly do cowardly on the weather when I listen to Jesse Ventura talking on CNN the other night. And I've kind of had that suspicion before too because back in our day Iraq war starting in different things, you know, it kind of started to divide the nation a little bit where we had one side saying Afghanistan was the real war and just war in Iraq was, you know, maybe not it was Bush's war, you know, they know, well, kind of there, you know, why are we there? There's that kind of weird division in there and that's the question, I'd like to debate him and say, if the order would have said Afghanistan, would you have planned and seem if maybe he would have, I have no idea, but it seems to me like after, you know, Jesse said different things, you know, and then Bush made an executive order activate the guard and whatever that, you know, it seems like it's got to be politically driven to it. I don't think he can fight in Bush's war, this kind of my feeling, but on the other hand, it was cowardly to just be like, I'm not going to go. I mean, you can't pick and choose where your nation wants you to go. If that would have been the case in World War II, how many of our ancestors would have went to Germany? Germany didn't attack us, Japan did it. So okay, if I got deployed to go to Germany, do I not go because it's not a just war? They didn't attack. I mean, you can't make that choice when it comes down, you go, then you go open you and you tend your garden and run for Congress and do whatever the hell you want after that. So you've reached out to him personally in the past trying to get a response from him. What would you like him to answer right now? I think I would like him to come to Brewster to our veterans memorial and sit down in one of the benches in front of Kyle Miller, who was 19 years old and went on a mission that he had a dream that he wasn't a diet. And he would not allow somebody else to take that position because he told the chaplain at that point, if somebody else gets injured or dies and they took my place, I wouldn't be able to live up myself. I'd like him to sit right there and tell that kid that this is why I did not go on that mission that I should have went on and just say it right there. And maybe even have Kyle's mom standing there so she can hear it too. That's a sad part of all of this, you know, that 19 year old kid, he made the right decision. He got in that seat, he went up to get equipment to make the world safer, to make his unit safer, to put radar jamming stuff on vehicles, he went and got training, they hauled deer back and they rolled over a roadside bomb, he got killed. And that's what Tim Walz did not do. What are you hoping comes of this? What do you hope that the American people take away from this politically but also in terms of the importance of service? Well, that's what I think needs to get brought out of this whole thing is that, you know, this is just not right to embellish your career, to try to make yourself look better than you are militarily. If you do this, you're going to get a hammer and I think that's what needs to come out is that you don't put the uniform on and put a combat infantry badge on it and a silver star and a bunch of combat ribbons and go walk around and act like you are actually somebody that was there. We got freedom of speech here, but I think there ought to be a line where that's not even, that's not even a quality where you get tired and feathered down near at that point and paraded down the street that you're a traitor. I mean, that's a sad part about what went on here. On that note, Bellish, your career at the level, you should have never really even probably been a bullet governor, I mean, I think if the public would have known what this makes veterans and soldiers feel like and if that would have been brought out at the state level, I don't think we'd be having this conversation today, you know, but got suppressed and it got hidden and then now here we are on a national stage and it's just a, it's a big firestorm now because a lot of people realize it's wrong, the mainstream or whatever media that's out there, you know, they're trying to cover and they're trying to make different innuendos excuses and saying that he misspoke and whatever. It looks like if you tell me a misspoke, I'm just like, well, okay, did you even know what the hell you were saying, I mean, it was a lot. If you're supposedly running for vice president, you got to have the person running for president cover you and say that you misspoke and be your spokesperson behind you. You know, is that who we really want to be in power? I mean, that's a sad thing on that whole level too. It's like, what the hell was she thinking, picking this guy? I mean, did she have a vetting team? What is her team even thinking? You got three people, you're looking at one of them and a glowing clown suit, and he's the one you pick and being honest, it's just it's it's incompetent. You've mentioned walls serving as a governor. What do you think about his record as a governor? Well, it follows in what he's almost done where he's maybe not the highest ranking member of the chameleon party, but he is very far up there where he you know, he'll he'll land on your arm and he'll be the color of your shirt and land of mine and he'll be this and he'll go do whatever and he did that in the first district here. You know, he was a member of the NRA and I'm wearing my black and red flannel and I'm doing this and that, but then, you know, when he got to be governor level and he got the trifectative, you know, I mean, that is true colors came over and I told people this guy's way more liberal than he'd think. I mean, his voting record was to close get more to be get out of the Iraq war, you know, you know, all left policies and when he got here into the state, he basically became a complete left-born dictator. You know, they talked like he reaches across the aisle and he reaches across the aisle and tries to pull you over to the other side. He doesn't shake your hand and say, let's work on this together. It's my way or the highway and that's the sad part about what he did here. I mean, he literally let the cities burn and the documentary of the fall of Minneapolis. I mean, those things came off because the people in the cities, they were in a in a war zone up there and he wouldn't call the guard out because I honestly think he did want to just burn down and just let it go. It's just pathetic three days that took the call to the heart of it. You know, mentioning him and leadership together, you shouldn't even do it. I mean, it's lack of leadership and it was just a horror, you know, the states and disarray right now. We're not united at all. We're more divided. We ever did. Final question. Is there anything that you feel is not being emphasized enough by the media about this story or you feel like it's just not gotten enough attention in general? I think that's one of these things that's building and I, you know, it's like a prairie fire. I mean, it starts off just a spark and it's getting bigger and bigger as the wind blows behind it and you guys out there in the media keep investigating all this stuff that's in his past. Like, I listened to this morning, the guy was like, this is tip of the iceberg of the whole situation, but let's dig into his 31 trips to China. What is the relationship there? No, I don't know. I mean, he's got some skeletons in the closet that go deeper than this. And you know, I think this is exposing the first layer of his chameleon skin and as we dig deeper, we're going to find out way more things. You know, his character to me means there is more dirt because if you're a liar, you're probably a liar at even more levels and for him to be this way with his military service. I mean, I think he's going to have some other things come out that are going to shock the American public. Well, again, thank you so much for making the hard decision and putting your life on the line for all of us and thank you for sitting down with us. Thank you. Stay in touch. That was retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrens and this has been a Saturday edition of Morning Wire. 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VP Nominee Tim Walz's military service has been scrutinized, with claims that he exaggerated his rank and role. Thomas Behrends, who replaced Walz and deployed to Iraq, has led efforts to finally set the record straight. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
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