"Valor" is a word that got kicked around lately. Trump tried to give valor a bad name. while running mate JD Vance tried an old smear tactic to "swiftboat" Gov. Tim Walz for stealing valor. Trump got called out by the Veterans of Foreign Wars commander as "asinine, for his degrading the importance of the Medal of Honor. Vance had to twist the truth to "swiftboat" Harris's VP mate, Gov. Tim Walz to smear his military record with concocted inuendos He gave Walz no credit for 24 years of service and ignored that at age 41, Walz never would have fought in combat. Army top age: permitted for enlisted: 35. Americans did not buy the smear. Vance's swiftboat got stuck in the slung mud. Per an August 8 YouGov poll, Walz's approval was up 11% since they named Harris's running mate, and Vance's was down.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tim-walz-jd-vance-favorability-poll/story?id=112863591
First, lets fact check the smear. Next, look at the hypocrisy involved in this MAGA swiftboating smear tactic. Last, wise up to the origin of the swift boating smear attack and the attempt to use it again by the same bad actor twenty years later.
Fact-checking: JD Vance tried to smear Harris's VP pick with "stolen valor." Gov. Tim Walz was proud of his 24 years of service in the National Guard. Per Vance, Walz stole his claim to valor because Walz avoided combat by retiring. Top age for active enlisted persons to be in active combat in the army: 35. Vance had to ignore 24 years of service, evidence and timing to come up with that BS..Per https://www.newsweek.com/republican-attacks-tim-walz-not-working-1938441 , Walz had served 4 years past retirement age in the National Guard), and retired in May at age 41. He filed to run for Congress in March 2005 and acknowledged the expected uit call-up in the announcement press release, which was reported by the Associated Press. That announced retirement was over four months in advance of his unit's mobilization in August 2005.
The Trump/Vance hypocrisy of the smear is epic: Trump, for years, famously disrespected acts of valor of our heroes in uniform, reportedly calling those who died in combat losers and suckers and preferring those who were not taken prisoners to those that were like John McCain, who suffered torture under the Viet Cong as a POW. Aside from a suspected nod and a wink, it was bone spurs that got Trump deferred from Vietnam. Last week, he degraded the Medal of Honor given to war heroes. This was a last straw for the head of one of America's largest veterans group the VFW, who responded with .“These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor but also crassly characterize the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty,”.
"Swiftboating" explained: Some background of the term swiftboating: It was one of the most effective smear campaigns in the history of politics and is credited with causing John Kerry to lose the 2004 election for president. Its perpetrators attempted to show that that war hero Kerry did not perform heroically for which he had received medals. The accusation was later found to be a lie. The veterans who had accused Kerry were contradicted by Kerry’s own former crewmen and by Navy records. The same operative who constructed the "Swift boat" smear campaign that sank John Kerry's candidacy for president in 2004, Chris Lacivita, is now the co-manger of the Trump campaign in 2024. Funny how that coincided, isn't it.
Update: 8/29/24. After years of dissing valor and those who gave their lives in defense of our country, Trump tried to make amends by turning a tribute to a fallen warrior at Arlington National Cemetery during the messy American withdrawal in Afghanistan into a thumbs-up campaign photo opportunity. For him, it a; appeared this was an attempt to show he did care about the suckers and losers who died and to highlight the major failure of the Biden administration in engineering an orderly withdrawal. His cult-like followers need to fact-check and learn that Trump set up the withdrawal failure, and Biden's greatest mistake was assuming the Afghan pro-American government would survive the withdrawal. The collapse of the Afghan government was so swift that orderly withdrawal became chaos with the death of 13 American service members. Both Biden and Trump deserve criticism. https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE9XNZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHf2exkin6yrqoq-nJJ8guNUqEWKXzgx82hf6zWZ3uzMHfeFuqdAf7LErsg_aem_dBEs2wWSxYV2INEjxn8njw
While we are on the subject of Afghanistan withdrawal and Abbey Gate, a post appeared on another social media site to which I belong that Abbey Gate and every other military issue under Biden were somehow related. My response: I am getting a little tired of Abbey Gate being held up as an equivalent of school shootings or other diversions from any other issue. Yes, it was a failure of Biden, but the next time I see a posting, I will remind the poster that Trump released the Taliban member who engineered the release of the suicide bomber who killed our 13 servicemen, and there were investigations and inquiries.
FYI some one trying to justify weapons of war to kill kids the same as killings at the Abbey gate needs some serious help with logic. From the Department of Defense review:"With access to analysis from across the intelligence community, we were able to identify the Abbey Gate person-borne IED bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an [ISIS-K] member since 2016," said one Army official on the 12-person, joint supplemental review team.
Update 8/30/24: Trump not only steals respect of valor, he steals dignity from those who gave their lives defending our country. Felicia Muftic
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/29/nx-s1-5092087/trump-arlington-cemetery-altercation-video
https://www.factcheck.org/2004/08/republican-funded-group-attacks-kerrys-war-record Swiftboats were the kind of craft Kerry commanded.
https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/4744762-did-trump-actually-call-veterans-who-died-in-wars-suckers/
Walz never would have fought in combat. He aged out. In the army, active military top combat age for enlisted soldiers is 35. https://www.usa.gov/military-requirements#:~:text=Army%3A%2017%20%2D%2035,Navy%3A%2017%20%2D%2041
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