MORGAN MURPHY: Tim Walz Has Stolen Valor

I tell young people who are considering joining America’s reserves that the first rule is, “Attend all wars.”

Until I went to war in Afghanistan, I felt sheepish whenever I happened to be in uniform and someone thanked me for my service. Honestly, I still feel there’s more I could do, which is a common thread among most veterans I know.

No matter what your service record contains, there’s always another soldier or sailor who has done more. The member who hasn’t deployed feels guilty. The member who has been to war but had a short tour feels guilty.  The member who had a long tour but didn’t see combat feels guilty. The member who saw combat but didn’t get shot feels guilty. And on and on.

In 2020, I met the greatest war hero of my life: Hershel Woodrow “Woody” Williams, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service during World War II in the Battle of Iwo Jima. In the middle of COVID, I’d taken Cpl. Williams to the White House to meet President Donald Trump. On the plane ride back to his home in West Virginia, the old Marine talked about his friends who didn’t come back from the hard fighting of that dreaded island. Though it was 75 years prior, he spoke about it as if it were the day before, and wiped away tears.

Even a Medal of Honor hero felt he could have done more for his country and his comrades in arms.

I believe a heart for service beats strongly within most service members. It is a call to duty, honor, and country. It is also a feeling that never quite subsides, no matter how many deployments, no matter how long retired, no matter how many medals for valor he wears on his chest. We can all do more.

Perhaps that is why many veterans get touchy when there’s even a whiff that a politician has inflated his military service. In his own words, Gov. Tim Walz claimed he was “the highest-ranking enlisted service member ever to serve in Congress.” Yet Walz did not retire as a command sergeant major, but as a master sergeant.