Not even close. This guy did 24 years and chose to retire. As long as you have 20 years and a day, you can request to retire. Do you not think hundreds if not thousands retired during the 20 year war? I think stolen valor means bragging he went to Iraq when he didn’t. He never did. This is not going to work.
He re-upped for 6 years. After four years his unit was being shipped out to Iraq, so he quit and was demoted.
He did not retire with the rank he claims.
No, "Stolen Valor" means claiming medals or service when you didn't get them.
This initial article alleges that Walz claimed when he entered Congress to be the "highest-ranking enlisted service member" to be elected to Congress. The authors of the article say that Walz was given a provisional rank of "Command Sergeant Major" conditioned on his successful completion of program at the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy.
However, when Walz found out that his unit was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq, he "retired" from his unit and withdrew from the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. Upon his withdrawal from the Academy, Walz's rank was reverted back to his official rank of Master Sergeant.
The authors of this posted article are alleging that Walz's claim of being the "highest-ranking enlisted service member" to serve in Congress is Stolen Valor, because he's claiming a rank that he isn't entitled to.
-PJ
Re: 5 - Agreed. A crap headline written by a hack “journalist”.
People can fault him for not deploying with his unit but there’s no apparent stolen valor.