Editor’s note: This story was updated with a clarification of the rank Gov. Tim Walz held when he retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. He is a former command sergeant major but reverted back to a master sergeant at the end of his career.
When former President Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate in July, the moment marked a milestone for veterans who joined the military following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks: One of their own would be listed on a major-party ticket for the very first time.
Some veterans believe Vance’s ascension is worth celebrating. If he makes it to the White House, post-9/11 veterans will be represented at the highest levels of government, and someone with first-hand experience in America’s Global War on Terror will have the ear of the commander-in-chief.
That possibility is “invaluable” to a generation of veterans who often felt disconnected from the elected officials whose decisions affected ground troops during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said Allison Jaslow, an Iraq War veteran and the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Other prominent veterans who served in those wars are speaking out against Vance, as well as the notion that he represents them.
Those veterans — including retired Marine Corps officers Joe Plenzler and Scott Cooper, as well as Amy McGrath, a former Democratic political candidate from Kentucky and the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps — accused Vance of political flip-flopping and criticized his isolationist stance toward foreign policy.
Vance’s promotion of unfounded claims about the 2020 presidential election doesn’t align with the oath of enlistment and the promise to defend democracy, McGrath argued.
A ‘good thing for our country’
JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2003 under the name James D. Hamel, the Marine Corps confirmed. He served a four-year enlistment as a combat correspondent and deployed to Iraq with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing from August 2005 to February 2006.
Vance left the service in 2007 as a corporal. He later went on to attend Ohio State University and Yale Law School, change his surname to Vance in honor of his maternal grandparents, work as a venture capitalist, write the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy and eventually become a leading voice in conservatism.
When he was nominated in July, some veterans celebrated Vance as the first veteran of any generation to be part of a major-party ticket since John McCain in 2008, as well as the first veteran of the military’s enlisted ranks to be on the ballot since Al Gore in 2000.
That representation of veterans on the ballot — and the perspective an enlisted Marine could bring to the White House — supersedes politics, Jaslow believes.
“The idea of war or what it takes to defend ourselves from terrorism is all too often an abstract concept that people want to intellectualize, when in reality, it’s something that impacts real human lives ... in ways that are lost on many of the American people in real time today,” Jaslow said. “Having a veteran serve in elected office would mean that the men and women whose lives are on the line to defend what we have here at home would be more top of mind than they otherwise would be.”
Likewise, Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine Corps special operations team leader who has authored bestselling memoirs about his service, views Vance’s political ascension as positive, despite Ackerman not agreeing with all of the VP nominee’s political beliefs.
“It should be applauded that we have a veteran running at that level, regardless of what you think about their positions,” Ackerman said. “I think it’s a good and healthy thing for our democracy that at senior decision-making levels you have individuals who served this country and whose experience is informed by that service.”
Vance is likely paving the way for other post-9/11 veterans to be nominated by a major party, Ackerman added.
“On the national stage, he’s the first at the top of the ticket, and I suspect he probably won’t be the last,” Ackerman said. “I think that’s a good thing for our country.”
Hugh Hewitt, a conservative political commentator, wrote in The Washington Post that Trump likely viewed Vance as key to reclaiming the support from veterans that the former president lost between his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. During the 2020 presidential race, polling showed that older veterans overwhelmingly backed Trump, while younger veterans and women veterans significantly preferred President Joe Biden.
Three weeks after Trump announced his VP choice during the Republican National Convention, it remained uncertain how the pick would affect polling.
In an Ipsos poll released July 30, 47% of Americans believe veterans make the best elected officials when compared to people with prior public service or those currently working in law enforcement, business, academia or news and entertainment. When it comes to confidence in elected officials, 76% believe that veterans elected to office would make good decisions.
The poll was based on a sample of 1,238 U.S. residents and conducted on behalf of With Honor Action, a veteran-led group that aims to increase the number of veterans in elected office and foster bipartisanship in Congress.
‘Doesn’t represent’ all veterans
While some veterans view Vance’s nomination as a symbolic win for U.S. veterans and service members, others see his rise as a threat to democracy and foreign policy. They also frown upon his alignment with Trump after Vance initially criticized the former president.
Upon Trump’s election in 2016, Vance called Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” for office and said he could be “America’s Hitler.” By 2021, Vance had reversed his opinion, citing Trump’s accomplishments as president.
“While we share being Marines and from the Great State of Ohio, I’m not voting for him,” said Plenzler, a former infantry officer and combat veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “His flip flop on the presidential candidate gives me whiplash, and I’m looking for someone with a steadier moral compass.”
Michael Smith, a former Navy officer and the executive director of Veterans for Responsible Leadership — a Super PAC comprised of “Never Trump” veterans — said that Vance’s military service was honorable, but his support of Trump’s antidemocratic views is not.
Similarly, Cooper, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who commanded an EA-6B Prowler squadron, criticized Vance for not speaking out against rioters who carried out the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Vance has said that unlike former Vice President Mike Pence, he would have used the VP’s role to contest the outcome of the 2020 election, which he said was “stolen” from Trump.
“We would hope that those who have served in the military would represent moral courage, a willingness to stand apart from the group, at personal risk, for what is right,” Cooper said. “He doesn’t represent what I feel deeply about.”
Naveed Shah, an Iraq War veteran and the political director of Common Defense, a progressive veterans organization, argued that people shouldn’t vote for candidates merely because of their status as veterans. Like Cooper, Shah doesn’t believe Vance represents the values held by some veterans of his generation.
McGrath, a veteran political candidate who lost her bid in 2020 to unseat Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., likewise said she would support a post-9/11 veteran making it onto a major-party ticket if the person stood for the values that American veterans fought for throughout history. Vance is not that person, McGrath argued.
“We have veterans who are Republicans, we have veterans who are Democrats, we have veterans who are conservative and we have veterans who are liberal. The red line is democracy itself,” McGrath said. “If you’re somebody who perpetuates a lie, particularly continuing to say that the last election was unfair, you’re basically doing the work of our adversaries. ... That’s so disturbing to me.”
In particular, McGrath and Plenzler criticized Vance’s “America First” approach to foreign policy. He would dismantle “a system of allies and partners” built by the Greatest Generation and abdicate the country’s responsibility to lead on the world stage, they argued.
Vance has accused America’s NATO allies of not paying for their fair share to support Kyiv, and earlier this year, he joined 14 other Republican senators to oppose an aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Vance has said his military service helped to shape his beliefs on foreign policy. When he enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating high school, Vance believed in the mission of the Iraq War — a belief he now describes as a mistake. Vance reflected on that time of his life in a speech on the Senate floor in April while arguing against sending aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
“I believed the propaganda of the George W. Bush administration that we needed to invade Iraq, that it was a war for freedom and democracy,” Vance said. “I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to, that the promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, who won the Democratic presidential nomination Monday, chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a longtime member of the Army National Guard, as her running mate, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday morning.
In addition to Walz, Harris’ pool of potential VP picks included Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran, and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former astronaut and Navy aviator.
Walz enlisted in the National Guard in 1981 at the age of 17, and he ascended to the rank of command sergeant major, said Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s state public affairs officer. He retired in 2005 as a master sergeant because “he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Augé said. He later became the highest ranking enlisted soldier to serve in Congress.
This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.
Nikki Wentling covers disinformation and extremism for Military Times. She's reported on veterans and military communities for eight years and has also covered technology, politics, health care and crime. Her work has earned multiple honors from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the Arkansas Associated Press Managing Editors and others.
