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Aug. 8, 2024 - Stew Peters Show
34:36
RE-RUN: STOLEN VALOR: Governor Walz Lied About Army Service, Retired CSM Details Cowardice
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Do you think it's a problem?
Well, just days ago, there were articles released in the public about a man who has been elected to Congress and is now a governor and did it all on the backs of a campaign that said he was something he wasn't in the military.
I'm talking about Minnesota Governor, Mr.
Tim Walz.
Today, we are going to discuss his stolen valor with retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrens, who took his spot when Governor Tim Walz decided to retire early, turn tail, and run away from his obligation to lead his soldiers overseas.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
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Okay, so as I said, stolen valor.
Stolen valor is just, it's unacceptable.
It's even more unacceptable, if it's possible, to be even more unacceptable when you use it to manipulate constituents to vote for you.
To vote you into an elected office in the US House of Representatives, and then to vote you in to a governorship of the state of Minnesota.
Mr.
Tim Walls spoke about how he was a retired Command Sergeant Major over and over and over again, but he's not.
The truth is that Governor Tim Walz was conditionally promoted to Command Sergeant Major and would have held said position and rank had he completed the requirements of holding that rank, which means there's education requirements, there's also training requirements that have to be completed within a certain time period for you to keep that rank.
He didn't do that.
What he did, in fact, was quit.
He quit on the Minnesota Army National Guard, the Red Bulls, he quit on his soldiers, and he quit on himself.
You see, Governor Walz's career contract was set to end sometime in late 2007.
In 2005, when we were all told, because I was part of this deployment too, when we were all told that we were going to Iraq, he went behind closed doors with somebody, God knows who, and negotiated an early retirement and chose not to see out his contract until late 2007.
Turned in his paperwork and he walked out the door.
Now, by some accounts, nobody really knew what happened to him.
He just stopped showing up because he was retired.
There was no ceremony, to the best of my knowledge.
There was no party.
Maybe there was, but it was pretty hush-hush, if you ask me.
That's what it sounds like.
So today we are going to talk to Command Sergeant Major retired Thomas Behrens, who is the man that took Governor Walz's place leading his battalion overseas.
Now keep in mind that this was the longest deployment of any brigade size element in the whole course of the war.
Or at least up until like 2012, there was some brigades after that that spent more time than I stand corrected.
But we were gone from our families and from our home for about two years.
We came home in July of 2007 after leaving September of 2005.
And so Sergeant Major Barron was then put in charge of this battalion-sized element and leading those soldiers and taking care of them and seeing that to their well-being, making sure that they're doing the right thing and coming home alive.
So we're going to talk to him.
So please stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Hey everybody, welcome back here.
And as I promised you before we went to a quick break, I have for you retired Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrens.
Sergeant Major, how you doing?
Great, how are you?
I'm very good.
Thank you very much for joining us here today.
As you and I discussed offline, it was last week.
Big story in the news.
You and others now are calling our shameful Minnesota Governor Tim Walls out on stolen valor.
And I would like to just have you tell us about your experience working with him.
From what I understand, you were the man that replaced him when he decided to run like a coward and quit from deployment, yes?
That is correct, yep.
Okay, so can you just kind of tell us, tell our audience how all that went down?
Because here's the thing, is people are going to question, well, you know, maybe he was close to retirement and maybe there was other things going on and he just couldn't serve in that capacity.
And I believe that you know and I know and many others know that that's not the case.
Exactly.
That's why we...
We published The Truth About Tim Walls and got that out there back in 2018 because he just omits facts and lies, basically.
Some people say that, well, it's misleading.
It's like, well, it ain't misleading.
He's actually...
Bald face lying about his service record in order to make it look like he just retired before this deployment took place and that he was a retired command sergeant major, which he never was.
And all those things, you know, when we brought it out in 18, you know, it kind of got swept under the rug.
You know, people were like, oh, that can't be.
He had a couple articles with MPR and one of the Star Tribune.
Just these big fluffy articles about how wonderful he was and he's the greatest leader in the world and all this crap.
And I was like, you know, they don't even know what this guy's like.
So, you know, going back in time in 2001, right after 9-1-1, he re-enlisted for six years.
And his six-year enlistment was, according to his paperwork, would have been up on The 16th of September in 2007.
That's how long that six-year time frame that he re-enlisted for, that's how far it went out, it was 07.
And We ended up working with Operation Enduring Freedom in 03 and 04 in Europe.
He was down in Italy and I was up in England and we were both first sergeants then.
When we got back, the command sergeant major is going to retire.
And then, you know, we were in competition for it, and there was another sergeant major, just a straight sergeant major job, that was available in Brooklyn Park.
And when the promotion list came out, I was top guy in the state, so then they picked me for the...
The Division Sergeant Major job, and then that fall that he ended up getting selected for the Command Sergeant Major job, and that would have been in 04.
So he was conditionally promoted in 04, and I was conditionally promoted to Sergeant Major at the same time because we didn't have the Academy, Sergeant Major's Academy done.
Sergeant Major, can I interrupt you real quick?
Can you explain to the audience what a conditional promotion is and what that means?
A conditional promotion is a promotion that if you do not meet the conditions of that promotion, the promotion is null and void like it never happened.
So when I was promoted, if I would have did what he did and quit and Didn't finish the academy and didn't do my two years after finishing the academy.
I would have been reduced to E8 exactly the same way he was.
And basically, the division command sergeant major at the time back then, I asked him, I said, so what happens to you then?
And he said, basically, you cannot call yourself a command sergeant major.
You are a retired first sergeant or master sergeant is what he said you would call yourself.
Okay, so then the idea is that this, for Tim, it was, you're going to be promoted to sergeant major.
There is training and education requirements that need to be fulfilled for you to keep the promotion.
Correct.
And on top of that, after you graduate from the academy, I mean, they basically give you, going through that school, you accumulate like 42 college credits.
So this school is, you know, the most high-level non-commissioned officer school that there is, and they put a lot of money into the people that go to it, so they want to Get some of that back out of you after you graduate.
Another stipulation is that you need to stay in for two years after you graduate, more or less, so that they get the bang for their buck out of you.
Because otherwise, you could go to the school and then you could just retire and collect retirement without doing your obligations.
How long is a school?
Well, for non-resident, they have a resident course, which is actually almost a year long.
They go to El Paso.
That's what the regular Army people do.
And a National Guard person can go to it also.
But normally we do the non-resident course, which is you have two years to do a whole bunch of correspondence course, you know, and you do this on your own time at home.
And then you have a two-week course.
It's a full-time course that you go down to El Paso, and then that kind of finishes everything off, and then you graduate when that's done.
So that's what both him and I were both in the non-resident course.
He did a lot of his non-resident course work when he was in Italy.
I think he was scheduled to go to the resident course in the summer of 05, but he actually quit in May.
He dropped out of the school, basically.
So essentially, it should have taken him about four years to fulfill these, three to four years to fulfill these requirements that were put upon him for his conditional promotion.
Exactly.
Because like myself, I went to the academy, the two-week or the final of two-week part of it in 06.
And then, so I had to stay in basically until 08, 2008 to have my promotion stick.
Okay, so let's go back then before I interrupted you.
I know we kind of got lost off in the weeds.
So you guys were in England, he was in Italy, the CSM spot came up and then there was also a division spot and deployment was announced.
Yep, the deployment, you know, the warning order came out, I think it was in February, maybe early March.
It was somewhere in that time frame.
And I was at a, well, we were training for a warfighter exercise, and, you know, the In Division Artillery, we're attached to the line unit, so we're doing this computerized war game, and then 1st Brigade is where we were at.
We were up at Stillwater.
I know they brought that up, and I was like, well, everybody was like, well, yeah, there's a warning order.
We're going to war.
I was like, well, I'm in Division.
I'm not, I guess, and I'm in one level above Brigade, so I'm I was kind of like, well, I'm not in the unit.
I mean, the whole unit there, they were all, you know, hubbub, hubbub, hubbub, talking about the warning order.
And I was kind of like, well, I'm not on that list.
I'm, you know, on division.
So that kind of was all I thought about it at that point.
We had warfighter going on.
So, you know, we did March drill and April drill and then May drill.
I can't remember where we were at, but then The rumor came out that Walls had a closed door meeting and had retired.
And everybody was like, how in the hell can he do that?
Well, he did.
And this was what year?
This would have been in 05.
2005.
Yeah, May of 05.
So just for clarity, folks, this was a Minnesota Army National Guard deployment that was going to Iraq.
Sergeant Major, you were on it.
I also was on that same trip.
My unit left in September of 2005 and we got back.
Home July 21st of 2007.
It was a long, arduous trip, but we made it.
That's an understatement.
Kind words.
Yes, well you were trying to be nice to the Army, because they've been so nice to us over all these years.
Oh yeah.
So we got back in July of 2007, so if we're following along correctly, If Mr.
Walls would have fulfilled his obligation and led the soldiers in which he was given charge of and willingly took said promotion, his contract was up in September of 07.
Correct.
So any words that were said by him or anybody that supports him that says, well, his contract was coming to an end is full of crap.
Because he would have been home long before the end of his contract.
Okay, so Sergeant Major, all right, so now he retires in May or June of 05 or something like that, and now you're given the CSM position?
Correct.
Once that word came out, I was a 13 Bravo guy.
I mean, I got infantry background also, but I was 13 Bravo First Sergeant for many years, and I was like, well, I said, I'm just waiting for the call because I know what's coming.
I mean, there was other guys out there that weren't, you know, they were first sergeants also, and, you know, they could have easily stepped in and took the position, too.
But, you know, the state's command sergeant major and the division command sergeant major, and then, well, then the colonel actually, you know, he called me, too.
I mean, they were all kind of at me at the same time, late May and then early June.
And then we had a, we had a meeting in, well, we had warfighter going on in June of 05, and then I, you know, and then we had, there was a brigade meeting there also, and then I went to the meeting, and I was sitting in the, in the command sergeant major chair next to the battalion commander, and then, The 1st Brigade CSM, he hadn't even heard what was going on yet.
This was all being done levels above him.
And then he was like, where the hell is walls?
And I said, well, he quit last month.
And then he was just like, that dirty SOB told me he was going.
Don't worry, I'm going.
And it was like, well, I guess he lied to you.
Weird.
Yeah.
Okay, so all this happens.
We go on this almost two year long deployment and we come back and so Now, let's fast forward, Sergeant Major, to...
And for those of you who don't know, now Governor Walz went on to be elected to Congress.
How he won that seat, God only knows.
Well, it was all lies about his service record back in 06.
I mean, he came out and he was just...
Tooting the horn that he was a retired command sergeant major, and he was, he's, if I get elected, I'm going to be the highest ranking person to ever serve in the House.
And I mean, it was just all this BS. I mean, and civilians out here, they had no clue.
Part of the thing that I wanted to bring it out back then, and part of the problem we had was when you're on active duty, you cannot campaign for yourself or for anybody else, and you can't get involved in that stuff.
One guy did back then, he did call him out on it and got it into a paperback here, but Walls just lied his way around that too and told the guy he needed to apologize to him, and it was just ridiculous that You know, he disparaged this other veteran that was actually on active duty that he needed to apologize to Walls.
And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
I mean, you're lying your way to get him off.
He should have never got elected back then.
I think if everybody would have known what kind of snake he was, they would have never elected him.
I mean, it was pretty close, 53 to 47 percent, I think.
Yeah.
Just sad that he even got in there.
Do you think, Sergeant Major, that back then when he was talking all these lies and all these things, and you would think that part of the checks and balances of this process of being elected to Congress and even to the governor of any state, you've got to provide...
Your proof, right?
DD-214 or some kind of paperwork.
And if I'm not mistaken, his DD-214 does or should say that he retired as a Master Sergeant or a First Sergeant.
Right.
Well, what ended up happening with the guy, I mean, and I honestly think he tried to sneak out a new all-man and have...
If he would have had any integrity at all, he would have made them make sure the paperwork was done correctly when he left.
He would have said, hey, I didn't finish the academy.
I need to be reduced to E8 before I walk out that door.
That's what it should have been.
He would have walked out that door as a retired master sergeant and been done with it.
Instead, he tried to sneak out and the state actually caught up That fall, it was months later that they, you know, he actually, his paperwork did show him on paper retiring as a CSM. But then he ended up, you know, they corrected it then and reduced him to Master Sergeant.
Right.
You know, somebody must have caught it somewhere along the line.
I don't think he had the integrity to do it himself.
He should have, but he didn't.
I think he thought he was just going to sneak out.
Yes, absolutely.
And the point of all this is, of my comment, is that he got through all these levels and nobody...
Clearly somebody in the Department of the Army or NGB or something caught it because they corrected it.
He got through all these places, elected to Congress.
He was on the Board of Education at some point.
But more importantly, elected to Congress and then elected to be governor of the state of Minnesota.
And nobody caught the fact that...
He was lying and that all this campaign materials, as you have said publicly in another interview, campaign materials said that he was a retired CSM. You know, it's one thing for you or me as a civilian or a citizen receiving this crap in the mail to get it and call it out.
You would think that through the checks and balances of the process of being elected that somebody would have caught this.
You'd honestly think he would have done it himself.
I mean, if I was running for office and I was...
You know, and paperwork was put out there that had, you know, the wrong rank on it, and you knew you weren't that.
And he knows damn well he's not a retired command sergeant major.
I mean, there's no doubt in anybody's mind that he's not.
So for these documents to be out there with that, he's just allowing a lie to be spread, and he's not getting charged for it.
I mean, it's like somebody told me a couple years ago, it's not against the law for a politician to lie.
I mean, they all do it.
That's where we came out four years ago when it was like, that's enough of this crap.
I mean, how long does he think he can get away with nobody calling him out on being what he's not?
Well, I guarantee you if his paperwork would have said that he was a Sergeant First Class E7, it would have been corrected like that.
Oh yeah, he would have been up in arms about that.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Okay, so...
With all that said, we know that there was lies on paperwork.
There was lies on election materials.
There were lies, lies, lies, and lies.
And now he's running for re-election.
In past interview, you had stated that you tried to contact him about this and give him the opportunity to make it right and to correct it.
You bet.
And he, you got zero answer, right?
Correct?
No answer at all.
I mean, back in, I think it was 16, Heron Lake did a memorial, a veterans memorial here, and you know, the write-up in the paper was Command Sergeant Major, you know, retired this, Command Sergeant Major that.
I mean, it was in there half a dozen times and it was on the, you know, on the On the bulletin they handed out to people, the program, and I ran into a fellow farmer down here and he's like, yeah, I ran into, you know, you're another command sergeant major or whatever.
And I just was like, he's not a command sergeant major.
And he was like, what?
And I said, Well, I said he quit when we were going to go to war, and when he found out we were going to war, he pulled the plug and quit, and I said he didn't do the school.
He was in eight months, maybe, in that position.
Never even went to an annual training.
I mean, he literally had, you know, eight weekend drills and then whatever amount of meetings in between there, you know, brigade meetings or whatever, but I mean, he probably had 10-12 drills is all he did in that E9 position.
He served in that position.
That's the thing.
He was never that.
He just played the game and then pulled the plug.
I mean, it was just a sad thing.
So that came out and I was like, all right, I'm going to be a man to him.
And rather than put it in the paper right away, I'm going to send him a letter as his constituent because I'm in the first district down here.
So I sent him a letter and I was like, you know, thank you for your service and was nice to him.
And I said, you know, I said, but you got to stop this bullshit.
I said, you know, you aren't a retired command sergeant major.
Clear the slate.
I mean, lie again and tell people you didn't know what you're doing or something, but clear the slate and get yourself corrected and whatever.
I never heard a damn feedback from him, so I was like, all right, I gave him an opportunity.
So then I looked and saw all the different, you know, whatever commissions and different things he was on in Washington.
He's on the Armed Services Committee.
You know, in agriculture and different ones.
So I sent letters to the chairman of all of them, basically telling them, you know, this clown here is lying about his service record, and we want to get it corrected because, you know, it's just a bunch of crap.
And I think I got back, you know, one letter that said thank you for whatever, but, you know, nothing happened with that.
And I think part of the thing that happened at that point was You know, when 18 rolled around, I think he saw the writing on the wall.
The word was kind of getting out, and I think he knew that he was probably going to lose the election to Hagedorn then, which he probably would have.
So it was like, well, he can come back here and lie to the people in the state here now, and nobody will know, and probably a pretty good chance of getting elected governor, which unfortunately did happen because, I mean, nobody...
Spread the truth back then.
It was just sad.
Well, and here's what my guess would be about what happened to your letters to him, which for sure he was notified and he read it.
I would be willing to bet my next paycheck on it.
Oh, exactly.
And the letters that were sent to committee chairman and anywhere else you sent, what happens is these members of Congress and their cronies, they get these letters, they get a ton of them, and if there isn't a pile of letters that all say the same thing, they all get thrown in the shredder.
And so nobody cares about Tom Behrens from Minnesota who is talking crap about Congressman Walls because you may have been the only one.
You're probably the only one that had the testicular fortitude to call the guy out.
But now there's two of us, right?
Because you're doing it, I'm doing it, and hopefully a lot of others will jump on board.
But here's what I want to ask you.
We've got a few minutes left, Sergeant Major, but here's what I want to ask you.
I am going to, on this show, on this platform, right here today, I am going to issue a challenge to Governor Walz, or anybody that says they represent him, To come out publicly and have a conversation or make a statement, do something to show that you have some integrity.
If given the opportunity to have such conversations, Sergeant Major, would you be willing to sit across the table from Governor Walz and have a conversation with him?
Absolutely.
I would have a civil conversation.
He's too chicken to debate Scott Jensen.
Debate me.
I'll talk to you and we'll figure this thing out.
The public needs to know.
Let's reenact the meeting you had in New Ulm in May and have the key players there.
That everybody can hear exactly what happened.
I mean, that way, the public knows exactly how much you're lying.
And I don't think you've got the gumption or the balls to debate anybody at this point.
Well, absolutely.
So, there it is.
Everybody watching this, everybody listening to this, Governor Walz, I know that you'll see this at some point.
The ball's in your court, sir.
Make it right.
Put out the information.
And if Sergeant Major Behrens is wrong, and I'm wrong, then prove us wrong.
Exactly.
But I'm willing to bet that you don't have that proof, and I'm also willing to bet that you also do not have the testicular fortitude to come out and make it right.
Because I believe that you're a coward.
Sergeant Major, we got like two minutes left.
I'm going to give you the last two minutes.
The floor is yours.
What do you want us to know?
Well, there's a, you know, one thing that I thought about, you know, being with 911 right behind us, you know, that if you look at how the burning towers were and, you know, just picture All the civilians are out of there and the first brigade is ordered to go up the stairs and we're going up the stairs and then we see this there's a guy coming down the stairs and it's Tim Walls and people are like Tim, where are you going?
And he's like, I got more important things to do.
Yeah.
Then he goes down a little further and, you know, more soldiers are like, well, where are you going, Tim?
Don't worry, I'll be back.
And then we get up further and then we look down and there he's on the street down there.
I mean, that's literally what he did.
I mean, we were going into the tooth of the tiger.
Yeah.
And he ran down.
And that's the sad part about what goes on.
With the same way that he was with the riots in the city.
I mean, I don't call them the George Floyd riots.
I call them the Tim Walz riots because that's what he did.
In closing, I guess I'd like to...
There was an old joke about the French military rifle and...
Here's Tim Walz's military rifle.
For sale.
Never fired.
Dropped once.
And that's no joke.
Never fired, only dropped once, folks.
I love that, Sergeant Major.
And just to reiterate what you said, we were going into the teeth of the tiger.
Minnesota National Guard soldiers were in Iraq for the bloodiest and most dangerous time in that war.
That's for damn sure.
And we did an amazing job, everybody.
We did lose some soldiers, but I feel like we did a lot better than many active duty units and other National Guard units.
Oh yeah, we made a big difference.
We can hold our head high for what we did.
And when Mr.
Walz retires, and hopefully we have the debate, I can give him this hat I got for him.
That's Master Sergeant Retired Hat.
And we have our debate and we get this cleared.
Then I'll hand this off to him for when he gets thrown out of office here.
Move on.
There you go, Governor Walz.
You even get trinkets.
You get trinkets when you come to make things right.
Okay, everybody, thank you for joining us.
Sergeant Major Barron, I really appreciate you.
Thank you for your service, and thank you for being with us today.
Thank you for yours also.
I approve of this message.
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