Marine Corps veteran Joey Jones recently sounded off on former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) following comments that downplayed Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s military service. The comments follow a larger discussion regarding Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s prior military service.
For context, Vance served in the Marine Corps as a Public Affairs officer, where he was deployed to Iraq. Former President Trump’s running mate recently addressed the controversy surrounding Walz’s service. Walz is accused of quitting the military in 2005 right as his unit was scheduled to deploy in Iraq. Furthermore, this action reportedly cost Walz a promotion to command sergeant major.
At a recent campaign event, Vance said, “When the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq, to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do it, and I did it honorably. And I’m very proud of that service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit without him, a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served. I think it’s shameful.”
However, Kinzinger, who is an Air Force Veteran, responded to Vance’s comments, downplaying the Ohio Senator’s service, writing, “Ok. JD served honorably, but he wasn’t kicking down doors. He was in public affairs. Which again, is fine and honorable. Tim, after he was eligible for retirement, retired. People do that. If it was a real problem he would have been ‘stop lossed’ and prevented from retiring.”
Jones took issue with Kinzinger’s stance, writing, “I sat behind a 50 cal machine gun in Iraq on roads littered with IEDs. I walked around Afghanistan taking IEDs apart by hand. In Iraq and Afghanistan even pencil pushers were vulnerable to rockets and mortars landing on their heads (see Al Asad this week),” he said. “A chow hall at that very same base was hit in 2007 just before I got there.”
The Marine Corps veteran continued, illustrating the danger posed to anyone who served in the Middle East. “I lost more than one buddy to friendly fire in Afghanistan from foreign nationals on a secured base. Everyone on a base in Iraq or Afghanistan got combat pay because they were literally surrounded by a capable enemy. Adam is a bona fide s*** bird for even posting this.”
Vance continued criticizing Walz for retiring from the National Guard just as his unit would be deployed, “I think it’s shameful to prepare your unit to go to Iraq, to make a promise that you’re going to follow through, and then to drop out right before you actually have to go.” Reportedly, Walz’s reason for dropping out was that he needed to run for Congress.
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Watch Vance sound off on Walz below:
The GOP senator from Ohio added, “He said, ‘We shouldn’t allow weapons that I used in war to be on America’s streets.’ Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? When was this? What was this weapon that you carried into war, given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq, and he has not spent a day in a combat zone? What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.