You say they are trivial, but why would he knowingly have lied if he thought they were trivial? He believed the lies would help him. In truth they were not trivial to the men that served with him and confronted him long before now.

Have you actually researched the history of these statements. Only under pressure from the national media has Walz corrected them.

Keep in mind, Trump is frequently called a liar for hyperbole (exaggerating his own successes). And rightfully so, Trump does exaggerate his own successes. And I think such hyperbole is unnecessary, but I grew up outside of New York and it is common there... the term "New Yorker" connotates a stereotype personality even if not everyone from New York has it.

Now regarding what you refer to as the "far greater false claim that Walz retired to avoid serving in Iraq". It reminds me a bit of the various cases against Trump in DC. The hush money case is all predicated on what Trump was thinking when Stormy Daniels got "hush" money. The cases in Washington are all predicted on what Trump was thinking. And the Georgia case presumes Trump inferred that the Secretary of Georgia should "manufacture" false votes when he said 'find" votes. So, I guess you feel all those cases should be dropped, which is probably true.

Until we have a machine that read minds, we can't be convicting people for we "think" they might have "thought".

Finding someone guilty based on what you think their thought process was, is not likely to stand up in court, once you get to a higher court and away from the bias of a jury or local judge. But it does sell in the "Court of Public Opinion".

But getting back to Walz. Actually, according to his commanding officer it was crystal clear that they were going to deploy to Iraq and Walz knew. The only thing that was unclear was the exact timing of that deployment. Walz made the statement that he would deploy if his unit deployed before declaring he was running for Congress. Whether that knowledge affected his thought process is not known.

Some of his fellow unit members have condemned him for this act, since in their words, he abandoned them. Remember a unit needs to be able to react to threats and the man that trained them would not be leading them. I get why they felt that way, but in the end, it was Walz decision to make, and we can only know what his stated reasons were.

So while we know the timing of Walz's actions including that he knew they were going to Iraq in the next year. No one can get inside his head and know for certain (as is also true with Trump) exactly what he was thinking.

I bring up Trump, not as a "what about" argument, but merely to highlight that many people seem prepare to claim to read Trump's mind and then tell people they should not presume the worse in Walz's case.

On this claim, all we know is Walz did not go and went on to run for Congress. He did serve for 24 years, and no one should take that away from him. He knowingly exaggerated his service and did not correct his "mistakes" until forced by the national media to do so.

We know you consider those exaggerations unimportant, and we know many in the military don't feel the same way you do. No one should tell you how to feel, and no one should tell the people in the military how to feel.

You see little harm in exaggerating someone's retired rank, again you have that right. I live in the town immediately adjacent to Camp Pendleton, one of the primary marine bases in the US. Many retirees don't share your opinion.

I am not trying to convince you to charge your mind, I only challenged you because Vance did not disparage Walz's "service" and he has made that clear more than once, that Walz served honorably. Vance challenged Walz's misrepresentation of that service, which in military jargon is "stolen valor".

This deep dive into Walz's past is in fact the job of the media and the opposition party. It is part of the vetting process. No one goes through life for 60 years without accumulating some skeletons and lies in their history... certainly Trump, Harris, and Biden have them.

Walz and Vance are going through the vetting process (I do believe in focusing on facts rather than making stuff up). There will be things about Walz and Vance that people discover that will trouble them and things they discover that they won't care about. And even things they discover that they might feel more inclined to vote for someone over.

My father served honorably in WW2, but never left this country. My uncle served honorably in WW2 and is buried in a military graveyard in England after his body was recovered, when his bomber crashed returning to England. Both served honorably, but there is no way to equate the sacrifice of the two.