A Maine mother says her daughter, Nicole M. Dunham of Orrington, was drafted into the Minnesota National Guard in 2005 to serve as a convoy support medic, the same year Minnesota Governor Tim Walz resigned from the Minnesota National Guard to avoid deployment to Iraq.

“Nicole Marie Dunham went to war in place of the governor of Minnesota,” Mary Dunham said Monday morning in an interview with WVOM’s George Hale and Ric Tyler Show.

“Maybe not because of his rank, but my daughter from Maine went to war and he didn’t, he didn’t fulfill his obligation. Nicole’s obligation was over. She left. No, she didn’t specifically replace him, but everyone had to step up to fill a spot he left.”

“Her commitment was to the state of Maine, then to the United States. She is the only person in this unit, the only one (in the) 125th Field Artillery Battalion, who did not come from there, and (Walz) did not go,” she said.

Governor Walz, who was named last week as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate for the likely 2024 Democratic presidential election, continues to face intense criticism for false claims he has made about his military service for nearly two decades.

Although Walz served in the U.S. Army for 25 years, he later glossed over his rank and falsely claimed to have participated in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2005, Walz retired from the Minnesota National Guard, just weeks before his unit was scheduled to deploy to Iraq, a deployment in which the unit suffered numerous casualties.

Dunham joined the U.S. Army in 1998, trained as an emergency medical technician, and then served in the 309th Combat Support Hospital Division of the U.S. Army Reserve from 2005 to 2005.

According to her family, Dunham received the Army Achievement Medal, National Service Defense Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Overseas Service Ribbon, and Armed Forces Reserves Medal.

Her obituary describes her enlistment in the Minnesota National Guard as follows:

In 2005, she proudly served her country as a specialist in the Operation Iraqi Freedom Campaign with the 34th Inventory Division, known as the Red Bulls. Her mission was to provide medical support for convoys from Tallil Air Base to Baghdad Airport, as well as conduct humanitarian missions for the Iraqi people. She was honorably discharged in 2007.

Dunham died on September 13, 2018.

Although Dunham said her daughter was not killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, she said Nicole was frequently in danger and returned from her deployment a changed person.

“Nobody wants to go to war,” Mary Dunham said of her daughter. “Nobody wants to go. She went.”

Even before Walz’s military service came into the spotlight, Dunham’s presence in the unit was unusual because she was the only member of the unit who was not from Minnesota.

But Mary Dunham didn’t connect her daughter’s service in the Minnesota unit with Walz’s early retirement until soldiers she had served with – other members of the so-called “Red Bulls” – began contacting her on Facebook.

The stolen courage of Governor Tim Walz

Several U.S. military veterans who knew and served with Walz have confirmed that he misrepresented, whitewashed and distorted his military career during his later career as a congressman, governor and now vice presidential candidate.

Since retiring and entering politics, Walz has consistently represented his rank as Command Sergeant Major, but due to his abrupt departure, he was never officially awarded that rank.

Walz has often portrayed himself as a war veteran, talking about carrying a firearm in war zones and allowing people like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refer to him as a war veteran, but his overseas deployment was limited to Italy.

Ret. Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends, who filled Walz’s suddenly vacated command post, was candid about Walz’s exaggeration that he had whitewashed his rank, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that the truth behind the claim was “far more sinister than a lot of people think.”

“He used the rank he never achieved to advance his political career,” Behrends said. “I mean, to this day he claims he’s a retired command sergeant major, but he’s not. He uses other people’s rank to portray himself as a better person than he is.”

John Kolb, the now-retired battalion commander who led Walz and Dunham’s former unit, also confirmed in a strongly worded Facebook post that Walz had misrepresented his military service, particularly the timing and manner of his retirement.

“When the demands of service and leadership at the highest levels became real, he chose a different path,” Kolb said.

According to Kolb, Walz left the MNG early, did not complete the Sergeant Major Academy, violated his enlistment contract, and did not successfully complete a single assignment as a sergeant major.

Kolb also confirmed that Behrends had been chosen to take Walz’s place. He said Behrends “ran toward the guns, not away from them.”

Although Kolb said he had no opinion or criticism of Walz’s 25 years of military service, he clarified that Walz later exaggerated his rank.

“He has neither attained the rank of E9 nor successfully completed any task as such,” Kolb said.

“It is an insult to the noncommissioned officer corps that he continues to hold on to that title. I can sit in the cockpit of an aircraft, but that does not make me a pilot. When the demands of service and leadership at the highest levels became real, he chose a different path,” he said.

Full segment: