What JD Vance did in Iraq, as told by the friend who served with him

JD Vance sparked a firestorm this week when he accused fellow veteran and Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, of abandoning his unit before it deployed to Iraq.

“When the United States Marine Corps … asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it,” Vance told reporters.  “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq … he dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.”

Democrats were quick to hit back at the claim, pointing out that Walz filed to run for Congress and officially retired from the Minnesota National Guard months before his unit was alerted about deployment. But Vance’s criticism of his opponent’s record has drawn greater scrutiny of his own time as a “combat correspondent” in the Marine Corps, a role that involves gathering news and writing articles for internal Marine Corps publications and facilitating interviews and access for civilian media.

Following his attacks on Walz, some Democratic critics gave him the disparaging nickname ‘<a rel=«nofollow» target="_blank" href=«https://x.com/search?q=%22sergeant%20scribbles%22&src=» https:>Sergeant Scribbles

” because of the clerical nature of his assignment.

But Cullen Tiernan, who served alongside JD Vance in Iraq as a fellow combat correspondent, told The Independent the role was not without danger.

“When we first landed, we got mortar and rockets from Baghdadi, the neighboring town. That was definitely a shock,” he said. “It’s odd to me that people would try to negate or put down what combat correspondents do. When you’re walking in patrol, or when you’re flying in a helicopter that goes into the sandstorm, or when you come upon an IED, and see people who have been blown up, you’re having the same