GOP Senate candidate’s account of military service 'does not match his own words': report

06 September 2024

Centrist Sen. Jon Tester was among the Democratic rock stars of the 2006 midterms, flipping a U.S. Senate seat in a deep red state and going on to win reelection in 2012 and 2018. But GOP nominee Tim Sheehy, endorsed by former President Donald Trump, may prevent Tester from winning a fourth term in 2024: the incumbent Democrat trails him by 6 percent in a Fabrizio poll released in late August.

Sheehy has been touting his military record on the campaign trail. But according to reporting from The Guardian's Martin Pengelly, Sheehy "appears to have failed to follow Pentagon rules for clearing portions of his autobiography about his time as a U.S. Navy SEAL."

"Responding to Freedom of Information requests," Pengelly explains in an article published on September 6, "officials with the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR) said that after 'thorough searches of the electronic records and files,' they found no record of Sheehy submitting a DD 1910 form, required for all such projects, or any communications at all concerning review and approval of 'Mudslingers,' the book Sheehy published with Permuted Press last year."

Sheehy's book, "Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting," was initially released in hardcover form in late 2023, and a paperback version came out in 2024.

According to Pengelly, some of the Sheehy's claims in campaign speeches are inconsistent with things he said previously.

"Sheehy says that injury, disillusionment over military personnel policies and an unwelcome desk job offer led him to choose to end his military career — a version of events that does not match his own words on the campaign trail, including telling voters he had been 'discharged' owing to wounds sustained on duty," Pengelly reports. "Sheehy has also faced questions over his changing accounts of how he was shot in the arm, why he did not report it at the time, and what he said to a park ranger about the wound when, in 2015, he was cited for illegally discharging a weapon in a national park."

Pengelly adds, "'Mudslinger' runs to 325 pages. Sheehy’s time in the military takes up just 25. Nonetheless, Sheehy's apparent lack of official Pentagon clearance may now add to his list of campaign controversies."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

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