Letter to the editor: Thank you for your service, Gov. Walz

If Gov. Tim Walz retired from the National Guard in 2005 to avoid deployment to Iraq and to run successfully for Congress on an anti-Iraq war platform — bravo, Mr. Walz!

It was a known fact in 2005 and as early as late 2003 that George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was based on lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Given these facts, it is beyond my comprehension how Bush was reelected in 2004 and how many Americans cluelessly volunteered for the military to fight in a war based on lies (4,431 deaths and 31,994 wounded). The Iraq invasion is a blot on the nation’s conscience and the primary reason Walz was elected to Congress in 2004 and Barack Obama elected president in 2008.

And what does this say about JD Vance, who brags about being a Marine public affairs journalist from 2005 to 2007 with six noncombat months in Iraq? Was Vance’s Iraq “journalism” partially responsible for reinforcing the WMD lies and encouraging more gullible veterans to risk their lives in Bush’s neocon trillion-dollar Middle East debacle?

Thank you for your service, Tim Walz.

Gerald Schiller

Penn Hills