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Friends say he's a craven coward.

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 “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 exact experience.
You just also have a camera and an obligation to document it.”
Cullen Tiernan, a former Marine Corps combat correspondent who deployed
with JD Vance, pictured alongside the Ohio senator and running mate of
Donald Trump.
Cullen Tiernan, a former Marine Corps combat correspondent who deployed
with JD Vance, pictured alongside the Ohio senator and running mate of
Donald Trump. (Courtesy of Cullen Tiernan)

Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from high school in
2003. He went by the name James D. Hamel at the time, having taken the
last name of his stepfather.

He served for four years with the 2nd Marine Aircraft In Wing, Marine
Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, and was deployed to Iraq
for six months from August 2005 and into 2006, based at Al Asad air base
in western Iraq.

Vance would occasionally go out beyond the wire of the base on missions
to Al Qaim and other towns further up the Euphrates River to document the
work of the Marine Corps. Tiernan said they would carry M16 rifles and
9mm pistols as they did so.

Writing in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance said he was “lucky to
escape any real fighting.” But the period in which he was deployed was by
no means quiet. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq had been raging
for three years by the time Vance arrived in the country. In 2005, Iraqis
voted in national elections and some 844 American service members were
killed across the country.

The next year, a sectarian civil war brought extreme violence between
Sunni and Shia communities and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq,
which would later become Isis.


Movie fans might be familiar with one of the few representations of
combat correspondents on the big screen in the character of Private James
T. “Joker“ Davis, from the 1987 Vietnam War epic by Stanley Kubrick, Full
Metal Jacket.

But Tiernan said the combat correspondent’s primary role was “telling the Marine Corps’ story.”

“These people don’t toot their own horn, so it’s about making their
family and their friends and the people that love them understand what
they’re doing and what their sacrifice entails,” he added.

Vance wrote at least 11 articles for the official website of the Marine
Corps while he was deployed. His first, published on September 11, 2005,
was about the Marine engineers building bases for the Iraq security
forces. In another, he wrote about a daring rescue by Marines of a sniper
who was injured and pinned down in a gun battle in northwestern Iraq.

“Luckily, the sniper was still alive, but he needed immediate medical attention. But, there was a problem. The closest casualty evacuation helicopters were miles away, and were still on the ground. If the
Marine’s life was going to be saved, he needed to be evacuated right
then,” Vance wrote in the article, which included interviews with the
people involved.
Cullen Tiernan, left, pictured with JD Vance, second from right, during
their deployment to Iraq in 2005/6. The image is scribbled with inside
jokes.
Cullen Tiernan, left, pictured with JD Vance, second from right, during
their deployment to Iraq in 2005/6. The image is scribbled with inside
jokes. (Courtesy of Cullen Tiernan)

Tiernan said Vance’s time writing about the Marine Corps was where he
“learned the art” of storytelling, which enabled to tell his family story
in his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The book propelled Vance to
fame and set him on a path to the halls of Congress as Senator of Ohio,
and later to the Republican ticket as candidate for vice president.

Tiernan, a progressive activist who disagrees with Vance politically, was
there for the entire deployment and they remain friends to this day.

“I love JD still. Pretty much everyone I served with — but especially
those I went to Iraq with and have those deep 20-year relationships
[with] — I really do my best not to let politics get in the middle of
it,” he said. “That is not to say that I don’t try to influence the man,
and he certainly tries to influence me in our friendship over the years.”
An article written by JD Vance, who went by the name James D. Hamel, for
a publication of the Marine Expeditionary Force, while he was deployed in
Iraq in 2005.
An article written by JD Vance, who went by the name James D. Hamel, for
a publication of the Marine Expeditionary Force, while he was deployed in
Iraq in 2005. (Screenshot)

Tiernan added that one thing they do agree on is “trying to end wars.”

“I think that he’s in a unique position to try to de-escalate conflicts
because he knows what it’s like to be a person sent to the front lines,
be[ing] away from their family and their friends and everything that they
know that’s familiar. Him not wanting that to happen to other people —
it’s a real important voice to have in politics,” he said.

Both Vance and Tiernan returned from their deployment disillusioned with
the war, and the projection of American military power.

“I left for Iraq in 2005, a young idealist committed to spreading
democracy and liberalism to the backward nations of the world,” Vance
wrote in 2020. “I returned in 2006, skeptical of the war and the ideology
that underpinned it.”

In a statement, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson strongly pushed back against Vance’s claim that Walz had “dropped out” rather than deploy with
the men he led, instead accurately describing the governor’s separation
from service as a normal retirement after nearly a quarter-century in
uniform.

“After 24 years of military service, Governor Walz retired in 2005 and
ran for Congress, where he chaired Veterans Affairs and was a tireless
advocate for our men and women in uniform — and as Vice President of the
United States he will continue to be a relentless champion for our
veterans and military families,” they said.

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