Both VP picks are military veterans

(TND) — The next commander in chief will have a military veteran as their vice president.

With Vice President Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, both major party candidates have picked a veteran to join their ticket.

Walz spent 24 years in the Nebraska and Minnesota Army National Guards.

And former President Donald Trump picked former Marine JD Vance, now a freshman senator, to be his running mate last month.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Post-9/11 generation of veterans is ascendant in America today,” Allison Jaslow, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement following the Walz announcement. “We applaud Vice President Harris for heeding our call and choosing a post-9/11 veteran to join her in her candidacy to be Commander-in-Chief. And notably, someone who served in, and led troops, in the enlisted ranks.”

Walz enlisted at 17. Harris, in her social media announcement, said Walz used his GI Bill benefits to go to college and become a teacher.

Walz was a congressman before he was governor, and Politico reports he was the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to serve in Congress at the time.

Vance, the Ohio senator, became the first post-9/11 veteran on a major party presidential ticket when he was announced as Trump’s running mate.

Vance served in the Marines from 2003 to 2007 and was deployed to Iraq.

Walz and Vance are the first veterans on a White House ticket since the late Sen. John McCain in 2008.

And either one will be the first veteran to serve as president or vice president since George W. Bush, who was a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard.

All veterans don’t see eye to eye on national security issues, Jaslow told The National Desk last month. But it’s valuable having a veteran in that position, someone who understands how decisions in Washington impact real troops on the ground.