Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is again facing scrutiny over his military record now that he’s the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee. He faced similar questions during campaigns for Congress and again when he ran for governor in 2018 and 2022.

The primary issue remains his retirement from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. A frequent critic of Walz, Tom Behrends, a retired command sergeant major with the Minnesota National Guard who served with Walz, raised questions at a news conference held by Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen in 2022.

“In September 2004, he was conditionally promoted to command sergeant major,” Behrends said then. “After a few weekend Guard drills and being notified we were going to war, he quit in May of 2005. What kind of leader does that?”

In 2022, Walz said he decided to retire from the Guard while running for Congress in 2005 and says he filed his paperwork and was honorably discharged two months before his unit was notified they would deploy to Iraq. In 2003, he deployed to Italy in a support position of active military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan but not to a combat zone.

He responded to Tom Behrends’ accusations in 2022. “I don’t know if Tom just disagrees with my politics or whatever but my record speaks for itself and my accomplishments in uniform speak for itself and there’s many people in this crowd [at an event where he just spoke] too that I served with,” Walz said then. “It’s just unfortunate.”

Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years, also doing stints with Texas, Arkansas and Nebraska units.

The Trump/Vance campaign is also making an issue of comments Walz made at an undated public appearance when talking about gun control. “And we can make sure that those weapons of war that I carried in war is the only place those weapons will appear,” he says in a video recorded from the audience.

Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, seized on that comment. “What was this weapon that you carried into war, given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq?” Vance said.

Walz hasn’t yet commented on what he meant by that. However, there’s no evidence Walz has ever claimed to have served in combat.

Both Walz and Vance are military veterans. Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years, from 1981 to 2005. Vance served in the U.S. Marines from 2003 to 2007 as a military journalist. Neither man saw combat, although Vance did serve in a combat zone.