JD Vance’s military service record: What we can VERIFY

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance has recently criticized the military service record of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, his opponent in the 2024 election. 

Vance argued that Walz’s retirement ahead of his National Guard Unit’s deployment to Iraq and his implication that he served in a combat zone suggested “stolen valor garbage.” Stolen valor is a serious accusation in military circles that refers to someone making false claims about their service. 

After we VERIFIED several claims about Walz’s military service record, including if he retired before his unit deployed to Iraq and whether he saw combat, multiple VERIFY readers emailed and texted us with questions about Vance’s military record. 

The readers wanted to know if Vance served in public relations while in the military and whether it’s true that he never experienced combat, as some people online have claimed. The Walz-Harris campaign has not voiced any criticisms of Vance’s military service record, though some close allies like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have defended Walz against recent attacks.

Here’s what we can VERIFY about Vance’s military service record.

THE SOURCES

• U.S. Marine Corps spokesperson
• Vance’s April 2023 speech during the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Leadership Summit
• Excerpt from Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” published by Military.com
• Military news articles written by Vance under the name Cpl. James D. Hamel in 2005 and 2006
• Vance’s comments to reporters on Aug. 7, 2024
• Comments from NPR veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence on Aug. 7, 2024
• The Independent’s interview with Cullen Tiernan, who served alongside Vance in Iraq as a fellow combat correspondent
• Vance’s thread on X posted on March 19, 2023

WHAT WE FOUND

JD Vance served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a combat correspondent 

Ohio Sen. JD Vance served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a combat correspondent for nearly four years, according to a spokesperson for the Marines. 

The Marine Corps spokesperson confirmed Vance’s dates of service as Sept. 22, 2003, to Sept. 21, 2007. Vance rose to the rank of corporal in September 2005, she said. 

Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Middletown High School in Ohio in 2003, he said during a speech at a Heritage Foundation event in April 2023. 

In an excerpt from his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” that was published by Military.com, Vance identified himself as a “public affairs marine,” or a military journalist.

VERIFY found two military news articles published in 2005 and 2006 that were written by Cpl. James D. Hamel, the name he used to serve in the Marines.

When Vance was about 6, his mother, Beverly, married for the third time. He was adopted by his new stepfather, Robert Hamel, and his mother renamed him James David Hamel. 

Vance spent more than two decades as James David “J.D.” Hamel, the Associated Press reported. In April 2013, as he was about to graduate from Yale, he opted to change his last name to that of his grandmother who raised him – Vance. 

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Vance was deployed to Iraq but didn’t experience combat

Vance spent six months in Iraq during his time with the Marines. His deployment began in August 2005 and ended in February 2006, the Marines spokesperson confirmed.

But Vance did not experience combat in Iraq and has not publicly claimed that he did. 

“I served in a combat zone. I never said that I saw a firefight myself, but I’ve always told the truth about my Marine Corps service,” Vance told reporters on Aug. 7, 2024, while defending his recent criticisms of Walz’s military record. 

Though Vance didn’t see combat as a military journalist, he was “in a war zone in a particularly bad year in Iraq,” Quil Lawrence, a veterans correspondent for NPR, said in early August 2024. 

Vance also wrote about his time in Iraq in “Hillbilly Elegy,” saying in part that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.”

“As a public affairs marine, I would attach to different units to get a sense of their daily routine. Sometimes I’d escort civilian press, but generally I’d take photos or write short stories about individual marines or their work,” Vance wrote in his memoir. “Early in my deployment, I attached to a civil affairs unit to do community outreach. Civil affairs missions were typically considered more dangerous, as a small number of marines would venture into unprotected Iraqi territory to meet with locals.”

Cullen Tiernan, who served alongside Vance in Iraq as a fellow combat correspondent, also told The Independent that 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,” Tiernan told The Independent. “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.”

Vance has been critical of the Iraq war in recent years

Despite serving in Iraq, Vance has been critical in recent years of U.S. forces’ invasion of the country. 

“Twenty years ago we invaded Iraq,” Vance wrote in a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 19, 2023. “The war killed many innocent Iraqis and Americans. It destroyed the oldest Christian populations in the world. It cost over $1 trillion, and turned Iraq into a satellite of Iran. It was an unforced disaster, and I pray that we learn its lessons.”

Vance went on to say that he “supported the war” when he was 18 years old, adding that he enlisted in the Marines a month after the U.S. invaded Iraq and left for bootcamp a few months after he graduated from high school.

“Even though I was just a kid, I still feel guilty for supporting the war,” Vance wrote. 

Nearly a month later, Vance expressed criticism about the war in Iraq again during his April 2023 speech at the Heritage Foundation event.

“I remember thinking to myself that what we would do in Iraq was transform it from a horrible dictatorship into a flowering democracy. And I hate to say that didn’t happen,” Vance said. 

He added later that the “American foreign policy establishment has learned zero lessons from what is perhaps the most unforced and catastrophic error in the history of this country.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

This story is also available in Spanish / Lee este artículo también en español: La carrera militar de JD Vance: Lo que podemos verificar