Decorated Marine combat veteran and congressman Seth Moulton downplayed the importance of Pete Buttigieg’s military experience in the wake of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani’s death.
“There’s no combat veterans left in the race. I have tremendous respect for Pete’s service as an analyst, but analysts don’t make decisions,” Moulton told the New York Times. A House representative from Massachusetts, Moulton also briefly sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Buttigieg, 37, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a leading Democratic presidential candidate, has stressed his Navy background when criticizing the strategy behind President Trump’s ordered killing of Soleimani and to blunt criticism that he is too young and inexperienced to be in the Oval Office.
“As a military intelligence officer on the ground in Afghanistan,” Buttigieg said in Iowa on Friday, “I was trained to ask these questions before a decision is made.”
While Buttigieg has been described as a combat veteran because he was deployed to a war zone, he never fired his weapon, came under fire, or fought in battle. He served in the Navy Reserve from 2009 to 2017 and attained the rank of lieutenant. During his first mayoral term in 2014, Buttigieg served about six months in Kabul, Afghanistan. He spent much of his time behind a desk as an intelligence officer but has often mentioned that he left the safety of the military base and “crossed the wire” 119 times, by his own count, while driving an armored vehicle.
Moulton, 41, served four tours in Iraq while he was a Marine Corps officer from 2001 to 2008 and was awarded two bronze stars and a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for valor. Part of one of the first American units to reach Baghdad in 2003, Moulton led troops into battles where some were wounded or killed.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 38, is another veteran still seeking the Democratic presidential nomination who was deployed to a combat zone. She deployed to Iraq for 12 months with the Hawaii Army National Guard starting in 2004 and was awarded a Combat Medical Badge for supporting infantry engaged in active combat. In 2009, she led a military police platoon in Kuwait. Gabbard is still in the Hawaii Army National Guard, where she is a major.
Presidential candidates have often come under fire for embellishing or avoiding military service.
Last May, Buttigieg went after Trump for receiving a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels from his father’s doctor in 1968 to avoid the Vietnam draft. When John Kerry was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, a Republican-funded group highlighted veterans who alleged that he lied to get some of his military decorations. President Bill Clinton took heat during his 1992 campaign for enrolling in but not joining the ROTC as a way to avoid the draft, and President George W. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard days before his student draft deferment expired, which allowed him to fulfill service in Texas rather than Vietnam.
Moulton has not endorsed any of his former competitors in the Democratic presidential field, but he has hinted preference toward former Vice President Joe Biden.
“There’s only one candidate who has had to make life-or-death decisions involving American lives, and that’s Vice President Biden,” Moulton said.
Moulton stressed how much he values hands-on military experience in an interview with the Washington Examiner days after he ended his presidential bid in August 2019.
“I have a lot of respect for Tulsi and Pete for their service,” Moulton said. “They did incredibly important service overseas. But I also think that the on-the-ground leadership experience that I uniquely had in this race should be valued for making our commander in chief.”
