Tim Sheehy has made his service with the elite fighting force in Iraq a centerpiece of his Senate campaign in Montana in a race that could decide the majority, but the Washington Post has found some inconsistencies in his account of his time as a SEAL.
“Most notably, Sheehy, who now owns an aerial firefighting business, has told voters that he has a bullet in his arm from combat in Afghanistan,” the Post reported. “But he told a National Park Service ranger in 2015 that he had accidentally shot himself when his Colt .45 revolver fell and discharged in Montana’s Glacier National Park, according to a record of the episode filed in court.
“When asked about that account last week, Sheehy told The Washington Post that he had lied to the ranger to protect himself and his former platoonmates from scrutiny over an old bullet wound that he said he had suffered in Afghanistan in 2012.”
Sheehy responded to a new set of questions from the newspaper by posting them on social media and warning supporters of a coming “hit piece attacking me for serving my country.”
“Tim Sheehy humbly served our nation with honor as a Navy SEAL,” said his campaign spokeswoman Katie Martin. “He has never called himself a hero, but he served alongside plenty of them. His military service is well documented and is a matter of public record.”
The official SEAL ethos states that members “do not advertise the nature of [their] work, nor seek recognition for [their] actions,” but that’s challenging to abide by when running for Congress, as five former SEALs have successfully done since 2014, when Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) became the first to be elected.
“There’s this conflict inside the SEAL teams between being the quiet professional, which is the professed ideal, and trading on the reputation of the organization for your own personal benefit,” said Dave Madden, a former Navy SEAL who served with Sheehy in Afghanistan but declined to comment specifically on his former comrade.
The 38-year-old…
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