Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL run for THE Montana Senatesaid he was medically discharged from the military due to injuries he suffered in the line of duty, but his discharge documents tell a different story.
The heavily redacted two-page document obtained by NBC News says Sheehy voluntarily resigned his commission and does not mention any health issues that forced him to remove the uniform, according to a review of the document and a current and former U.S. official familiar with the details of his separation.
Sheehy said as much in his memoir last year, noting that he did develop a health problem, but that was not the reason he left the Navy.
In the book “Mudslingers: A True Story of Aerial Firefighting,” Sheehy wrote that he suffered a severe case of decompression sickness, commonly known as the bends, while riding in a mini-submarine during a training exercise in Hawaii. This caused a “little hole in my heart”.
“There would be a period of recovery and evaluation, I was told, before he could return to active duty,” he wrote.
He finally decided to resign. “If I couldn’t be on the field, leading the way, then it was time to consider doing something else,” he wrote. “I had dedicated my time; I was free to leave if that was what I wanted.
In a statement to NBC News, a Sheehy campaign spokesperson offered a more nuanced explanation.
“Tim Sheehy was honorably discharged from the Navy after being found medically unfit to continue serving as a Navy SEAL in 2014,” the spokesperson said. “After Tim left active duty in 2014, he was then in the Navy Individual Ready Reserve (IRR)” – a section of the Naval Reserve – “until his honorable discharge in 2019.”
The spokesperson did not directly explain why Sheehy’s release documents contradict his claims that he was released for medical reasons.
A decorated military career
What is indisputable is that Sheehy had a decorated military career. He received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat in one of the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan, as well as the Bronze Star for bravery.
Sheehy’s apparently false claims that he was medically discharged add to the number of statements he made on his military record that have been called into question. He was already under scrutiny for claiming he was shot down in Afghanistanwhich was contradicted by a National Park Service ranger who told reporters that Sheehy committed suicide in an accident at Glacier National Park in 2015.
Sheehy’s showdown with Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. Sheehy, a Republican who operates an aerial firefighting business, is leading in testing in the polls. With Democrats holding a razor-thin majority, the outcome could determine which party controls the Senate.
Sheehy has made his military service a central part of his campaign. In interviews with conservative podcast hosts, he said he was forced to leave the military due to injury.
“So finally, they said, ‘Hey, you’re at the end of the road, you know, you’ve got shrapnel in you, you’ve got a bullet in you, you’ve had head trauma, you know. , you get out of here,’” Sheehy said on the “First Class Fatherhood” podcast in November.
In March, he said on “The Victor Davis Hanson Show” podcast that he had served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and had “been wounded and injured several times.”
“Eventually, I was medically discharged from the army,” he added.
Sheehy also submitted a resume to the Montana Legislature in 2021, claiming he had been “medically separated from active duty due to injuries received in Afghanistan.”
He graduated from the Naval Academy in 2008 and left the military six years later after completing his mandatory service, records show.
Sheehy received a Bronze Star for his actions on April 9, 2012, when his patrol came under fire in the Arghandab River Valley, Afghanistan. After a member of his unit was wounded, Sheehy ran 50 yards through enemy fire and shielded the serviceman from incoming fire, according to the Navy citation. As the firefight continued, Sheehy helped establish a landing zone for the medevac helicopter and carried the wounded man 200 yards to evacuate him.
Sheehy received the Purple Heart for an incident that occurred on April 25, 2012. The circumstances are unclear. His campaign did not release the quote, which would provide an account of what happened, and instead referred NBC News to a local news article published the day of the 2015 awards ceremony. In the independent file Helena says he was knocked unconscious by an improvised explosive device.
Sheehy remained ahead of Tester in the polls despite questions about how and where he was shot.
Sheehy recounted in his book and said on the campaign trail that he was shot in the right arm during a battle in Afghanistan in the spring of 2012. But The Washington Post And The New York Times reported that Sheehy told a National Park Service ranger that he was shot in the arm in 2015 when his Colt .45 fell and discharged in a parking lot in Glacier National Park in Montana.
Sheehy was cited for the incident by the park ranger and fined more than $500 for illegally discharging a weapon in a state park. He told the Post he lied to the ranger to protect himself and his fellow SEALs from possible investigation related to the alleged incident in Afghanistan.
Campaign spokesman Sheehy said Tim’s “shot in the arm was a result of his service in Afghanistan.”
“Tim never reported it because he didn’t want to trigger an investigation into his team, be removed from the battlefield and see one of his teammates punished,” the spokesperson said. “It was always about protecting a team member from his unit who he believed might have been responsible due to friendly fire ricocheting into the heat of an engagement with the enemy. »
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com