CNN anchor’s challenge of Vance’s service doesn’t recognize dangers of Iraq at the time

CNN’s Brianna Keilar challenged Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) own military service after the former Marine blasted Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) for peddling “stolen valor garbage.”

“I also think that J.D. Vance, as a messenger of this, may be an imperfect messenger because, as we have, as you introduced him as a combat correspondent, which was what his title was, but, when you dig a little deeper into that, he was public affairs specialist,” Keilar said.

“Someone who did not see combat, which certainly the title combat correspondent kind of gives you a different impression,” she added.

Vance enlisted in the Marines after high school and was deployed to Iraq from 2005 to 2006 with the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, where he served as a combat correspondent.

The vice presidential hopeful has never claimed he was directly engaged with the enemy during his time in Iraq, a place Walz never was, but he has detailed his time attaching to units to venture into unprotected Iraqi territory on civil affairs missions.

As a “public affairs marine,” Vance would write about the Marines he was with and interact with civilians on these missions, which were often considered “dangerous” given the small number of Marines on them, according to his 2016 book Hillbilly Elegy.

“On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies,” Vance wrote. “One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face.”

American service members in Iraq at the time, including Vance, faced the constant danger of insurgent attacks and deadly improvised explosive devices.

Marine Maj. Megan M. McClung was killed in Iraq along with two other service members when an IED struck their vehicle, according to the Marine Corps.

“McClung, who was 34 at the time of her death, was serving as a media relations officer when a roadside bomb killed her instantly in Ramadi, Iraq, Dec. 6, 2006,” an account of the incident read.

“Of all the hundreds of service members who had been killed during that year alone, almost everyone there at the time worked with someone or knew someone personally who had been killed or severely injured.”

McClung was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the first female Marine officer to be killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

From 2005 to 2006, the number of IED attacks on U.S. and coalition forces ” skyrocketed” to over 3,000 a month, according to a report analyzing the number of roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“U.S. soldiers were dying at much higher rates than they had in the original invasion,” the report read.

Vance slammed Keilar’s comments shortly after she made them.

“It’s easy to sit in the comfort and safety of a @CNN studio and trivialize the service of countless men and women who risked their lives,” Vance said in a statement posted to X. “I served with some of the people mentioned in this thread. I miss them all very much.”