The charge of stolen valor being laid against Governor Walz by, among others, Senator Vance strikes us as thin gruel — though not without a larger point. The charge is that Mr. Walz bailed from the National Guard, in which he served for a generation, ahead of his unit being sent to Iraq. Politico’s reporting suggests that the Iraq assignment came into view after Command Sergeant Major Walz had decided to leave the Guard and run for Congress.

Mr. Walz is being compared to Senator John Kerry, whose campaign for president in 2004 was defeated by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That was a heroic band of veterans of the Swift Boat campaign in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. The Swift Vets accused Mr. Kerry of being “unfit for command” for exaggerating the deeds for which he was decorated and testifying in Congress against those GIs who stuck with the war.

That was a major element in the 2004 race, and the Swift Vets — an exceptionally admirable group — succeeded on the merits in ending Mr. Kerry’s presidential ambitions. Mr. Walz is kiloparsecs to the left of what we would look for in a vice president, but the allegation against him is less than what the Swift Vets laid to Mr. Kerry. Mr. Walz, moreover, served in the Nebraska and Minnesota National Guards for 24 years, reaching, at the end, command sergeant major.

That is the highest enlisted rank in the Army or the National Guard. It’s revered by officers and enlisted men alike. Anyone in the National Guard can be sent into combat. It’s a risk that’s borne by all guardsmen throughout their service. Some sergeants major who served in the Minnesota Guard have chided Mr. Walz for leaving early. He left, though, for, in a run for Congress, another kind of national service — one that can test another kind of courage.

What strikes us as newsworthy, though, is a phenomenon about which we first wrote in 2010, when Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut was discovered to have spoken of having served “in Vietnam” rather than “during Vietnam.” Mr. Blumenthal is a Marine who served honorably in the reserves but did not appear in Vietnam. He served at a time when many GIs returning from Vietnam were ignored, scorned, ridiculed or called “baby killers.”

That, we wrote, was a time when the Times itself scoffed at the idea that Vietnam had any higher purpose. The war, “then, as now, seemed to lack any rationale except the wrecking of as many lives as possible on both sides,” is how the Times put it. Yet 50 years after we lost the war, it seems that for voters today, Vietnam did have some meaning, or politicians wouldn’t be boasting of having served in Vietnam.

Which is something for the current generation of American youth to think about should they ever be called for the draft. That, after all, is not out of the question, as war clouds scud so furiously in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Where are Mr. Walz and Vice President Harris on the war? Ms. Harris just told a group in Michigan that she was open to the idea of blocking weapons for Israel. How is that going to look to a future generation of youths?