Lee Zeldin, the long-shot Republican nominee facing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in the November election, has for years suggested that he was a combat member of the 82nd Airborne Division during the Iraq War. Though he had a solid, if not particularly remarkable, military career, his Army records indicate otherwise.
Mr. Zeldin, 42, is a four-term member of the House of Representatives from eastern Long Island. Ever since he first appeared on the political scene in 2007, he has consistently pointed to his military record among his qualifications. At one time his official website said he was “on the front lines.” Yet his description of his role during the Iraq War has shifted over time, and he no longer makes the “front lines” claim.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have a tradition of stretching the truth about their military service. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal served in the Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War, but was never deployed to Vietnam, as he had claimed when running for Connecticut attorney general. In the current election season, J.R. Majewski, a Republican House candidate from Ohio, has been criticized for claiming that he served in Afghanistan as a member of the Air Force, without being able to produce documentation to back that up. According to The Associated Press, Mr. Majewski was stationed in Qatar for six months, far from any fighting.
Mr. Zeldin’s records are not so clear-cut but do illustrate a degree of selectivity about his descriptions of his experience overseas.
Jim Lubetkin, a Democrat, is an Amagansett resident who as a first lieutenant in the Army’s Adjutant General’s Corps spent a year stationed in Long Binh during the Vietnam War, acknowledged Mr. Zeldin’s military service, but found fault with how he has presented it. “The point is not what Zeldin said — which was all accurate and true — but what he implied, what was left out. Half-truths are equally half-lies,” Mr. Lubetkin said.
The Army sent Mr. Zeldin to Iraq in mid-July 2006 as part of a legal team in the Judge Advocate General Corps, assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. He returned to Fort Bragg, N.C., in early September of that year, according to copies of his military records obtained by The East Hampton Star in response to a Freedom of Information request.
Mr. Zeldin has said that he was stationed in Tikrit, Iraq; that portion of his record could not be independently verified. Multiple requests to his campaign have gone unanswered.
In all, he spent three months in Iraq. At the time, Pentagon policy dictated that active-duty Army units would be deployed overseas for 12 months; that was later increased to 15 months under Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
When he began his 2007 campaign against the incumbent House Representative Tim Bishop, a Democrat, Mr. Zeldin said that he “deployed to Iraq, with an infantry battalion of fellow paratroopers, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and served on the front lines.” Just 28 years old, he lost to Mr. Bishop by a wide margin. In subsequent statements, the part about the “front lines” was dropped.
Throughout his political life, Mr. Zeldin has continued to highlight his deployment with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, though it occupied about three months out of nearly 20 years of active and reserve military service. While several veterans interviewed see his statements as misleading, others do not.
“I believe that service is service. I don’t make distinctions between one kind of service or another,” said Brian Carabine, a Republican from East Hampton who is a 28-year Marine Corps veteran.
As recently as a 2020 taped speech to the Republican National Convention, Mr. Zeldin continued to present his biographical shorthand as that of a combat veteran, describing himself as “raised in a law-enforcement family, deployed to Iraq as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper, and serving today in the Army Reserve.”
After getting a law degree from Albany Law School in upstate New York in 2003, the future member of Congress completed reserve officer training; then spent four years on active duty as an Army intelligence officer, prosecutor, and military magistrate.
Not at question is Mr. Zeldin’s accomplishments as a military lawyer and intelligence officer. Documents reviewed by The Star show that he rose quickly through the ranks and earned a number of commendations during his time in the Army.
Part of his training included parachute school. Mr. Zeldin recorded at least 18 practice jumps at Fort Benning in Georgia, and the Army awarded him several parachutist’s badges during his active duty.
Mr. Zeldin’s military years began with an assignment at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, working in intelligence, a requirement of which was top-secret security clearance. He received judge advocate officer training at an Army center in Charlottesville, Va., which he completed in 2004. He was promoted to captain that year.
In January 2005, during a transfer to Fort Bragg, the Army assigned him to the 82nd Airborne Division as a legal assistance attorney. He became a trial counsel shortly thereafter. The following year, just before his Iraq deployment, the Army promoted Mr. Zeldin to judge advocate.
He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 2007 while a member of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg. He was discharged from active duty that year and entered the Army Reserve. Other decorations he earned during his service included the Army Commendation Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Iraq Campaign Medal. He ended his term in the Reserve with the rank of major.
Mr. Zeldin enjoyed the months in Iraq, it appeared. In a 2018 social media post he wrote, “While serving in Congress has been an awesome privilege, no job in life has been anywhere near as cool as being an airborne paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division over a decade ago.”
During the three months that he served with the legal team in Iraq, in 2006, at least four members of the 82nd Airborne died in combat. One member of the 82nd, Specialist Thomas J. Barbieri of Gaithersburg, Md., was killed on Aug. 23, 2006, when his patrol encountered small-arms fire during combat operations south of Baghdad. Three members of the division died as a result of mortar fire in early September 2006, in Yusufiyah, a town south of Baghdad. There is no indication that Mr. Zeldin ever came under attack himself.
