This is going to take a bit to unravel:  The Republican challenger for Jon Tester’s Senate seat in Montana, a former Navy SEAL, lied after being wounded in Afghanistan and then lied again about being shot during a visit to a national park more than a year after returning home.

Per the Washington Post (via gift link), Tim Sheehy has boasted about being tough, citing a scar in his arm as his wound from his duty in Afghanistan.  “I got thick skin — though it’s not thick enough. I have a bullet stuck in this arm still from Afghanistan,” he was recorded saying at a December campaign event.  But according to a park ranger’s report of a 2015 incident, Sheehy claimed he got the arm wound after a handgun he was cleaning while camping at Glacier National Park fell and fired–why a former Navy SEAL would be cleaning a loaded weapon is a different question–causing the arm wound.

Now, in 2024, after being questioned about the 2015 ranger report uncovered by the Post, Sheehy came up with a third, exceptionally complicated story:  Sheehy told the Post he admits to lying to the park ranger in 2015.  He did so, he said, to cover up the fact that he never reported being shot while in Afghanistan because he did not want to get his platoonmates in trouble.  He claims he does not know if the wound, which he described in his mandatory candidate autobiography as a result of a ricochet, came from friendly fire or an enemy shot, so instead of potentially getting causing a huge investigation that could implicate a careless SEAL, he chose to just live with a bullet in his arm.

Sheehy says he injured his arm by slicing it on some sharp rocks when he fell while hiking at Glacier National Park and required emergency evacuation.  While being admitted to the emergency room at the hospital, he told the hospital staff about the bullet in the arm, and they alerted park rangers about the firearm wound.  Instead of saying it was an old war wound–which he’s now claiming it is–Sheehy told the ranger it was an accident.

None of his excuses makes sense.  First, if he was struck with a friendly fire ricochet during a combat mission, it’s hard to imagine any disciplinary board finding fault with a member of his platoon–unless the assholes were fooling around at the time of the weapon’s discharge.  And if it was a ricochet from enemy fire, he should get (another) Purple Heart.  (For the record:  Sheehy received a Purple Heart for another incident that was verified.  He also received a Bronze Star.). Doctors and nurses in emergency rooms, even in Kalispell, know what a fresh bullet wound looks like.

After reviewing X-rays provided to the Post by the campaign, doctors interviewed by the Post cast doubt on Sheehy’s story, saying the bullet doesn’t look misshapen enough to be a ricochet and the caliber of the round doesn’t appear to match one from an assault weapon; one doctor speculated it was a low-velocity round from a handgun.