Mary Troyan

USA Today

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham's military career has been an integral part of his biography, but new details about his tenure as an Air Force reservist could make it less of an asset to his presidential campaign.

Graham, R-S.C., was promoted twice over 10 years, despite performing exceptionally light military duty, and he falsely claimed for years to have been an instructor at the Air Force's Judge Advocate General School, the Washington Post reported Monday.

The report, based largely on Graham's military personnel file obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, raises questions about whether the Air Force gave Graham preferential treatment because he was a member of Congress.

Between 1995 and 2005, Graham was credited with 108 hours of military training, or less than a day-and-a-half per year. During that time, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and then to colonel without completing the expected advanced military coursework, the paper reported.

And from 2006-2015, Graham's official biography said he was senior instructor at the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, but Graham never filled that job. Instead, he was allowed to change his assignment from Alabama to Iraq and Afghanistan to work on detainee policy, the Post reported.

Graham told the paper the promotions were deserved because of his active-duty work before he was elected to public office. He said he didn't correct the inaccuracy about the JAG teaching job because he didn't want to draw attention to his war zone deployments.

Graham retired from the Air Force Reserve on June 1, the day he announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

In addition to his time as a reservist, Graham was a military lawyer for six years of active duty with the Air Force and for five years with the South Carolina Air National Guard. He has been an elected official for 23 of his 33 years of military service, but this is his first campaign as a military retiree.

On Monday, the manager of Graham's presidential campaign defended the senator's military career.

"The bottom line is, Sen. Graham served his country with honor," Christian Ferry said in a statement. "For his service in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force awarded him both the Meritorious Service Medal and the Bronze Star."

The campaign also sent out comments from military leaders praising Graham's service.

"While in theater, Colonel Graham did not hang out at my headquarters or seek special treatment as a United States Senator; nor did he seek to publicize his service," retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, who once commanded military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, said, according to the campaign.

Petraeus said Graham "took on quiet assignments that were significant and important."

"This encompassed work in areas such as the reform of Iraq's troubled detainee operations, included recommendations on the detainee review process that we ultimately established, and addressed a variety of other rule of law challenges we were seeking to confront in both Iraq and Afghanistan," Petraeus said. "His contributions on these matters were substantive and valuable."

Nothing prevented Graham from serving as a reservist while also serving in Congress, but under rules for special federal employees he wasn't paid a salary for his reserve duty.

Throughout his career, Graham has deployed overseas 19 times for 142 days of duty. He retired this year because he turned 60, and will receive a monthly military pension of $2,773, the Post reported.

Phillip Carter, an Iraq war veteran who worked on President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign and was later appointed to a senior position at the Pentagon, defended Graham on Monday.

"Colonel Graham has a very good reputation among senior military officers, military police and JAG communities," said Carter, a lawyer who worked with Graham on detainee policy in 2009.

Carter said Graham's ability to switch his duty from Alabama to Iraq and Afghanistan is not unusual for senior officers.

"At that rank, you get very individual treatment in the personnel system," Carter said. "I give him a fair amount of credit for choosing to do that. I think his service has been honorable and exemplary."

Carter, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for New American Security, called the inaccuracies in Graham's biography a "minor demerit."

"I worry about politicizing military service records this way because service is honorable whether you're a Democrat or a Republican," Carter said.

Graham's military record sets him apart from other GOP presidential candidates. most of whom have never served in uniform. Only former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore were in the armed services decades ago.

Graham has used photos of himself in uniform as part of his campaign, which the Pentagon allows as long as Graham includes a disclaimer saying the photos don't constitute a Defense Department endorsement of his campaign.

Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is an outspoken critic of cuts to the Pentagon's budget and is especially hawkish about using U.S. military force to protect allies and root out terrorism.

On Monday afternoon, Graham's campaign sent out an email about the Washington Post story, alerting supporters to the "mainstream media attacks" and asking for campaign donations.