We covered this a couple of days ago based on a clip, but the entire interview with retired Minnesota National Guard Command Sergeant Major Doug Julin is worth watching. CNN's Laura Coates spent ten minutes on Thursday night trying to defend Tim Walz through most of it, but Julin would not be deterred. Not only did Walz know that his unit would be deployed when he suddenly retired, Walz back-doored Julin in applying for retirement, he explains, leaving his unit in the lurch. 

And there's a reason Walz did that -- a very clear reason, Julin points out:

Tonight’s @thelauracoates interview with Walz’ direct enlisted superior [retired CSM] Doug Julin is pretty damning- Julin says sr leaders learned abt deployment in fall 2004 and Walz initially was going to stay and deploy before changing his mind. (1/2)pic.twitter.com/ayz7ESBAzA https://t.co/8a3K5eW7Dl

— Peter Meijer (@RepMeijer) August 10, 2024

COATES: Is your concern that it's -- oh, go ahead. I do want to ask this question quickly, Sergeant Major, and I appreciate your time, but is your -- [crosstalk] -- concern about the manner in which he did not speak to you or his decision to retire, which he, as we've talked about, he would have been entitled to do, which causes the most concern? Because that is the focus that so many people are wondering about, whether he has done something wrong in service or done something personally to offend you.

JULIN: No, he did something wrong in service, as I stated before. He knew the policies and procedures and how we go to leadership and address issues or discuss issues and concerns out there. Again, backing up, he had told me, no, I'm going forward, we're going to go with the battalion, and go from there. So, I'm under the believing, he told me he was going forward. I'm underneath that believing that he's going forward. He went around me, which he should have addressed it with me so he could help me with some things out there.

COATES: Sergeant Major, this was really -- excuse me, I don't want to cut you off, sir. Finish your point, please, Sergeant Major.

JULIN: He went around me. And the fact is that there's a possibility he probably would have realized. I would have probably said, no, it's too late, you're going forward, because we'd already received our notification of sourcing. And there's one other little point out there that people say, well, he hadn't been notified yet. Yes, he had been notified.

Now, there's another step out there. It is what's called stop loss. Ninety days prior to the actual deployment, we received our orders. And at that time is what's called stop loss, where if you're in a position, you're going forward irregardless, unless there's some really major or process --

COATES: Hmm, okay.

JULIN: -- that gets you out from not going on the deployment itself. So, there's that window of opportunity there. People say, well, he never knew he was going forward. Yeah, he knew he was going forward. Had he gotten his orders yet? No. At that time, he had not.

"Stop-loss" was a bigger story in those days, a controversial policy that had the effect of extending enlistments, sometimes involuntarily. What Julin describes is the reason for the policy and why it's important to military planning and logistics, especially for key leadership positions -- such as Command Sergeants Major. Planned retirements allow for personnel movements ahead of deployments, which gives units such as Walz' time to have new leadership integrate fully into the mission. 

Bailing out within weeks of a deployment, on the other hand, leaves the unit without fully effective leadership. That's why Julin would have rejected the retirement application at that stage -- and knowing that, Walz went around him and over his head instead of following the chain of command. And that's why Julin is so unhappy with Walz. 

And it's not as if Walz didn't have any warning that a deployment would take place. In the first couple of years of the Iraq War, National Guard deployments were common (and also somewhat controversial for that reason), but Walz had a specific warning in the fall of 2004. Yet he waited until the unit got tasked for deployment to suddenly retire:

JULIN: ... And I'm going to kind of start back in the fall of 2004, is what we received, my commander and myself, of the 1st Brigade 34th Infantry Division Brigade Combat Team, what's called a notification of sourcing, which is a NOS. We were informed that we would be alerted to go to Iraq within the next upcoming year or time period out there, start preparing your team, getting your team together, and let's get the process in play.

From that going forward, we met with one of the 125 Field Artillery, introduced ourselves, talked to them, and gave them a heads up, this is what's happening, we don't know the full particulars, but we will get to it.

In approximately February of 2005, my boss, my commander, colonel, and the command team, we scheduled a meeting at Camp Ripley, Minnesota for a meeting, getting everybody together so all the battalion sergeant majors, the battalion commanders, and the staff would get to see each other and kind of start the team building event in that concept there.

At that meeting was Governor Tim Walz or Sergeant Major Tim Walz at the time. When we had the meeting and it was over with, he asked to speak with me, and we sat down and spoke one-on-one, and that's where he informed me, he says, just to let you know, I have put a bid in for Congress. I have not been selected yet, I have not been nominated yet, but I just want to let you know. He gave me a warning order, which we call a warning order out there.

Instead, Walz waited until June and backdoored Julin. And as a provisional CSM himself, Walz knew better, Julin tells Coates:

JULIN: The real thing is that the level that he held at that time, which could have been either a First Sergeant, but he was conditionally promoted to Command Sergeant Major, he knew the rules or the policies or the procedures and the manner of how to address issues going forward.

If this would have been an early entry, low-level ranking individual, different story. We would have understood that, okay, he didn't understand the processes and the procedures. Tim Walz knew the processes and the procedures. He went around me and above and beyond me and went -- and basically went to get somebody to back him, to get him out of there without -- it was just a backdoor process that he handled against me or against the battalion out there.

The most galling part of this, for Julin and others in the unit who deployed without Walz, is his at least tacit embrace of the term "combat veteran." The Iraq War deployment would have been the first combat assignment Walz got in his 24-year National Guard career, and he 'retired' abruptly to avoid it. 

We know how Julin feels about that. How about the rest of Walz' unit? Well, consider just how angry a unit chaplain would have to be to call Walz a coward:

The chaplain of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s field artillery regiment said there is no excuse for the Democratic VP pick to have abandoned his National Guard unit before a critical deployment — not even running for Congress.

“In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy,” retired Capt. Corey Bjertness, now a pastor in Horace, North Dakota, told The Post.

Bjertness, 61, was the chaplain for the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, of which Walz was command sergeant major before retiring in 2005, two months before the unit deployed to Iraq. Walz has said he did so to run for Congress, and he was elected the next year.

“Running for Congress is not an excuse,” Bjertness said of Walz’s decision to quit. “I stopped everything and went to war. I left my wife with three teenagers and a 6-year-old and I was gone for 19 months.” Thomas Behrends, the command sergeant major who replaced Walz, previously told The Post of the Minnesota governor: “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States.”

They seem less than impressed, to say the least.

Clearly this is a legitimate issue for Walz, especially among his own men in the unit. Oddly, we haven't heard from any fellow soldiers defending Walz's actions, which one might expect if these were only allegations from people with political axes to grind. Perhaps we'll get a couple of testimonials later, but I'd bet it will come from veterans who weren't among those deployed in 2005. 

Still, while this is a legit character issue, I wonder just how much impact this will have on the arc of the election. Most voters don't have military experience at all and will look at Walz' service for 24 years as a net positive even with its controversial ending. His repeated lies about the nature of that service will certainly erode that positive take. In the first days of Walz' selection, the controversy can help to define him and Harris in her choice of running mate.

But in truth, voters decide their choice about their own lives, not about the candidates' history. They want an end to corrosive inflation, shrinking wages, and the three-plus years of an invasion on the border. The more Republicans talk about anything else, the more they let Kamala Harris and Tim Walz off the hook for those failures. And I'd bet Democrats are a lot more comfortable talking about Walz' service than they are about Border Czar Kamala's sorry record. 

Duane and I debated this yesterday in our Week in Review, too. Check that out when you get the chance. This week I even provided the audio!

Addendum: It's also in the Headlines, but be sure to read Cynical Publius' essay on Twitter/X [link fixed] as to why he sees this as a critical character and leadership issue.