Speaking during an interview with CNN on Thursday, August 8, Doug Julin, who was above Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in the National Guard hierarchy before Walz dropped out of it in the months before his unit was deployed to Iraq, said that Walz was wrong to do what he did and that Walz went behind his back to get out of deploying because he would have said he could not do so.
Julin, for reference, was a more senior command sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery. He said that in 2004, as the insurgency in Iraq was picking up steam and more Americans were needed for the conflict, the unit’s leadership received a notification from higher up informing them that they were to be deployed to Iraq within the year. Then, when they alerted those below them to prepare for deployment, Walz moved to retire.
Julin then said that, as the unit prepared for deployment in February of 2005, then-Sergeant Major Walz approached him after a pre-deployment meeting to say that he would be running for office and so wanted to give Julin a “warning order” about that plan. Later on, apparently, Walz jumped a few ranks above Julin to get permission to retire, which was against the general rule that he should have gone to his direct superior.
Commenting on that aspect of the situation, Julin said that what happened was against the rules of the unit and was inappropriate given Walz’s rank. Julin said, “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.”
Continuing, Julin said, that Walz obviously knew the rules of the unit and went around them to try and get out of deploying. In his words: “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 to get somebody to back him, to get him out of there.”
Julin went on to add, speaking about Walz’s decision to retire just before deploying, “He did something wrong in service. 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.’”
Further, he said, speaking about Walz seemingly going around him to retire, “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.” Julin said he would have told Walz, “‘No, it’s too late, you’re going forward, because we’d already received our notification of sourcing.’”
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Watch Julin speak to CNN about Walz here: