‘I Would Have Told Him, Suck It Up’: Walz’ Decision To Retire Before Deployment Frustrated National Guard Superior

A former non-commissioned officer who served as Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota’s superior said he would not have allowed him to retire shortly before his National Guard unit was ordered to Iraq, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

A 2018 Facebook post by retired Army Command Sergeant Major Thomas Behrends accusing Walz of retiring after learning his unit would be deployed to Iraq resurfaced after Vice President Kamala Harris chose Walz as her running mate in the upcoming presidential election. Retired Army Command Sergeant Major Doug Julin, who was the command sergeant major of the brigade Walz was assigned to, said Walz went over his head in arranging his retirement with higher officers before the unit was scheduled to be deployed, The Washington Post reported.

“I would have analyzed it and challenged him,” Julin told The Washington Post. “It would have been a different discussion, but he went to the higher ranks. He knew I would have told him, ‘Suck it up, we’re going.’”

Julin previously criticized the Minnesota governor in a Sept. 26, 2022, interview with Alpha News, where he expanded on what took place prior to Walz’s May 2005 retirement, calling it a “backdoor deal.”

“I’m going forward,” Julin recalled Walz telling him during an early 2005 meeting he and Walz attended where the unit’s deployment to Iraq was discussed, according to Alpha News. “Then out of nowhere in June of 2005, Tom Behrends is there as the new [command sergeant major].”

Julin said that the sudden retirement caused his fellow soldiers to ask questions.

“Soldiers are thinking, ‘What does he know that I don’t know?’ That’s the kind of message it sends,” he told Alpha News.

“When the nation called, he quit,” Behrends and Herr wrote. “He failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers. And he failed to lead by example. Shameful.”

Walz did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.