After writing an update yesterday about the continued questions regarding the email usage of Mr. Thul over at Foreign and Domestic I checked my email and found that he had emailed me directly. Mr. Thul consented to me publishing our exchange, so here it is in its entirety:
Sir-
I am working with the tech support guys at True North to figure out why my military email address is being tied to my posts at True North. As far as I have been able to see, it only appears at True North, and not Foreign and Domestic. I didn't respond to your comment the other day because I assumed you were exaggerating. My email address doesn't appear anywhere on my blog or profile at either site. My mistake, and I apologize.
Once I figure out what the problem is at True North, I will correct it and apologize in a post. I will also alert my chain of command about the situation. Feel free to contact me at this email address or thuljunior72@yahoo.com if you have any questions. Thanks,
Dave Thul
Mr. Thul,
I wish I had checked my email before posting my most recent update. However, if you are willing, I can add this exchange to that post or another post. As I have stated before, my problem is neither with your service nor with your attacks on Congressman Walz although I find the attacks without any merit. You have every right to say the things you say and write the things you write even though I disagree vehemently with them. You should also be commended for your service and honored at every turn for putting your life on the line for this country. I am concerned strictly with the use of the email address used to present these views. If you would, I do have a couple of questions:
1. You stated that you created the blog with the official military email address. Do you continue to use it when logging into blogger or have you transferred over to a different email address?
2. If you are still using your military email to log in, do you know if it is legally allowed to be used in the manner you are using it? For partisan political purposes?
3. Could you direct me to rule or regulation that allows you to use your official military email in this manner?
4. Do you find it at all inappropriate?
5. How would you have reacted to an official military email address being used to attack "conservative" veterans or a "conservative" President?
Thank You for your time and your service,
Eric Austin
aka Political Muse
Eric-
you can add to your post from my emails if you want. I thought your post was very fair in any case. The whole issue has been a bit of a misunderstanding, but I'll try to explain it as best I can. When I joined the local GOP in January, I changed several things on my blogger account because I added a blog for the BPOU. One was my posting name. Previously my posts were written 'by SSG Thul'. This was reviewed by the public affairs officer while I was in Iraq, and found to be in line with regulations. But when I added the GOP blog, I had to change the posting name to avoid having my rank appear on a political blog. Second, I changed my Google account to have a gmail sign in, vs the .mil one. I don't use the gmail account as of yet, I just needed to remove the sign in that showed a .mil address.
Using the screen shot of your Vienna program, the tech guy at True North was able to figure out that the RSS feed was displaying my .mil address. I don't use RSS so I don't understand it very well, but he said the email address was entered manually when the RSS was introduced at True North. The .mil address was the only email address I used in Iraq, and on active duty back here in the US. So that is what True North had on file when they set up the RSS.
So I hope you can understand why I had no idea what you were talking about when you said I was using my .mil address to post. In fact, before I read your post from April, I was pretty sure that Tommy was making the whole thing up. Again, my mistake.
I am writing an apology to post at both sites this morning, but you've been decent about this and I wanted to give you a heads up.
If you have any other questions, please let me know at david.thul@yahoo.com as I am trying to keep all blog and political related emails off my .mil address. There is no regulation that mandates this, I just want to keep well away from any other misunderstandings.
Thanks again for your patience and fairness,
Dave Thul
While this certainly doesn't settle what I believe to be baseless attacks on Congressman Walz, my part of this story appears to be settled. I will leave it to others with military experience to address any continued attacks on Congressman Walz. Hopefully, though, we can stop questioning the service of others simply because we disagree with them politically.
