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Army Corporal Jesse Thorsen electrified Ron Paul supporters last night, showing up to the Iowa caucuses in full fatigues, and showing off to a CNN reporter a pretty badass 9/11-memorial neck tattoo. Later that night, Paul invited Thorsen up to the stage during his third-place celebration speech, saying, "He's been serving in the military ten years and he's been overseas a lot, and a lot of it was in Iraq and Afghanistan." Thorsen took the stage, complimented Paul's foreign policy positions, and then lost himself in the moment. "I'm flabbergasted right now. This is an incredible moment for me. It's like meeting a rock star," Thorsen said.

The Huffington Post reported this morning that a soldier politicking in uniform is a violation of military protocol. Online chat boards lit up with heated debates about patriotism, civilian control of the military, and all the tail Corporal Thorsen will get now that his name's attached to "the pheromone" that is Ron Paul.

But there were some looming questions as well. How is a ten-year veteran with two tours under his belt still only a corporal? According to the Army's own promotion timetable any service member not promoted past the rank of corporal after eight years is out of the army. Thorsen has actively served for a little over six years. Military records show Thorsen has served two stints of active duty, first from July 2001 to March 2005, and then from March 2009 to present. So what was he up to during the four years in between?

Florida's Lee County court records show Thorsen was arrested in December 2004 for burglary, grand theft of a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon. He was sentenced in July 2005 to 30 months probation and 120 hours of community service. He broke his probation twice and was held in custody both times. But according to his lawyer, Jean-Paul Galasso, the fact that he received probation for serious-sounding felony charges suggests a less severe set of events. "Generally if someone's not going to prison for burglary of a dwelling there's real extenuating circumstances, like it's probably just a trespass or whatever." The court granted an early termination of his probation in March 2007 because, according to Galasso, Thorsen promised to reenlist. "That's what he had said to the judge, yes," Galasso says.

Thorsen kept his word, reenlisting two years later. In October 2011, he transferred from Arkansas to Army Reserve duty in Des Moines. Three months later, expecting to shortly ship out for a tour in Afghanistan, he met his presidential candidate on national television, and told us all to stop "nitpicking wars with other countries."