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I can't speak to the military, but it appears that his provisional rank was wholly within the confines of the Academy. He had no real-life command. If he completed the academy he would have been returned to his unit as a Command Sergeant Major, but he did not complete the academy and his provisional rank was revoked before he returned.

There is an extra twist to this story:

On May 16th, 2005 he quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war. His excuse to other leaders was that he needed to retire in order to run for congress. Which is false, according to a Department of Defense Directive, he could have run and requested permission from the Secretary of Defense before entering active duty; as many reservists have. If he had retired normally and respectfully, you would think he would have ensured his retirement documents were correctly filled out and signed, and that he would have ensured he was reduced to Master Sergeant for dropping out of the academy. Instead he waited for the paperwork to catch up to him. His official retirement document states, SOLDIER NOT AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE.
On September 10th, 2005 conditionally promoted Command Sergeant Major Walz was reduced to Master Sergeant. It took a while for the system to catch up to him as it was uncharted territory...

Was Master Sergeant Wilz intentionally disrupting the paper flow in order to retain his conditional rank for a longer period of time?

-PJ