US Army deserter readies for legal battle, faces tough odds

US Army deserter readies for legal battle, faces tough odds

rt.com

Four years ago Shepherd deserted the US Army, cutting off the way to his native Cleveland forever.

His mother cried with pride when he volunteered for the army in 2004, but after a six-month tour of duty in Iraq, Andre walked off a US base in Germany and never returned.

"Anything that anyone can possibly imagine in terms of war crimes committed in world history, the American forces have done this and are continuing to do this on a daily basis,” Shepherd says. “The soldiers were being attacked, but they didn’t know from where, so they just shot randomly in different directions."

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This hero, is facing the death penalty for deserting, in what one could say, protest, a american base.
It is a sad turn of events. I hope he wins his legal battle and paves the way for Americans resisting the Iraq war. Both civilian and military. The Iraq war has lost its legitamacy amongst many. It is illegal amongst many more.

rt.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The U.S. Holds great power over many countries governments.

reply to post by SpeachM1litant



He signed a contract, should he not complete it? I am am sure most of us here have at one time entered it to a contractual agreement of some sort. Entering the military requires you to agree to the terms of the contract, and all the terms are both described to you and are presented to you before you sign it. Also they offer you a chance to have a lawyer review the terms.

This man neglected to review the contract as it was spelled out and you want me or other people to...do what?

reply to post by SpeachM1litant


What an utter utter coward. I hope the full force of the law is thrown his way! He should have researched before he joined what it was actually like ..... no excuses or concessions......... There is plenty of "Anti War" sentiment on the internet including this site (But that is not the issue here) he should have looked! You do not need to be an Einstein to find it! He signed so he must complete that contract whether the contract is right or wrong (that is not the issue either) ...... A legal deal is a legal deal no matter what some left wing wimp thinks! ...... No exceptions!. Utter disgrace! What a coward!

reply to post by phatpackage


Being in a war and reading about it are two very different things.

Besides, don't you think deserting requires more "courage" since you're assured the death penalty or life in prison if/when caught? I'd say the coward is the one that disagrees yet continues to be in the army.

Originally posted by phatpackage
reply to post by SpeachM1litant

 

What an utter utter coward. I hope the full force of the law is thrown his way! He should have researched before he joined what it was actually like ..... no excuses or concessions......... There is plenty of "Anti War" sentiment on the internet including this site (But that is not the issue here) he should have looked! You do not need to be an Einstein to find it! He signed so he must complete that contract whether the contract is right or wrong (that is not the issue either) ...... A legal deal is a legal deal no matter what some left wing wimp thinks! ...... No exceptions!. Utter disgrace! What a coward!

I missed my classes on sarcasms, are you for real or are you joking? Honestly I cant tell

reply to post by Somehumanbeing



No you are wrong!. There is many many sources of information with regards to the real happenings in the war. What a scum bag person he is! There are no excuses for cowardice!. If you refuse to join because you do not believe it is right you have ten times more integrity than this coward who joined and changed their mind and deserted. It is one thing to change your mind. That is not the issue it is fulfilling an obligation you agreed to. Doing it to the best of your ability, not running!

Originally posted by Somehumanbeing
reply to post by phatpackage

 

Being in a war and reading about it are two very different things.

Besides, don't you think deserting requires more "courage" since you're assured the death penalty or life in prison if/when caught? I'd say the coward is the one that disagrees yet continues to be in the army.

edit on 26-3-2011 by Somehumanbeing because: (no reason given)

He could have applied for Conscientious Objector Status. He would have been put through some crap, but he would not be going to prison or potentially facing the death penalty.

When you sign up you enter into a contract. There are legal and ethical ways of breaking that contract besides desertion.

He's not a hero, he's a moron who couldn't handle his obligations.

A man is a coward and a moron when he protests by deserting. When he protests a criminal war, where civilians have been murdered. Sure there are better ways to get out of the situation he was in. But that does not warrant a personal attack like many of you here have advocated. He is doing somthing consciensly, he is trying to change somthing even if it is on a small scale. Most of us here do nothing other than talk a big game and complain.
Just keep in mind, reading about co-lateral damage and the crime of war is different than witnessing it first hand. Don't talk about somthing you no nothing about.

reply to post by projectvxn

He could have applied for Conscientious Objector Status

During one of his first asylum hearings in Germany, the court asked him why he didn't get conscientious objector status. His answer boils down to, he doesn't think all war is wrong (which is what you need to agree to in order to get the status), just that he thought the war in Iraq was wrong.

I think what this all boils down to, considering that he'd already spent a tour in Iraq, is that he was afraid of going back to Iraq and being killed; so he deserted. And since he's been running around with the group that he has in Germany, he just spouts a lot of the anti-American stuff because they're supporting him.

So he was naive, and joined the military thinking he was fighting for freedom and truth and justice and all of that. He found out otherwise and left. I see nothing wrong with that. People calling him a coward, I say the ones that disagree with our wars, but continue to follow orders anyway are the cowards.

reply to post by octotom


Or perhaps it is not the thought of dieing, but the thought of being put in a situation of being ordered to shoot more poor people that scares him?

Originally posted by Somehumanbeing
reply to post by phatpackage

 

Being in a war and reading about it are two very different things.

Besides, don't you think deserting requires more "courage" since you're assured the death penalty or life in prison if/when caught? I'd say the coward is the one that disagrees yet continues to be in the army.

edit on 26-3-2011 by Somehumanbeing because: (no reason given)

Being in a sham army counts also... Who the hell are they to dictate what is right or wrong? They will learn that there swords are not as mighty as the will of the people, one day they will fall off their high horse.

There are so many people in these armies these days, sickos, racists, and slackers because they have nothing else, lets not forget that half these people are recruited out of duress due to the fact they have nothing else to turn to and no skills to live life without their derelict armies!

reply to post by TKDRL

Or perhaps it is not the thought of dieing, but the thought of being put in a situation of being ordered to shoot more poor people that scares him?

It's fairly obvious that, since he has no problems with war in general, that he wasn't afraid of being put into a situation where he might have to shoot people.

reply to post by octotom


Big difference between shooting people that have come to invade our country, and shooting people in a country we invaded.... I would be a part of the resistance if someone were to invade our country. I will not partake in invading another country.

The whole way in which recruitment occurs is the reason these cases can even be bought. Legaly speaking , military recruitment is the ONLY area in either UK or US law, which allows a person to sign away his rights. In all other areas of law, even requesting that someone do such a thing is illegal, and any contract made under such an oath is void before the ink is even dry .

In a democratic nation, the idea of a man being asked to sign away his right to determine his own destiny, and to decide for himself which wars to fight, is a hipocrisy of the highest level. It is simply NOT the case, that this element of military recruitment is even necessary, in fact , it holds military organisations back from having enough people in thier ranks to effectively defend a nation (and by that I mean, defend a nation from invasion, with the defence forces working from within its own borders, not the global policing strategies that we have seen in the last two decades).

Another side effect on this insistance on denying a man the right to decide the right and wrong of a situation, and therefore his involvement in it, is that the military will become full of yes men, interspersed with the occasional person with balls AND intelligence enough to say "Excuse me, but I didnt sign up to this army to murder people who cant fight back , and are armed with forty year old weapons. Go to hell."

If you are telling me , that the only people the military want in thier ranks, are those who will just go anywhere and do anything they are told, then you are telling me that you want Nazis and murderers, not respectable warriors, of merit , and moral fortitude. If a mans moral stance prevents him from making war on a certain pretext related to the conduct of his fellows and of his commanders or the government which controls them, then he ought to be able to make that choice, without fear of reprimand.

These pathetic desertion rules are a throw back to when we still thought that PTSD was cowardice, a time when men would be shot for having an involuntary inability to move when told to during a battle. This leads me to believe that a) the people clamouring for this mans head are living in the dark ages, and b) that the laws on desertion need to change. For a start, he didnt desert anyone in a situation which left them at risk, so thats out the window. He left the base in Germany , where there was no fighting occuring, rather than flouncing off in the midst of battle, and thats fair enough. He is not changing sides and defecting to the enemy, so that element of the argument is out the window too.

This man may be considered to be a lot of things, but the only thing he can be accurately called, is honest. He is stating that if he had known that he was to be asked to be a murderer, instead of a warrior, he would never have joined. He is saying that if he had known that his nation was the oppressor and the villan, and the war criminal, that he would never have signed up. Hes honest, alot more honest than those who will after a while, perhaps when they have left military service, realise he was right, but will keep it to themselves.

This man may be considered to be a lot of things, but the only thing he can be accurately called, is honest. He is stating that if he had known that he was to be asked to be a murderer, instead of a warrior, he would never have joined. He is saying that if he had known that his nation was the oppressor and the villan, and the war criminal, that he would never have signed up. Hes honest, alot more honest than those who will after a while, perhaps when they have left military service, realise he was right, but will keep it to themselves.

I've read in other places that becoming a conscientious objector is not easy. But how hard is it? Besides the name-calling and ridicule, can anyone just do it, or are there obstacles deliberately placed in the way?

reply to post by aboutface


I do not know much about the route to becoming a conchy... My own angle on these things is that I cannot join the military because there is no honour in what our soldiers are asked to do now. We arent defending our nation, we are defending resources. No resource is important enough to waste a life protecting. Only lives are worth saving, and only our sovereign soil worth defending. For those things ALONE I would fight.
Going to another mans homeland, to fight a bunch of shepherds and thier AK 47s and ancient mortar guns, with J-DAM missiles, bunkerbusters, Brimstone warheads and thermal imaging cameras is frankly monsterous. My opinion is that there hasnt been a war worth fighting for my nation since WW2 and thats about all I can say about it.

reply to post by SpeachM1litant

What gets me is if you're drafted into the war and given no choice and you desert you're the same as a guy that voluntarily joins and deserts. To me that's not right and shouldn't be the case. A guy that voluntarily joins is responsible for his choice. He should understand what he's signing up for. A drafted soldier, on the other hand, may not understand the implications and shouldn't be held fully responsible. This is how I feel. But having sad this, I sympathize with this man. However, he should have done his research beforehand. Additionally, "firing randomly" is probably no accurate. If soldiers were firing randomly, they would probably hit themselves and others in the line of fire. So, more accurately, they aimed in the general direction of gunfire and that's about as discriminating as it gets. I am aware that they were ordered to fire on children who had guns. I'm also aware that many have died as collateral. I feel sorry for him.

It's true that long ago deserters were shot in the spot. Or people who refused to use their gun. But that policy changed. Rarely (if ever) is the death penalthy or a firing squad used now.

But they're liable. Prison. Etc.