I Don’t Work For You No More

'I Don't Work For You No More'

http://washingtonindependent.com/1971/i-dont-work-for-you-no-more

By Spencer Ackerman
3/14/08

Jon Michael Turner's tattoos cover his arms almost entirely. They
peeked out under the rolled up sleeves of his crisp blue shirt, on
which were the medals and ribbons he earned as an automatic machine
gunner with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines in Anbar Province in 2006.
One of them is more like a scar. On his right wrist is the black
Arabic lettering for FUCK YOU. It's on what he called his choking
hand, and it was what he looked at to let the anger wash over him
when he choked Iraqis.

On April 18, 2006 he had his first confirmed kill. "I don't know his
name. I call him the Fat Man," he said. He's innocent. The Fat Man
walked to his house and Turner shot him in front of his friend and
his father. "Afterward he started screaming and he looked into my
eyes," Turner testified at Winter Soldier. Turner, a handsome young
man with a blond beard, turned to his friend and said, "I can't let
that happen." So he shot and killed him. At the conference center in
Silver Spring nearly two years later, six giant screens displayed a
photograph of the Fat Man with much of his skull missing and his
brain exposed. "My company commander personally congratulated me,"
Turner continued. "That same individual said, 'Whoever gets his first
kill by stabbing them to death will get a four day pass when we get
back from Iraq."

Turner reminded the audience of the Marine credo: Once A Marine,
Always A Marine. But he invoked another expression. "Eat the apple at
its core." With that, Turner stripped his medals and ribbons off his
chest and threw them into the audience. "I don't work for you no more."

He showed videos of a Marine bragging "I think I just killed half the
population of northern Ramadi." He showed numerous photographs of
dead and mutilated Iraqi corpses. He showed a photograph of half of a
face propped up on a kevlar helmet. And he showed a video of unseen
Marines firing ­ he said unprovoked ­ extensively on a minaret in
Anbar Province, which is illegal if unprovoked.

Fighting back tears, he showed images of memorials to five of Kilo
Company's fallen Marines. "With that being said, that is my
testimony," Turner said. "I wanted to say I am sorry for the hate and
destruction I have inflicted on innocent people and others have
inflicted on innocent people. At one point it was ok, but the reality
is, it is not. … I am sorry for the things I did. I am no longer the
monster that I once was."

.

Why I Went AWOL

"Why I Went AWOL"

http://www.marieclaire.com/world/news/soldier-awol-war

By Tamara Jones
[December 2008]

Kimberly Rivera spotted the little girl outside the U.S. military
base in Baghdad. Just a tiny face in an agitated crowd. Saturday was
"claim day," Kim explains, when Iraqi civilians would come to request
compensation for things they'd lost in the bombings: Their furniture.
Their jewelry. Sometimes their children. The Iraqis had to be checked
by American soldiers. "We'd scan them, pat them down. Nobody ever had
anything," says Kim, a former Army private.

Kim's soft Texas drawl snags in her throat as she remembers catching
sight of the 2-year-old child of war with her family. The girl's dark
eyes had locked on Kim. "She was just petrified," Kim says. "She was
crying, but there was no sound, just tears flowing out of her eyes.
She was shaking. I have no idea what had happened in her little life.
All I know is I wasn't seeing her; I was seeing my own little girl. I
could imagine my daughter being one of those kids throwing rocks at
soldiers, because maybe someone she loved had been killed. That Iraqi
girl haunts my soul."

And she changed Kim's life. The nameless child suddenly represented
everything that felt wrong about being in uniform, about being in
Iraq, for the 26-year-old former Wal-Mart clerk who had joined the
military out of economic hardship, hoping to build a better future.
Kim had two children and a husband waiting for her back home in Mesquite, TX.

Not long after that day at the Baghdad claims line in late 2006, Kim
was on a two-week home leave. But even in the welcoming embrace of
her small family, she couldn't let go of the pent-up tensions of the
war zone. "I was so crazy, like a roller-coaster car that goes off
its tracks and crashes," she says. "Sometimes I'd be pacing or
paranoid or a little panicked. Other times, it would be just extreme
depression." Kim's thoughts constantly turned to her kids. "It was
incredibly emotional. I kept thinking, What if something happened to
them? What if there was some emergency and they were hurt? I wouldn't
be there for them," she says. "I'd be over in Iraq, just waiting to die."

The possibility of running away didn't occur to Kim at that point.
But it did to her husband, Mario. He retreated to his computer, his
usual hideout in times of stress. This wasn't the shy, sweet Kim he
had known as a teenager; they couldn't go on like this. So Mario
began researching antiwar groups and stumbled across the War
Resisters Support Campaign in Canada. He sent an e-mail asking if
anyone there could help. A former Vietnam War deserter named Lee
Zaslofsky responded: Yes.

"The first time Mario told me, I dismissed it," Kim says. "What were
we going to do in Canada?"

She remembers Mario pleading with her, "What options do we have?"

"We don't have any options," Kim snapped.

"Well, this is an option," he pressed. "It's better than none."

Kim was due to report to her base in a few days to travel back to
Baghdad. With the deadline approaching, she and Mario piled the kids
and everything else they could fit into the family's blue Geo Prizm,
uncertain when they pulled out of the driveway whether they were
heading for the base ­ or for the border.

Kim was a wreck. They drove in a huge multistate circle for days,
zigzagging west to east, north to south, debating and crying. "I
could not make up my mind," Kim says. "And I was getting paranoid. We
only used cash. Some hotels wouldn't take cash, so we'd have to find
ones that did. I kept thinking that the police were going to break
down our door in the middle of the night and find me." Kim thought
about her life in the Army before Iraq, when she worked a simple
9-to-5 day, driving supplies from one place to another, packing up
trucks, and unloading equipment from train boxcars. Now every time
she heard a car door slam, she says, "it sounded like a faraway mortar."

She and Mario finally pointed the car north. On February 18, 2007,
they crossed the border.

America disappeared fast in the mist of the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara
Falls. Kim was too numb, too angry, to look back. One minute she was
Private Kimberly Rivera, a soldier, an Iraq War veteran, and an
avowed patriot. But when she left the country that winter day,
unnoticeable in the crush of honeymooners and sightseers, Kim became
something else: a deserter.

One of more than 16,000 American soldiers who have gone into hiding
rather than fight since the U.S. invasion of Iraq five years ago, Kim
belongs to a small but growing movement of deserters seeking refuge
in Canada, hoping to be granted citizenship the way American draft
dodgers were during the Vietnam era. But this war is different.
Soldiers aren't drafted like they were for Vietnam, and Canada no
longer has the open-door policy it had for that generation's protesters.

Kim and an estimated 200 fellow deserters who fled north now live in
uncertain exile, unable to return to their old lives or to begin
anew; they're wanted on a fugitive warrant from the U.S. military and
not openly welcomed by the Canadian government. They have been able
to stay in Canada while they work their way through the court system
­ seeking political asylum or permission to immigrate ­ but so far,
the courts have ruled against them. At press time, one soldier, Robin
Long, had been deported to the U.S. and sentenced to 15 months in
jail. Others are expected to follow.

As for Kim, she has been denied refugee status and is now appealing.
Separately, she is also asking to stay in Canada on humanitarian
grounds. Final rulings are expected by year's end.

When we meet in her subsidized apartment in a working-class Toronto
neighborhood, Kim shyly opens the door to reveal a bare living room
with a used dining-room set. She and Mario share the only bedroom
with their kids, 6-year-old Christian and 4-year-old Rebecca. "It's
cozy to be able to reach out and touch them and feel safe," Kim says.

Kim used to speak to her family daily from the war zone. Soldiers
were allowed free phone calls in 15-minute turns, but Kim would go
back when everyone else was sleeping to talk to Mario. One night, she
returned from such a call to find an inch-long piece of shrapnel on
her bunk. That could have hit me in the head and killed me, she thought.

Kim doesn't mind her spartan life in Toronto; poverty is something
she has always known. "I never had any money growing up," she says of
her childhood in Mesquite. Kim met Mario as a teen at the Wal-Mart,
where they both worked. They'd dreamed of a future with educations
and real careers, but Kim became pregnant at 20, and another baby
quickly followed. She and Mario lived with Kim's parents, whose
dislike of Mario made the situation unbearable.

Kim and Mario got married, and she saw the military as her only
option. Becoming a soldier would mean a steady income, benefits, a
roof over their heads. "Mario wanted to go instead of me," she says,
but both were overweight, and Kim thought she would be able to shed
the necessary pounds more quickly.

In January 2006, Kim joined the Army, and the family was posted to
Colorado, where Kim was trained as a truck driver. The $8,000 signing
bonus seemed like a fortune. Kim bought a tan sofa and chair
("microfiber suede," she says proudly), plus a TV and toys for the
kids. Then her orders came for Iraq. "When they told me I'd be
carrying a 20-pound semiautomatic weapon, it hit home," she says. "I
felt like they were telling me I wasn't coming back."

Kim shipped out October 3, 2006, to a base in Baghdad. Meanwhile, her
husband and kids moved back to Mesquite. In Iraq, Kim's main job was
to guard the front gate of her base, inspecting vehicles and military
convoys. There was an old supermarket across the street. "I was
always afraid of that building," she says, "because there were these
narrow windows throughout, and it would be completely easy for a
sniper to hide there."

By the time Kim had deployed, the fruitless search for weapons of
mass destruction was long over, and her purpose, she believed, was to
help the Iraqis rebuild and to deliver America's promise of freedom
and democracy. Once there, however, Kim could see nothing but lies.
"I felt like my government had betrayed me," she says.

After the Riveras crossed the border, Kim turned on her cell phone to
find her voice mail filled with stern warnings from her commanding
officers. However, Army spokesmen say the military doesn't actively
pursue deserters; only 897 deserters have been prosecuted since the
Iraq War began, and about half have pleaded guilty to AWOL rather
than face trial. While desertion carries a five-year prison term,
punishment for going AWOL is a maximum of 18 months. Both charges can
include less-than-honorable discharges, or "rehabilitation" back at the unit.

Today in Toronto, Kim, who is due to give birth this month to her
third child, works a night shift in a bakery, thanks to a temporary
work permit. Mario works at a McDonald's during the day. Kim misses
Mesquite, as well as her parents, who don't support her decision.

During my visit, Kim kisses Mario, a lumbering teddy bear of a guy,
three times before leaving the apartment for an hour. Then she smiles
and tells me, "He's my euphoria." Later, she hurries down the street
on her way to a favorite doughnut shop that reminds her of one back
home in Texas. A homeless woman approaches and asks for change.

"Sorry, dear," Kim apologizes, offering directions to a
government-run food pantry instead. It's been a while since Kim has
had to get groceries at the pantry herself, but when she heard the
local government was about to close it down, she joined the campaign
to save it. Becoming a war resister has awakened the activist in her.
She still keeps her fatigues, which she wears sometimes for antiwar
rallies, and dreams of doing "something humanitarian" someday.

That evening over a take-out dinner, Kim's kindergartner, Christian,
suddenly puts down his pizza to announce, "My mommy was a soldier.
She had to make a choice: Go home or die." Kim freezes midbite, her
eyes widening. Christian prattles on. "She chose to come home to her
family. She didn't want to die. Her job was guarding the gate. Now
someone else does it."

Kim is still sitting at the dinner table a half-hour later, wondering
how her son had absorbed so much, when there's a sharp knock at the
door. A man's voice rings out: "Kimberly Rivera!" Kim and Mario
exchange frantic looks. Is this it? Is she going to be led away in
handcuffs? Mario tentatively opens the door. The stranger hands him a
boxful of donated toys for the kids ­ gifts from a local charity.
Flooded with relief, Kim simply says, "Thank you. Thank you so much."
--

Tamara Jones is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The
Washington Post.

.

How three Iraq tours changed one marine

How three Iraq tours changed one marine

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/dec/28/how-three-iraq-tours-changed-one-marine/

As country began questioning war, so did a man who was fighting it

Christopher Gallagher joined the Marine Corps in May 2001 when he was
a senior in high school. He says his mom, Catherine Jackson, was
worried, even though it was a time of peace. After the Sept. 11
attacks, he and those he was training with sensed war was coming.

By Charlotte Hsu
Sun, Dec 28, 2008

The new year will bring a presidential administration that has vowed
to wind down the war in Iraq. Christopher Gallagher of Las Vegas
fought in the invasion and did two additional combat tours. He shared
his experience in letters home during the war, and in recent interviews.

This is what he would remember when he got back: the cramped foxhole,
the stench of his unwashed body, MRE menu item No. 2, Jamaican pork chop.

He would remember the way the sand of the Kuwaiti desert would drift
into his eyes, his ears, everything, giving him reason to clean his
weapon twice a day as he waited to cross the border.

He would remember calling his mom, nervous but proud, after finding
out in January 2003, at the end of holiday leave, that he would be
going to Iraq.

Iraq.

What would he remember about Iraq?

Friends he lost. Survivor's guilt. He would remember how Iraqis lined
the streets to cheer his arrival in Baghdad, and how, later, the
people of Fallujah just wanted him to leave. He would remember how
different he was when it all began. At the start of this journey, he
was in favor of the war.

This is Christopher Gallagher's story.

Christopher Gallagher, U.S. Marine Corps corporal, 3rd Battalion, 4th
Marines. Service in Iraq: 2003, the invasion; 2004, Haditha Dam;
2005, Fallujah.
• • •

Apr. 2, 2003 ­ "I am writing this letter from a fighting hole, behind
my machine gun. I am fine for now. How is everyone back home?

"The first couple of days the Iraqi soldiers were surrendering by the
hundreds. I have heard reports of American POWs being murdered. What
have you heard? The first hundred hours of this war I was awake. It
is hard finding time to sleep out here."

This letter is from Gallagher's first deployment. It was the first
time he had ever traveled overseas. He wrote his family ("Dear
Family, Mom, Dad, Matt, Joel, etc.") in Farmingdale, N.Y., where he
grew up before moving to Las Vegas in 2006.

The note was on military stationery ­ a single sheet of paper
carrying the Marine Corps emblem: eagle, globe and anchor.
• • •

In the invasion of Iraq, Gallagher's battalion fought from the town
of Safwan on the Kuwaiti border through Basra and onto Baghdad. He
didn't shower for two months.

Fellow Marines secured oil fields and airports. Gallagher's job was
to establish radio communications and conduct security operations, "a
machine gun post set up on top of a hill, or something like that,
guarding a small area around yourself," he recalls.

Gallagher's battalion was the first Marine unit to enter Baghdad, and
he remembers it well: "The people invaded the streets and were lining
the streets of Baghdad, saying, 'Saddam bad, Bush good.' At the time
we were considered liberators."

He saw people everywhere, watching, cheering. But Gallagher couldn't
talk to them. That was off limits.

The day after his battalion took Baghdad, he sat down for breakfast
at the Palestine Hotel with reporters, including an Iraqi woman about
his age, a graduate of Baghdad University.

He remembers the meal ­ pita bread with tea and honey. But he can't
quite recall the specifics of what they discussed.

Gallagher was 20.

That was back when the Palestine housed journalists who came to cover
the war, 2 1/2 years before a truck bomb shook the building.

Who knows what happened to those people Gallagher met at the hotel?
That Iraqi journalist, where is she now? Maybe she is still covering
the war. Maybe she fled her country. Maybe she's dead.
• • •

Part of what Gallagher remembers about Iraq comes from photographs.
Snapshots like the one taken in 2003 of Gallagher and eight members
of his platoon, posing on the concrete roof of a building in Baghdad.

Behind them rise thick columns of smoke, black and tilted, drifting
across the smoldering city.

Five years later, sitting in his Las Vegas living room, Gallagher
points out that he is the only one in the picture wearing a helmet.

In Iraq, he was always careful, always on the lookout. He became, in
his words, "less trusting of humanity." In that way, the war stayed
with him even after he returned home.

Back in Vegas, he says he is still "hypervigilant, always more
cautious. Kind of like ­ in a way, almost like a minor paranoia. I'm
less trusting of people, because the people over there, they smile at
you one minute, and the next day they'll be shooting at you."

Even so, despite the nerves and fear, in 2003 Gallagher was
optimistic about the war.

Writing home in on April 2, he told his family the weather had been
comfortable. He wished his mom a happy birthday, said he was thinking
that the two of them and his grandma could visit Atlantic City when
he got back.

He finished his letter: "Tell everyone I will see them soon after the
Marines have killed Saddam and the war is over."
• • •

At home, Americans watched the siege of Baghdad on CNN, marveling at
the fireworks display ­ the buildings exploding, the red and yellow
tracer rounds flying across the sky like shooting stars.

Magazines and newspapers carried pictures of the carnage, bodies
floating in water, refugees fleeing.

Gallagher's mother, Catherine Jackson, worried, unable to watch the
news while he was abroad.

"I became very depressed," she remembers. "I checked the mailbox
every day, religiously. I cried every day, religiously. I was just
worried about him and his health. Would I get him home? Would he come
home? And when he did come home, would he come home in one piece? I
didn't know what to expect."

To her, Gallagher's letters meant a lot. They meant that somewhere
thousands of miles away, her son was still alive.
• • •

Meals, Ready-to-Eat.

Gallagher describes Thai chicken: "A bowl of snot with some water
chestnuts, little pieces of chicken."

Of MREs in general: "I remember them all, all very unfondly ... It
comes in a sealed package. And imagine a piece of chicken in there.
It looks like a piece of chicken, I don't know if it is. They had a
variety of food, but none of it was good for you. It had so many
preservatives in it."

He concluded that the only good thing that came in those rations was
the candy ­ Skittles, Charms or M&Ms. Marines would trade with one
another, Skittles for M&Ms and vice versa. Charms, considered bad
luck, ended up in the garbage.
• • •

MREs aside, living conditions at Haditha Dam were good in 2004.

Gallagher slept in a bunk bed, lifted weights, showered twice a week,
sometimes even with hot water. His family sent Snickers, cigarettes
and powdered Country Time pink lemonade.

In March, he wrote to his mother, saying he'd received her package.
The postscript reminded her that he smoked Parliament Lights.

The message was scrawled in black ink on the back of a postcard
bearing the image of the front page of the military newspaper Stars
and Stripes from April 11, 2003. The headline, "Baghdad falls to U.S.
forces," ran large down the right-hand side, set against the iconic
photograph of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down.

"Do you remember this day almost a year ago when Marines from task
force 3/4 took the statue down," Gallagher wrote.

At Haditha Dam, he was a radio operator, part of a skeleton crew of
Marines guarding the dam. Most of the men in his battalion had been
called to fight in the siege of Fallujah. Some never made it back. He
lost a couple of friends.

"One minute they're there. One minute they're gone."
• • •

Some of the letters Gallagher wrote were never mailed. But he held on
to them. These were his "final letters" ­ the ones his family would
have received had he died.

"To Shannon," one such note to his older sister begins. "Hi I am
sorry for this tragic event you are going through, you helped raise
me when mom and dad were not around ... All you have to do is close
your eyes and pray, I will be there. I wanted to be a good uncle for
James and Alyssa. I would have liked to see them grow up and live a good life."

And to Gallagher's younger brother: "I wish I could be there for you
Matt. I love you so much and you will never know how much the time
that we have spent together hanging out since I enlisted meant to me.
If you have noticed all the extra gifts I have gotten for you, it was
to try to make up for my absence."

In what would have been his final letter to his mother and father,
Gallagher wrote that he loved them, that he'd watch over them in
heaven alongside Grandpa Rich, Grandma, Grandpa Jackson and Uncle Joe.

"Let everyone know I died with honor, keeping all Americans free from
foreign dictatorships," he wrote.

"I was not always the best kid to have, I joined the Corps to
straighten my life out and find direction. Mom you were my best
friend and were a great emotional support. Dad you were always there,
from the time you taught me to bowl until I got on the bus for Parris Island.

"As I write this letter and look back on my life I only remember how
much i enjoyed living it. They say 'Everyone dies but not everyone
lives.' I just hope I turned out to be a respectable and upstanding
person like you raised me to be."

Gallagher showed the letter to his mother. She read it once and
couldn't read it again.
• • •

By the end of his third deployment, Gallagher says, "I was wondering
what we were doing there. Because we were essentially driving around
just waiting to be blown up. Nobody wanted to be there anymore,
everybody just wanted to come home."

The Iraqis, Gallagher says, didn't want the troops there either. He
remembers the disgust, the anger in their eyes.

"There was no point to any of the patrols," he says. "We were told
that al-Qaida was causing all the trouble, but yet it was mostly the
people living in these towns. It was Iraqis."

In Fallujah, Gallagher was a radio operator for an 81 mm mortar
platoon. He worked at a checkpoint outside the city, a job he likened
to herding cattle.

Everyone coming through had to have his retinas scanned. Everyone had
to get an ID card. Everyone had to be searched.

Gallagher spent eight hours on duty, eight hours off. When he wasn't
manning the checkpoint, he patrolled in vehicles and on foot,
sweating under a scorching Iraqi sun.

He searched homes, feeling no guilt, no remorse. He grew angry when
he gave information on a firefight to his higher ups only to find out
later that "the report that they filed was not what I said."

He wondered why he didn't have proper armor. During his first
deployment, he remembers, he didn't have plates in his vest to
protect him from bullets and shrapnel. Through his last deployment,
he said, his Humvees had what the troops called "hillbilly armor," a
piece of metal in the shape of a door hanging off the side of the vehicle.

"I was pissed off. I was in Iraq," Gallagher remembers. "I supported
the war and supported the troops. I thought they were one and the
same." But, he said, "I didn't want to be there anymore."

He slept on a cot in a wooden hut housing 20. Fellow soldiers on
patrol found propane tanks and 30- or 40-gallon drums and used them
to fashion a makeshift shower.

Once a week, he got hot food ­ maybe prime rib, maybe beef stew. It
didn't make him sick like the other meals or the dirty water he said
the military gave him.
• • •

Gallagher is 26 now, no longer on active duty. He has been home, on
U.S. soil, for three years.

He has no regrets. In May 2001, as a senior in high school in
Farmingdale, N.Y., he signed up to join the Marines to see the world,
to "become someone."

His mother worried, afraid of what might happen even though it was a
time of peace. On Sept. 11, Gallagher was at boot camp at Parris
Island, S.C. He and his fellow recruits, training together in the
humid southern summer, knew war was coming.

Looking back, Gallagher says the Marine Corps made him a better person.

He is more focused, more disciplined. One of the worst students in
his high school class, he pulled a 3.5 grade-point average while
studying at the College of Southern Nevada on the G.I. Bill. He left
school to learn to be an electrician. He makes good money, helps
support his mom.

He can take direction but also has leadership skills. Along the way,
in Iraq, he made lifelong friends, some people he normally wouldn't
hang out or talk to. What brought them together?

"We were willing to die for each other."
• • •

Gallagher was once in favor of the war. He remembers that well.

How much things have changed.

After returning to America, he read about the war, watched movies
about the war, talked to friends about the war that left him with so
many memories.

No weapons of mass destruction were found. Gallagher felt the
country's leaders had lied to him.

He learned as many U.S.-paid civilian contractors were stationed in
Iraq as troops. He read about how war brings profit, raining fortune
upon security companies, food companies ... the list goes on.

He believes the government was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks,
a view many people consider radical. But Gallagher believes it's the
truth. People like to believe in what's easiest to believe, he says.
He has read more about the terrorist attacks than many fellow Americans.

And the soldiers, the Marines, the airmen, the young people like
Gallagher who fought abroad?

Gallagher felt the country and the Veterans Affairs Department
abandoned them when they came back.

A friend of his who was shot in the leg saw disability benefits
reduced. Other servicemen and servicewomen struggled to get care for
post-traumatic stress disorder.

"These are people, that their friends blew up in front of them,"
Gallagher says. "They still have a lot of death and destruction (on
their minds), and they're just messed up."

He is disgusted.

"The Defense Department recently came out with a memo saying all
troops must remain apolitical ... saying that you're a soldier, you
have no opinions, you don't count. I think soldiers should have more
of a voice, be able to speak out."

So in September, Gallagher co-founded a Las Vegas chapter of Iraq
Veterans Against the War.
• • •

Some of Gallagher's memories of Iraq are hazy, as if obscured by
bleached sheets of hot desert sand. Others are clear. Some of what he
remembers he won't talk about.

For him, the war is over, now. He won't be going back.

But Iraq will stay with him, always ­ in his photographs, in his
letters, in this story, his story.
--

Charlotte Hsu can be reached at 259-8813 or at charlotte.hsu@lasvegassun.com.

.

U.S. Iraq war vet seeks asylum in Germany

[4 articles]

U.S. Iraq war vet Andre Shepherd seeks asylum in Germany

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2008/12/12/02905.html

by Military Counseling Network, Courage to Resist, et al
12/12/08

FRANKFURT, Germany - U.S. Army Specialist Andre' Shepherd applied for
asylum in Germany Nov. 26, becoming the first Iraq War veteran to
pursue refugee status in Europe.

After attending college and failing to find meaningful employment,
Shepherd enlisted in the military early in 2004. The promises of
financial security and international adventure easily trumped working
at a fast food chain. He became an Apache airframe mechanic, hoping
to someday qualify up to the role of helicopter pilot.

His first unit was already deployed to Iraq when he completed his
training, so he joined them immediately, with only one day at his
unit's home in Germany. Shepherd spent six months on a forward
operating base near Tikrit, working 12-hour days to keep the heavily
armed Apaches (and their signature Hellfire missiles) in the air.

Though he enlisted in order to bring freedom, prosperity and peace,
Shepherd found none of these traits in the locals with whom he interacted.

"Some had the look of fear, while others looked outright angry and
resentful," he said of locals contracted for jobs around the base. "I
began to feel like a cruel oppressor who had destroyed the lives of
these proud people.

"Our unit did a lot of good things, giving schools books and bringing
clothes to children," he said. "These actions helped my conscience a
bit, but I kept thinking to myself, 'Had we not invaded, would these
people need this aid now?' "

Shepherd began researching for himself not just the causes of the
Iraq War, but the wider War on Terror. As inconsistencies in the
official story emerged, the reasons for which he joined the military
lost credence. As the myth of Weapons of Mass Destruction evaporated,
so too did his faith in the mission.

"Saddam Hussein was admittedly a dictator," Shepherd said. "However,
he was not leading his country to produce any sort of weapon that
could be used against the United States government and its citizens.

"When I asked my sergeant about this, he told me that many in the
Army also had questions, but it was their duty to serve," he said.
"That may be true, but signing up voluntarily does not mean I should
stop thinking or having a conscience."

Upon his return to Germany at the end of the deployment, Shepherd
began to investigate the options available to an American soldier who
questions the morality of war. He spoke with a superior about
conscientious objection, but was told the process was lengthy and his
application would probably be denied.

U.S. military regulations also state a conscientious objector must
have an objection to all war in all form. Since Shepherd's objection
was not in opposition to all war, his application would have required
lying, which would have compromised the moral composition of his argument.

After months of deliberations, finding no suitable avenue in the
Pentagon's serpentine regulations, he packed his things on April 11,
2007, and went Absent Without Leave from his Katterbach base in the
middle of the night.

He has lived underground in Germany for nearly two years, waiting for
his unit to return from yet another Iraq deployment, but such a
vaporous life can only be lived for so long.

Roughly 200 American service members are currently living in Canada,
many of whom are pursuing asylum. Shepherd's decision to pursue a
similar status is the first of its kind by an American Iraq War
veteran in Europe.

Seeking asylum in Germany is partially a matter of geographic
convenience, but political matters also strengthen the case. A
majority of Germans are against the war in Iraq, and German soldiers
have never been deployed to Iraq in support of the conflict.

This disposition came to a head in 2005, when the German Federal
Administrative Court officially declared the Iraq War violated
international law, citing the assault launched by the United States
as an act of aggression.

A German army officer had refused an order to develop a computer he
feared would be utilized by the United States against Iraq. He was
demoted and a criminal complaint was filed against him for
insubordination. The federal court reversed the demotion because the
charges contravened a paragraph in the German Constitution
guaranteeing the right to freedom of conscience.

Shepherd's application also cites a European Union regulation
providing refugee status to a soldier who is in danger of being
prosecuted if military service "would include crimes or acts" which
violate international law. The application refers to the Nuremberg
Trials, stating "It is established that a person cannot defend his or
her actions by explaining that they had simply been following orders."

In effect, Shepherd's asylum application calls on Germany to clarify
the nature of its opposition to the war in Iraq. The United States
utilizes German airspace on a daily basis to carry out operations
vital to the war, and U.S. bases within the country are home to
roughly 60,000 American service members.

"We should not be forced to fight an illegal war, nor should we be
persecuted for refusing to do so," Shepherd said. "During the past
five years we have waged a preemptive, internationally condemned war
that was shown to be founded on a series of lies. After learning the
truth about the nature of my military's endeavours, I refuse to
continue to be a part of this."

"We are honoured to help support this courageous war veteran turned
resister in whatever ways possible," declared Jeff Paterson, Project
Director of Courage to Resist-a U.S.-based organization dedicated to
supporting U.S. troops who refuse to fight.

--------

Deserter faces first formal meeting in asylum bid soon

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59547

Iraq veteran left unit in 2007 over opposition to wars

By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, December 21, 2008

A week before Spc. André Shepherd applied for political asylum in
Germany, the American soldier sat in a farmhouse kitchen in southern
Bavaria recounting the events that led him to desert the U.S. Army in
spring 2007.

Any application for asylum is a political statement, and on this
night Shepherd was opinionated. He called the war on terrorism,
particularly with respect to Iraq, a fraud. He said the Bush
administration lied to the military. And he asserted that continued
combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq would only serve to further
alienate the local population.

He also touched upon another aim of his campaign to win political
asylum in Germany. That objective is to avoid jail time and a federal
conviction.

"I don't want to be punished for making the right decision," Shepherd said.

The 30-year-old Apache helicopter mechanic will soon get his first test.

Reinhard Marx, the Frankfurt-based asylum lawyer representing
Shepherd, said he expects his client to have his first formal meeting
next month. It actually will be more of an interview, involving
Shepherd, Marx, a government interpreter and at least one migration
official with the German Interior Ministry.

"Legally, we are waiting for the invitation to the personal
interview," Marx said. "I think [the interview] will happen after New Year's.

Meetings of this type usually take no more than a day, though Marx,
an asylum attorney for over 30 years, said sometimes a second day is
needed. "Every detail of his story will be touched," Marx said.

Aside from a few brief comments from the soldier's company commander,
the Army has had little to say about the Shepherd case. He is the
first U.S. servicemember to apply for political asylum in Germany
over the war on terrorism.

"It would be inappropriate for us to comment on an ongoing case,"
Hilde Patton, a U.S. Army Europe spokeswoman, said Friday.

In response to a query earlier this month, USAREUR said the NATO
Status of Forces Agreement and a supplementary agreement between the
United States and Germany apply to all American servicemembers in Germany.

That includes individuals "dropped from the rolls as a deserter."
That administrative action in no way ends their status as member of
the U.S. military, USAREUR said.

"The SOFA and SA apply in the same manner to Shepherd, as with any
other member of our armed forces stationed in Germany," the statement read.

The supplementary agreement is a thick document covering a range of
issues, from taxes and requisitioning procedures to air maneuvers and
marriage certificates. Sections of the agreement seem to apply to
Shepherd, but U.S. officials have yet to tip their hand as to how
they plan to argue their case.

What is certain is that, at least for now, Shepherd enjoys the
protection of the German government.

"German asylum law is applicable in this case for Mr. Shepherd," said
Christoph Hübner, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Berlin.

The spokesman added that each application for asylum is different,
and thus handled individually, based on its merits.

"He asked for asylum," Hübner said, "and now this has to be reviewed
under our asylum laws."

German attorneys and government officials familiar with the asylum
laws have described them as liberal but vague in areas. For years,
Germany had among the most liberal asylum laws in Europe, though
lawmakers have recently tightened the rules. Still, Article 16a of
the Basic Law, as it is known in Germany, provides that "persons
persecuted on political grounds shall have the right of asylum."

Shepherd maintains he would be prosecuted as a deserter by the Army ­
or effectively the U.S. government ­ if he were to turn himself in.
Prosecution and persecution mean different things, but Shepherd and
Marx view them as the same side of the same coin.

While at the Bavarian farmhouse last month, Shepherd responded to a
question about those who would call him a coward, particularly his
brothers in arms.

When he first began to express doubts about the mission during his
first tour to Iraq in 2004-05, Shepherd said some noncommissioned
officers told him he wasn't alone, but that "we signed up for this."

Shepherd said when he enlisted he "still had faith in the U.S.
government. If I didn't have faith, I wouldn't have signed up."

Servicemembers, he added, expect the government officials "to tell us
the truth, especially when they are asking us to kill someone."

Legal experts who have commented on Shepherd's quest for political
asylum have said that U.S. and German politics will most certainly be
a factor in any resolution.

"This is a highly political question," said Hanns-Christian Salger, a
law professor at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Even though the German government didn't join the U.S. and the U.K.
in the invasion of Iraq, it still helped, probably more than people
realize, Salger said. Such assistance clashes with anti-war comments
by a host of German politicians, most notably former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who said there was no justification for
a war against Iraq.

Politicians in Germany and the United States, Salger said, "may try
to find a way around it without calling the Iraq war 'illegal.' "

--------

AWOL US Soldier Seeks Asylum in Germany Over Returning to "Illegal" War in Iraq

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/12/exclusiveawol_us_soldier_seeks_asylum_in

A US soldier who went absent without leave a year and a half ago to
avoid returning to Iraq has applied for asylum in Germany. Specialist
Andre Shepherd served in Iraq between September 2004 and February
2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic. When his unit was called up to
return to Iraq in early 2007, he went AWOL to avoid redeployment,
calling the war "illegal." He lived underground in Germany for a year
and a half before applying for asylum two weeks ago. We speak with
Shepherd in his first international broadcast interview.

Guest:

Andre Shepherd, served in Iraq between September 2004 and February
2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic. He went AWOL a year and a half
ago to avoid redeployment to Iraq. He is seeking asylum in Germany.
--

AMY GOODMAN: We're on the road in Berlin, East Berlin, to be exact,
East Berlin, Germany. Soldier underground. Today, a Democracy Now!
international broadcast exclusive. A US soldier who went absent
without leave a year and a half ago to avoid returning to Iraq has
applied for asylum in Germany.

Specialist Andre Shepherd served in Iraq between September 2004 and
February 2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic. After his tour of
duty, he returned to Germany, where he's based. When his unit was
called up to return to Iraq in early 2007, he went AWOL to avoid
redeployment, calling the war "illegal." He lived underground in
Germany for a year and a half before applying for asylum two weeks
ago. Andre Shepherd may become the first American soldier to test
German laws that could grant asylum to war resisters.

Andre Shepherd joins us now on the phone now from southern Germany in
his first national broadcast interview.

Andre Shepherd, we welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you tell us why
you're applying for asylum in Germany?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Hi, Amy. It's great to be here.

It's for several reasons, actually, as to why. First of all, since I
went AWOL, you know, in early 2007, there was no other recourse, you
know, in order to return back to the United States or travel to
another country. So, I was here in Germany and everything, so this
would be the most logical place to be.

The second reason is because of the stand of, you know, the German
government and the German people against the war. There is
overwhelming support for the antiwar movement that has been going on
since the beginning of the Iraq war. So it would also be, you know, a
logical reason for that.

And third of all, because of the­you know, the Nuremberg trials were
based here in Germany in 1948, about sixty years ago, where they say
that everybody, including soldiers, would­you know, must take
responsibility for all of their actions. So, that would mean that if
you're in an illegal war, that means the soldier also is doing
something illegal. So I think that it would be best for me to apply
for asylum in Germany, as well, because of the actual stance and the
historical precedents that have been set, you know, in this land.

AMY GOODMAN: Andre, talk about why you joined the military, where you
were born, where you grew up.

ANDRE SHEPHERD: OK. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. I lived
in that [inaudible] my entire life. I went to­graduated from Lakewood
High School in 1995, and then I attended Kent State University, about
twenty, twenty-five miles south of Cleveland, until about spring of 2000.

After I left college, I ended up working several jobs to try to make
ends meet, because I couldn't get, you know, a job in the field of
study that I was in, which was computer science, because at that time
the dotcom bubble had burst. So I was­end up working the line of
low-paying jobs, you know, like being a courier, vacuum cleaner
salesman, even working for, you know, work-today-pay-today kind of
jobs. And it was not really an easy existence. I ended up being
homeless twice, and things like that.

And what happened was, was that in the summer of 2003, you know,
right after the invasion and everything, I was walking past the
recruiter's office, and he spoke to me about, you know, wanting to
help people and everything, so I went in. You know, we had a cup of
coffee and everything, and he was explaining to me about, you know,
what the military­what the military's role in the world, you know, as
of this time was, you know, speaking about basically all the
dictators in the world, like Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il, you know,
the usual suspects from the Axis of Evil. And he was mentioning about
September 11th and about the war on terror and everything and talking
about how America stands for freedom and democracy and how we
should­you know, they needed people like me to be part of the
frontline in this war against, you know, tyranny and oppression and
everything. So that sounded pretty good to me. I was a little taken
aback by it, because it's not every day someone, you know, asks you
to help save the world or anything like that. But at the same time, I
wasn't sure if I wanted to join the military right away because of,
you know, being in a military structure and giving your life over for
a number of years and everything, because I'm a very
independent-minded person.

But then he started talking about the benefits, you know, about the
steady pay, the free housing, the free medical care, the paid tuition
for school, you know, everything like that. And for me, being down on
my luck and everything and being homeless twice and everything, that
actually sounded like a really good idea, because I, you know, wanted
to put my life on the right path, where I could actually get my life
straight, you know, finish my degree and, you know, going about my
life, reaching the goals in my life.

But I still wasn't really convinced, because I didn't want to sign my
life away for eight years, you know, like as I have said before. But
that's when they told me about, you didn't have to sign up for eight
years, because they had a new program at that time about signing up
for the Army for a few months­in my case, it was fifteen months­where
you could try out the Army and then you could leave. At that time, I
didn't know about, you know, the stop-loss or about the Individual
Ready Reserve, where even after you leave the military service for up
to eight years, you are subject to be called back from the military
for additional deployments or whatever they need you for.

So­and then he also mentioned about the $5,000 bonus. And that really
caught my eye, because I thought, you know, having at least a little
nest egg to begin with, I can actually build my life up, you know,
from there. So after a few months of thinking about it and
everything, I decided to join the military in January of 2004.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you joined, and you trained to be an Apache
helicopter mechanic?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: That's correct.

AMY GOODMAN: And where, then, did you originally go in Iraq? How did
you end up joining your unit?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: What happened was, was after I graduated from the
Advanced Individual Training in Fort Eustis, I was sent to
Katterbach, Germany to join the 601st Aviation Support Battalion. At
the time, when I joined basic training in February, that was when the
unit had deployed to Iraq, so they were already six months in
theater. So when I arrived there, I was sent on to join the unit in
Camp Speicher, which is outside of Tikrit in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about your days in Iraq, what exactly you did.
Did you meet Iraqis? Did you kill Iraqis?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: OK, I have to explain this, because my experiences
weren't like it was with the infantry, where the infantry was out
every single day going on patrols, you know, kicking down doors and
everything like that, because as an Apache mechanic, our primary job
was to make sure that the helicopters stay in the air. All the time,
we were always mission-ready. So we work twelve-hour days, six days a
week, you know, every single week, because we had to keep the Apaches
in the air. We had to do, you know, phases, where we would do like
complete maintenance on the helicopters and everything like that.

Sometimes there would be duties where you would go for guard duty,
you know, to watch a group of Iraqis who were coming onto the base so
they could, you know, build the fences, like, sand the fences or, you
know, painting or different things like that. So we would actually
give them money, where they could, you know, actually feed their
families or take care of themselves and things like that. So the
extent of my interactions with the Iraqis were very minimal. It was
either by, you know, passing by them while they're working or, you
know, when they're waiting for the trucks and everything, saying
hello and things like that, but not out on the streets or anything
like that. It was a completely different experience than what it
would have been had I been working for the infantry or any of the,
you know, the tank commanders or the cavalry or anything like that.

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about fixing the Apache helicopters. What about
the air war in Iraq?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Now, this one is a serious point of contention,
because in the research that I have done over several years, the
extent of damage that has happened in Iraq­you know, with the
infrastructure being totally destroyed, you know, their not having
enough power, there's no water, some photos of bullet holes from 30mm
chain guns going through buildings and everything­all of this cannot
have been done by the infantry. This is true.

To get concrete evidence on the air war, it's very, very, very
difficult. There are several articles that I have read, where
journalists are very­you know, even journalists are frustrated as to
trying to get accurate numbers, you know, how much munitions that
were done, how many sorties were flown, what kind of ammunition was
used. So, you know, they keep getting stonewalled by the military. I
asked the pilots about their missions and everything, and I was told
that their missions are­you know, for operational security, they're
not allowed to talk about them. So what I would have to rely on was
basically what was being reported, you know, with what little
information the journalists can dig up.

But I'm sure it was quite extensive, because many units are flying
like, you know, several thousand missions a year, you know, doing
patrols in Iraq, used in support for the infantry, just doing patrols
throughout the cities and everything. And, you know, with the
constant refueling and rearming, you know they're using the
ammunition for something. They're just not just using them only for
test fire. So we know that they're being done. But like I was saying
in the beginning, the extent of the damage, you know, with what is
going on is the masses of civilians that have been killed as a result
of, you know, of the air war, which is too big to just pin onto the
infantry. I know that, you know, especially the Apache has played a
significant part in the Iraq war, especially in the last five years.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Andre Shepherd, how did you do this research? You
say you got more and more information as you were researching while
you were in Iraq, what led you to believe you couldn't be a part of
this any longer. How did you do research in Iraq?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: OK, now, in Iraq, there was actually a limited
opportunity to do so. It was more so once I redeployed back to
Germany. What we had for our breaks and everything, they had a little
place where you could go and use the internet, you know, mainly to
chat with families or check email and things like that. So that's
where I would spend one hour a day, starting to look up the causes
for the Iraq war, as to, you know, what exactly are we doing there,
and what kind of impact that I had being an Apache mechanic, you
know, and keeping the Apaches in the air, figuring out how my
contribution to the war affects the daily life of the Iraqi people.

What I had been finding out from there, you know, looking at several
sources and everything, is that­you know, about the lies that the
Bush administration has told, that they have continued to perpetuate,
especially in the last ABC interview that Mr. Bush has given, talking
about the­none of the WMDs have been found in Iraq or anything, about
the widespread damage that has been going on, about the sentiments of
the Iraqi people, the sentiments of different soldiers, depending on
which site you would go to, and things like this. And I've pretty
much been building a massive database on things that I have been
collecting over the years, including the laws, you know, of the
United States, international law, things like that referring to the
legality of the war, and especially with the public opposition that's
been going on, you know, particularly in Germany. You know, there's
huge sections of the United States that were opposing it. Pretty much
all over the world.

So, this began in Iraq, you know, like I said, for one hour a day,
but once I came back to Germany, when I bought a computer and
actually had a constant internet connection, I could actually do
intensive research, you know, for like two, maybe three, four hours a
day, you know, after work, just seeing what was going on.

AMY GOODMAN: Andre, we're going to break, and then we're going to
come back to this conversation. And we'll also be joined by Elsa
Rassbach, and we're going to talk about US military bases in Germany.
There are more bases here than anywhere in the world. Finally, we're
going to be joined by a German lawyer who has sued Donald Rumsfeld,
and we're going to talk about the Senate report that just came out on
the former Secretary of Defense.

This is Democracy Now! We're broadcasting from Berlin. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We're broadcasting from Berlin, actually from East
Berlin, here in Germany, as Democracy Now! goes on the road and wraps
up our European trip. We're joined on the telephone from another part
of Germany by Andre Shepherd. He could be the first US soldier to
apply for political asylum here in Germany, refusing to return to
Iraq. He's gone underground. He's gone AWOL.

We're also joined here in Berlin by Elsa Rassbach. She is a US
citizen and activist who's lived in Germany for the past eighteen
years. She's a member of American Voices Abroad Military Project and
of the German affiliate of the War Resisters' International.

Before we go to Elsa, I wanted to go back to Andre and ask­so, you
came back here to Germany. Where were you? And what does it mean to
go AWOL? What did you do? You left the base?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Yes, that is correct. I left the military base in
Katterbach in April 2007 and never returned. This is AWOL. It's
slightly different than desertions, because with AWOL you always have
the intent to return, you know, back to your post after a certain
amount of time, and with desertion, that means you permanently quit
the military. And as of right now, I'm still currently considered as
AWOL, but, you know, given the circumstances [inaudible], I'm quite
sure that that status has changed to desertion.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, how did you actually apply? Have you applied in
any way to the US government?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: For AWOL or for…?

AMY GOODMAN: No, to apply for asylum in Germany.

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Oh, OK, OK. Now I understand. OK, well, basically
what you had to do was go through the reception center, which I went
to in Giessen a few weeks ago, and formally declare myself as an
asylum seeker. And then, you know, they take care of the paperwork
and everything. And then you are designated as an asylum seeker, upon
which you are enjoyed limited rights, you know, for living in Germany
until such time as the hearing comes and they make a decision on
whether or not they will grant you full rights to asylum.

AMY GOODMAN: Why didn't you apply, Andre Shepherd, for conscientious
objector status?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: It's for several reasons, but the main overall reason
is because in the US, conscientious objector only pertains to
individuals that are against every single war of every form. It
doesn't matter if it's offensive, defensive, limited action. It
doesn't matter. The problem is, for me to actually go and apply for
conscientious objection, I would actually have had to lie, because my
belief is that the armed forces are there for defense of the nation,
like let's say an example like someone decides to invade California,
you know, and the military is called up to go and repel whatever
forces invaded the land. Of course I would take up arms and go and
defend my land, because they breached our borders. This is OK. But as
soon as I would use that as an argument in my conscientious objector
application, it would be automatically rejected, because it goes
against the first tenet of the rules of objection.

The second thing on there is that you have to, you know, live the
lifestyle. From what I'm reading, you know, in AR600-43, you have to
live the lifestyle that supports your beliefs. I'm still trying to
figure out exactly how that would work, because the way it's written,
I'm assuming that even if you, like, do things like, you know, play
videogames or watch war movies, you know, anything that advocates
war, that wouldn't support your lifestyle, you know, of your beliefs.
And it's up to the soldier to prove that these beliefs are sincere.
So it's like next to impossible.

The other and most compelling reason is the case of Augustin Aguayo.
At the same time that my unit was scheduled for the second
deployment, Augustin Aguayo's case was big in the media, particularly
in the Stars and Stripes magazine. This guy was the most pacifist
soldier I have ever seen, you know, and he applied for conscientious
objector status. I mean, the guy had never even loaded his weapon in
a war zone. And the way the military treated him and, you know,
summarily rejected his application and saying that he wasn't sincere
about his beliefs and everything, and they wanted to put him in
handcuffs to send him back to Iraq. And he ended up, you know,
serving time, because he finally went AWOL, because normal channels
of conscientious objection were closed to him, and there's like no
other alternative to not going to combat duty. So this told me right
away that this was not the way to go in terms of solving this
problem, because I knew that, one, the CO would be rejected, and two,
that it would cause too many problems, not for myself, but also for
the unit, as well, especially if word got out that this was going on.

AMY GOODMAN: We will link on our website, democracynow.org, to our
interviews with Augustin Aguayo, who joined us right before he turned
himself in in the US military in Los Angeles and then went back to
Germany­well, had been back in Germany, where he had gone AWOL and
ultimately was freed, after being imprisoned. And we've talked to him
extensively about his reasons for applying for CO status.

I wanted to turn from Andre Shepherd, who­I hope you'll stay on the
line with us­to Elsa Rassbach, who has been here in Germany for some
eighteen years, moved from the United States. Elsa, can you give us
the lay of the land? You've been a longtime antiwar activist here in
Germany, Germany having more US military bases outside the United
States than any place in the world.

ELSA RASSBACH: Yes. Actually, I've been here in two stints. One was
during the Vietnam War, and one has been since 1996. And in the
Vietnam War, when there were a lot of GI newspapers in Europe and
Germany and many soldiers deserting to Sweden and so forth, the
German peace movement was critical in that effort reaching soldiers.

And now what has happened is that, you know, Germany is still
occupied, really, more than sixty years. Germans are very grateful
for the liberation of Germany by the US, but on the whole, the
majority do not approve of how the US are using the bases here for
these wars. And there are more bases here than any other country
outside the US. There's 68,000 soldiers stationed here. The US is
consolidating in Europe to sort of six mega-bases. Five of them are
to be in Germany, and one is in Vicenza. Ansbach area, where Andre
was stationed, is supposed to be one of them, is supposed to be the
big fighter-helicopter base. In addition to that, there are two
Central Commands in Germany. Germany is the only country with the
Central Commands, you know, reporting directly to the Pentagon, like
we know CENTCOM is in the US, and so forth, but the EUCOM, which
covers all of Europe, Soviet Union, Turkey, that's in Stuttgart, used
to include Africa, but now they've created AFRICOM. That's also in Stuttgart.

AMY GOODMAN: Because no African country would accept them.

ELSA RASSBACH: Exactly. But why­and the Germans­you know, it's a
difficult situation for them. They do not want to be ungrateful. They
also are­but they have­for years now, there has been a strong
opposition building also to the use of the bases here. You haven't
seen demonstrations like you have in Vicenza, where they were trying
to enlarge that base in a middle-class area. You do see in Ansbach,
where Andre was, one of the liveliest movements also against the base
there, because US wanted to expand that base, and they had a petition
in which they said­it was sent throughout Germany­that German soil
should not be used for aggressive war. And many Germans feel that
that should apply to the US also.

AMY GOODMAN: We went to Ireland and to Britain and learned­met the
Shannon antiwar activists, because most soldiers went through Shannon
airport before going to Iraq. But that's changed?

ELSA RASSBACH: Well, yes. I understand there's still some going
there, but I believe, partly as a result of protest in Ireland, they
shifted that. That's mainly going through a commercial airport in
Germany, in Leipzig, in the former East Germany. And that also is
becoming the focus, the Leipzig airport, of activity here in Germany.
And there are activists who go and watch how many soldiers go off
through there.

But in addition to the soldiers routed through Germany to Iraq and
Afghanistan via Ramstein Air Base or Leipzig or also the commercial
airport Hahn near Frankfurt, there are soldiers, you know, as you
know, permanently based here. It's considered their home, within US
military law. In Schweinfurt, for example, where Augustin was, that
was considered his permanent base. They have had the­Schweinfurt had
the largest death rate of any soldiers. They have­also, they're
creating­all of these bases create environmental damage in the German
community. The Germans are paying also for a portion of the costs of
the bases. And the citizens' action against the expansion of the
Ansbach base, where Andre was­

AMY GOODMAN: Explain where that is in Germany for viewers and
listeners who don't know.

ELSA RASSBACH: OK. That is in Bavaria. It's about­it's a bit north of
Nuremberg. And one of the things they've done, actually, is they've
made these huge bases in very outlying areas. I don't know if it's
deliberate. It's harder for activists to get to them. Grafenwohr is
the biggest training base. It's about an hour and a half from Ansbach
also, and it has, you know, less­you know, just about a thousand
Germans in the area.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of Nuremberg, the German constitution says
Germany cannot engage in any offensive war.

ELSA RASSBACH: It doesn't just say Germany. It says there shall be no
preparation of aggressive war from German soil. And there have been
several citizen petitions also with related to Ramstein Air Base,
that it doesn't say that only the Germans may not do it. It says
there shall be no preparation of aggressive war from German soil.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you travel to US bases?

ELSA RASSBACH: Oh, yes. I go to US bases often, and we have a
whole­both the American Voices Military Project and also the War
Resisters' International, and in Germany we have the networks of
people near all the bases, and there's also other anti-base networks.
We're all working together on this.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you do there?

ELSA RASSBACH: Well, among other things, we are organizing­and we've
had for some time­that information be distributed to soldiers. We
have these GI Rights Hotline cards. They're just the same, really, as
they are in the States. They have a hotline phone number on here,
where soldiers can get information. This is the number here. I don't
know if you can see it. But this is­anyway, but many people in the
States will have seen­oh, excuse me. Many people in the States will
have seen these cards. Here we have also links to different
organizations, like Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families
Speak Out. But basically, most people, if they would call the US,
they would also be routed to Military Counseling Network in Germany,
which is the Mennonite counseling organization that is part of the GI
Rights Hotline Network. And so, that's one thing we do, among other things.

We do demonstrations in front. We've invited Iraq veterans right to
Ansbach in May. There were four US Iraq Veterans Against the War who
did a week-long campaign there, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Coming up is the sixtieth anniversary of NATO, and I
know there are major antiwar plans. Barack Obama will then be the
official president. I expect that he would be going there. Where is
all this taking place?

ELSA RASSBACH: Yes, this is taking place on the border between France
and Germany, in Strasbourg on the French side and Kehl on the German
side, and the whole province of Baden-Baden. And Strasbourg is where
the European Parliament is. In fact, Strasbourg is where we even had
a resolution for asylum in 2006 heard by­the Green and the left
parties helped organize that. We were involved, and all of the
organizations we've mentioned here were involved in that.

And there is a plan­this is the whole focus, really, of the German
peace movement, to a large extent, as far as they know, to the
European peace movement this spring, which is to say that no­the
slogan is "no war, no NATO." There is no reason for NATO to continue.
NATO was an alliance against the Soviet bloc and the Warsaw Pact.
It's in the NATO statutes that they are­NATO is only defensive. It's
not supposed to be going elsewhere. And since the end of the Cold
War, it has been used now to justify the Afghanistan war, the
aggressive stance, the missile defense shield in East Europe and the
kind of aggressiveness developing to the Soviet Union­or the former
Soviet Union, to Russia and so forth. And it's also used to
justify­it's the only justification why Germany allows these bases to
be used for the Iraq war. Germany didn't agree with the Iraq war.
It's because of the NATO alliance. So this is being challenged now.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with Andre Shepherd.

ELSA RASSBACH: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Andre, how much contact did you have with the antiwar
movement, both German and US? Is this a support to you now? Were you
able to get access to their information? Or, as you said, did most of
your information come from your own research on US military bases in Germany?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Well, I got into extensive contact with the antiwar
movement through the Military Counseling Network, who I've been in
contact with for the last year and half, actually the entire time
I've been AWOL. As of right now, I am a proud member of Iraq Veterans
Against the War for the last month or so. I have connections with­you
know, connections with Connection e.V. I've spoken with Courage to
Resist. And there's a whole myriad of other peace organizations, like
the Tübingen Progressive Americans for Peace and, you know, many
others such as that. So there's a really huge support network that
we're working together with to try to­

AMY GOODMAN: Are you afraid of being picked up, as Augustin Aguayo
was? Now, of course, he was on a US military base in Germany, but
ultimately, well, you know, picked up by US military when he was
first taken. Then he went AWOL. Are you concerned about this?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: As of right now, there's a little bit of concern, but
I am hoping that the Americans will respect the Geneva Conventions
and will not, you know, create a possible international incident by
trying to pick me up and bring them under their jurisdiction while
this process is ongoing.

AMY GOODMAN: And the next step in your application process for asylum
here in Germany?

ANDRE SHEPHERD: Currently, I am waiting for a hearing so I can argue
my case with my lawyer, Dr. Reinhard Marx. And we will present our
case in the most comprehensive fashion that we can. And then we will
see what the initial decision will be.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. Andre
Shepherd, speaking out for the first time internationally about his
application for political asylum here in Germany. And thank you to
Elsa Rassbach. Your website, if people want to get in touch with it.

ELSA RASSBACH: We don't actually have a website, but you could go to
the Munich American Peace Committee, that's part of the American
Voices Abroad Military website. Sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you both for being with us. The US Senate has come
out with a report on the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Next segment, we'll be joined by a German attorney who's sued Donald
Rumsfeld for torture.

--------

US soldier's German asylum plea imperils ties

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e12efa12-bf35-11dd-ae63-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: December 1 2008

An expected thaw in relations between the US and Germany following
the election of Barack Obama faces an unexpected obstacle after an
Iraq war deserter asked for asylum in Germany.

André Shepherd, a US Army specialist who had been living underground
in southern Germany since going absent without leave 1½ years ago,
filed his application last week, he told the Financial Times in a
telephone interview from an undisclosed location. "I've done enough
research to come to the conclusion that what is happening in Iraq is
not the equivalent of World War II but outright massacre," Mr
Shepherd said. "We are not the freedom fighters we think we are."

His application was the first such move by an Iraq war deserter in Europe.

Under a 2004 European directive, now part of German law, the country
must grant asylum to deserters if the conflicts they are fleeing from
are being conducted in an unlawful manner. Mr Shepherd, 31 has been
staying with German friends, often changing locations and working
illegally on construction sites. He said he was reconciled to the
idea that a successful asylum application would make it impossible
for him ever to return to the US. "I miss my family a lot, but
Germany has also become a second home" he said.

Mr Shepherd's lawyer, Reinhard Marx, said: "Legally, his prospects
are looking very good." The German Federal Administrative Court ruled
in 2005 that the Iraq War violated international law and labelled the
invasion an act of aggression.

But Mr Marx added: "Politically, things do not look so good. You can
have doubts as to whether the government would grant asylum to a US deserter ."

If successful, Mr Shepherd's application could create a problematic
precedent for the US military in Germany, home to 66,000 active-duty
personnel, the largest US military overseas presence outside Iraq.

Mr Shepherd's application makes him a deserter under the US military
justice code.

Yet as an asylum seeker, he now enjoys the protection of the German
federal government.

"If the Americans grab him, there will be very little we can do but I
assume they will respect German law," Mr Marx said.

Desertion in time of war carries a possible death sentence in the US,
although in practice Iraq war deserters have faced prison sentences
ranging from nine months to 1½ years.

While several US servicemen have filed for asylum in Canada, home to
most deserting Iraq war veterans, the government there has turned
down applications.

Mr Shepherd, from Cleveland, Ohio, joined the army after college in
2004 and served on a forward operating base near Tikrit in Iraq from
September 2004 to February 2005, servicing Apache helicopters, before
being transferred to Germany.

.

Army deserter arrested at Blue Water Bridge

PORT HURON: Army deserter arrested at Blue Water Bridge

http://www.freep.com/article/20081224/NEWS05/812240307/1007

A 28-year-old U.S. Army deserter was arrested at the Blue Water
Bridge border crossing Monday, the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security said Tuesday.

James Ashley of Ft. Riley, Kan., was nabbed when he tried to enter
the United States because he had an outstanding federal arrest
warrant for military desertion, according to government officials.

"This apprehension resulted from our efforts to increase the number
of name queries at land border crossings while still efficiently
processing legitimate trade and travelers," Port Huron port director
David Dusellier said.

.

Marine deserter kicked out of military

[7 articles]

Court-martialed Marine is freed from jail in Boulder

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-awol27-2008dec27,0,1892330.story

Lance Hering, who went AWOL for two years after being traumatized by
Iraq combat, had been arrested on a probation violation after his discharge.

By Tony Perry
December 27, 2008

Reporting from Camp Pendleton -- Lance Hering, who went AWOL from the
Marine Corps for two years after being emotionally overwhelmed by
combat duty in Iraq, is home in Boulder, Colo., free on $5,000 bond
on a probation violation charge from a previous burglary conviction.

Hering, 23, faces a Jan. 7 court date. He also faces a separate
charge stemming from the 2006 hoax that he and a buddy pulled to try
to convince the Marine Corps that Hering was dead in the wilds of
Eldorado Canyon State Park.

The buddy received probation in that case and was ordered to pay the
$33,000 cost of a massive search undertaken by Boulder County
authorities before the hoax was uncovered. The Hering family is ready
to pay the $33,000.

The burglary conviction stems from a 2004 incident in which Hering
and the same buddy were caught scaling downtown buildings at night.
The two said it was just an urban mountain-climbing exercise. They
were placed on probation. Hering allegedly violated that probation by
becoming a fugitive from the Marine Corps.

Arrested Nov. 16 in Port Angeles, Wash., Hering was taken to
court-martial last week at Camp Pendleton. The Marines could have
thrown the book at him -- desertion in time of war can carry the
death penalty -- but instead barely tossed a pamphlet.

The hearing officer ordered him to forfeit $1,166 in pay but serve no
additional jail time beyond the 33 days Hering spent in the brig
awaiting court-martial.

Nor did the hearing officer reduce Hering in rank from lance
corporal. Within hours, Hering was discharged from the Marine Corps.

There is no indication that the Corps' lenient treatment of Hering
will set any precedent for other lengthy AWOL cases.

The way the Marine Corps handles long-term cases affords the
convening authority, a colonel, with unrestricted latitude to
consider each case individually, officials said. Not even the
commandant can tell him what to do.

Also, the facts of the Hering case appear unique. While serving in
Iraq in 2006 he suffered a mental collapse and was evaluated at
military hospitals in Iraq and Germany, but doctors apparently missed
what military psychologists now say is an acute case of
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hering was born in Saudi Arabia, where his parents were teachers at
oil-company schools. He spent 11 of his first 13 years there,
surrounded by Arab friends at school and on sports teams and camping
trips. The family traveled widely in the region and enjoyed Arab hospitality.

At the court-martial, Lloyd Hering testified that he was not
surprised at his son's horror at returning to the Middle East and
finding Americans and Arabs killing one another.

"Iraq shook my faith in humanity and its purpose," Lance Hering told
the hearing officer.

After the court-martial, Hering was escorted back to Boulder by
Boulder County sheriff's deputies and had made bail before his
parents' flight landed.
--

tony.perry@latimes.com

--------

Hering apologizes at sentencing, says he has PTSD

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=106257&provider=top&catid=188

by: Jace Larson and Jeffrey Wolf
12/20/08

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Lance Cpl. Lance Hering has been turned over
to the Boulder County Sheriff's Office after he was sentenced by the
Marines on Friday.

Hering will have to forfeit one month of pay and restriction for 60
days. He was given credit for 33 days time served and will not face
time in a military prison, following the sentence recommendation from
a military hearing officer.

Hering pleaded guilty at his summary court-martial to unauthorized
absence. At the summary court-martial, held at Camp Pendleton,
Calif., Hering said his actions were "irrational and careless."

In court, Hering looked very different from when he was arrested in
early November. His long hair had been cut off and his head was nearly shaved.

He was accused of not returning to the Marines after taking leave.

One month worth of pay for Hering is $1,166.

In court, Hering apologized to his famly and the city of Boulder, but
he also said he did not regret his decision to leave. He claims he is
suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"He's not proud of what happened to him, or what his response to it
was," said Hering's attorney James Culp.

"It was very gradual. It was very cautious during the time he was
gone. I immersed myself in learning everything I could about PTSD,"
said Elynne Hering, the Marine's mother.

"We knew that he would have to get accustomed to resuming his own
identity. It was a huge change. And he was mentally wounded," said
Lloyd Hering, his father.

Under the summary court-martial, Hering will not be punitively
discharged and will not have a federal conviction.

The Marines released a statement saying it was recommended Hering "be
administratively separated from the Marine Corps for commission of a
serious offense and is recommending that Hering receive an other than
honorable character of service."

Though his attorney won't say what Hering went through in Iraq, he
says the court acknowledged the military made mistakes.

"The summary court martial shook Lance's hand and said the leinency
was directly purportional to the error made when Lance was med evaced
from a combat zone for a mental crisis and then sent back to combat
three three weeks later and then sent home on leave," said Culp.

The maximum sentence for summary court-martial was a 30-day
confinement, hard labor without confinement for no more than 45 days,
restriction to specific limits for no more than two months,
two-thirds forfeiture of pay and allowances for one month and
military rank reduction to Private E-1.

Hering was not demoted in rank.

A summary court-martial is the lowest level court-martial. The
sentence recommendation must still be approved by the Commanding
Officer, Headquarters Support Nattalion, Camp Pendleton.

Information leaked to 9Wants to Know earlier this month said Hering
would be sentenced to 30 days in a military prison and would receive
a less than honorable discharge. Those reports proved to be inaccurate Friday.

Hering is also facing charges in Boulder County after reportedly
faking a climbing accident more than two years ago that prompted a
7,000 hour search. He originally went missing in the early hours of
Aug. 30, 2006 when his friend reported he was injured in Eldorado
Canyon State Park.

Hering still faces charges of false reporting and failing to comply
on a burglary charge in Boulder County.

Culp predicts the civilian court in Boulder will take the same
lenient approach.

"We have every anticipation that Lance will be home with his brother,
at home for Christmas," said Culp.

On Friday morning, Hering's father, Lloyd, who also faces charges,
gave emotional testimony and said he wished he would have noticed his
son's PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, when he got back from
Iraq in 2006.

Hering was arrested in a rented airplane on the runway of an airport
in Port Angeles, Wash., on Nov. 16.

Lloyd Hering was piloting the plane and was arrested for aiding and abetting.

According to an arrest affidavit, Lloyd Hering stated he was picking
up his son to help him turn himself in.

Hering told the officer that his father was taking him to Virginia to
see a psychiatrist, and then he was going to meet with his attorney
in Texas and turn himself in to Camp Pendleton. Lance stated that his
parents have not known of his whereabouts and that he only recently
engaged them in conversation.

The report goes on to say, "Lloyd Hering stated that he had not seen
his son in the two years since he has been gone, and he only recently
found that he could pick him up in Port Angeles to help him get
through the process of turning himself in."

Police also found pictures of Hering and his father together at an
event in September.

The Marines took Hering into custody on Nov. 22, picking him up from
the Clallam County Jail in Washington and taking him to Camp
Pendleton in California.

--------

AWOL Marine sentenced to time served and $1,166 fine

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/12/awol-marine-sen.html

Tony Perry in San Diego
December 19, 2008

A Marine who faked his own death and went on the lam for two years
after coming back from duty in Iraq was sentenced today in a Camp
Pendleton military courtroom to time already served and a forfeiture
of $1,166 in pay. In addition, his case will be turned over to an
administrative board to oversee his discharge.

Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, 23, of Boulder, Colo., received his sentence
after pleading guilty to being AWOL for two years.

"Those were very dark days for me," Hering told the courtroom before
the penalty was announced, saying his head was filled with "confusing
images and violent thoughts."

In an emotional statement to the court, Hering's father described the
time when his son was thought to be dead. He also thanked the Marine
Corps for how it treated Lance Hering while in custody for the last 30 days.

Lloyd Hering recalled how in August 2006, the Boulder County Sheriffs
Department told him his son had been injured and lost in a canyon.

"Lance was injured, and he was lost, but not in the ways we
expected," the elder Hering said. He added that he didn't think his
son was running away from going back to Iraq but from what he had seen there.

"If anything, he was running from where he had been," he said,
referring to his son as a "wayward and wounded warrior." With tears
in his eyes, he looked at his son and said his reappearance was "the
best possible Christmas present your mom and I could ever have."

The tall, broad-shouldered Marine sat in the courtroom with his long
locks freshly cut into a military buzz. He must still return to
Boulder to face sentencing on charges of violating his probation
stemming from a 2004 burglary conviction and on charges related to
the hoax he pulled with a friend.

His friend reported to police in August 2006 that Hering had been
badly injured in a fall during a hiking trip and wandered off. After
a massive search, Hering could not be found. His fake death started a
two-year odyssey that ended when he was arrested last month in Port
Angeles, Wash.

--------

Marine deserter kicked out of military

http://www.montereyherald.com/state/ci_11278040?nclick_check=1

The Monterey County Herald
Associated Press
12/20/2008

CAMP PENDLETON ­ A Marine who staged his own disappearance during a
hike in Colorado was discharged after pleading guilty Friday to
deserting his unit for more than two years because he was suffering
violent thoughts after serving in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, 23, was ordered by a military judge to
forfeit about $1,160 in pay and was sentenced to time already served.
Hours later, Hering was discharged from the Marines and handed over
to authorities from his hometown of Boulder, Colo.

Hering must return there to face charges of violating his probation
from a 2004 attempted burglary conviction and a hoax he orchestrated
in 2006 to convince the Marines he was either lost or dead in a Colorado park.

Hering had just returned from Iraq in August 2006 and was due back at
Camp Pendleton the next month to train for a possible redeployment in
2007. Hering never returned, and he went into hiding with help from a
friend who told police the Marine suffered a rock-climbing accident
west of Boulder and wandered away.

The friend later admitted the disappearance was a hoax ­ but not
before hundreds of people had scoured the landscape looking for
Hering. The Marine was found in Washington state last month and
charged with one count of unauthorized absence.

He could have been sentenced to 30 days in the brig, 45 days of hard
labor and two months of confinement on the base.

During the hearing, Hering told the judge he fled the Marines because
he suffered mental trauma while in Iraq.

Eight Marines in his unit were killed during the deployment, dozens
were wounded, and several others were accused of war crimes.

"Those were very dark days for me," Hering told a court-martial
hearing officer. He said he suffered "disturbing images and violent
thoughts" after serving in Iraq, according to a Los Angeles Times story.

Police arrested Hering last month at an airport in Port Angeles,
Wash., after a tip from the Boulder County sheriff. He was with his
father, Lloyd Hering, who was arrested for investigation of aiding
and abetting. That charge was dismissed Tuesday.

The Marine's father claims he was flying his son to see a
psychiatrist in Virginia and then to Texas to meet a lawyer who
represents Marines in criminal cases.

Lance Hering's attorney, James Culp, said that an evaluation by
military psychologists after his arrest determined he was suffering a
"severe mental defect" during his deployment to Iraq.

Steve Powers, the friend who reported the disappearance, has said
Hering wanted to get away because he feared harm from members of his
own unit, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. Some members of
that unit were charged with killing an Iraqi civilian.

Hering "thought if he would have gone back to Camp Pendleton they
would have killed him," Powers told the Daily Camera of Boulder in
October 2006. "He was terrified."

Powers said he and Hering went to Eldorado Canyon State Park on Aug.
29 and found a place where Hering left some of his own blood to
support the story Powers later told authorities ­ that Hering hit his
head and was unconscious for hours while Powers hiked out to find help.

He said he then drove his friend to downtown Denver and returned to
the state park, where he reported his friend had disappeared.

"He was definitely, absolutely convinced this was the only way he was
going to survive," Powers said.

--------

Missing Marine Gets Fine, No Jail Time For Going AWOL

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/18316247/detail.html#-

Lance Hering Faked Boulder Climbing Accident, Authorities Say

December 19, 2008

A Boulder Marine who allegedly faked his own disappearance to avoid
returning to his unit got a fine, but no additional jail time at his
Camp Pendleton summary court martial Friday.

Lance Hering, 23, made headlines in August 2006 when a friend
reported he had fallen while rock climbing in a Boulder park. An
extensive search in Eldorado Canyon turned up no trace of him. It was
later discovered that he had boarded a bus in Denver that same day
and went AWOL from the Marine Corps. He disappeared for two years.

On Friday, Hering pleaded guilty to committing an unauthorized
absence of more than 30 days and was ordered to forfeit $1,166 in
back pay. He was given credit for time already served in jail while
he awaits action from Boulder County.

By avoiding a more serious charge of desertion, he avoided a possible
lengthy federal prison stay or possibly even death by firing squad.

A military board will determine his discharge status.

During the emotional hearing, Hering said that he fled Colorado in
2006 after experiencing mental trauma during combat in Iraq, the
Rocky Mountain News reported.

Hering told the judge that "the mental state I was in" prevented him
from returning to Camp Pendleton.

Hering had served a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq and told a
friend that his unit, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine
Regiment, had been involved in the shooting death of a female Iraqi
civilian. Hering said he witnessed it and was afraid of the eight
fellow soldiers accused in the shooting and of retaliation.

In court Friday, Hering wore his green battle dress uniform and
sported a military buzz cut, having shaved off the shoulder-length
hair he had grown while on the run.

Hering was arrested in Washington in November with his father while
the two were boarding a small plane. Police in Boulder had received a
tip that led law enforcement officers in Washington to the airport in
Port Angeles.

Hering has two outstanding warrants from Boulder, including a felony
charge of failure to comply with his probation stemming from a 2004
burglary arrest. The other warrant for his arrest is for conspiracy
to commit false reporting to authorities.

Hering remains at Camp Pendleton, but Cmdr. Phil West, a spokesman
with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, said his department has
requested that Hering be sent back to Boulder County to face the
felony and misdemeanor charges.

West told the Daily Camera that his office has made arrangements with
the San Diego County Sheriff's Department to hold Hering until
Boulder County law enforcement officials can send deputies out to
California to pick him up.

Hering's Boulder County lawyer, Alex Garlin, said it's "unlikely"
that his client would fight extradition to Colorado. It's not known
when Hering would return to Colorado. Garlin said it would be up to a
judge to determine if and how much Hering must pay to reimburse the
county the $33,000 it spent trying to find him.

In court Friday, Lloyd Hering said for months, he and his wife did
not know about the whereabouts of their son, the Rocky reported. Then
they received a surprise e-mail that arrived in May 2007. It said,
"Happy Mother's Day. I love you."

Lloyd Hering said they had sporadic e-mail contact during the
following months, and met face-to-face for the first time at the
Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert.

Lloyd Hering said when they were arrested he was planning to fly
Lance to the East Coast to consult with a psychiatrist with expertise
in post-traumatic stress disorder and then to Texas to meet with his
attorney, James Culp, the Rocky reported. By the time of his arrest,
Culp had been in negotiations with Marine Corps lawyers for several weeks.

--------

Marines: Hering to face court-martial Friday

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/dec/16/marines-hering-face-court-martial-friday/

Maximum penalty for disappearance is 30 days of confinement

By Heath Urie
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Boulder Marine Lance Hering will face a summary court-martial on
Friday at Camp Pendleton, Calif., military officials said Tuesday.

Maj. Kristen Lasica, a spokeswoman for Camp Pendleton, said Hering's
hearing comes after discussions between the military authority and
Hering's defense attorney.

The maximum penalty Hering faces under the court is 30 days
confinement, hard labor without confinement up to 45 days,
restriction to specific military duties or a combination of the three
options, Lasica said.

Hering could also be required to complete his military commitment, or
officers could administratively dismiss him from service. He also
could be required to forfeit two-thirds of his pay for one month and
face a reduction in rank.

Hering was in hiding for more than two years after faking an accident
in Eldorado Canyon State Park. He has been charged with "unauthorized
absence for more than 30 days terminated by apprehension," a lesser
charge than "desertion."

Lasica did not know why Hering was charged with the lesser offense,
but she said that "unauthorized absences" are not uncommon charges
now in the military.

Hering was initially in talks with military officials to undergo a
special court-martial, but he reached an agreement through his
attorney to instead face the summary court-martial, a lesser military court.

A summary court-martial consists of one commissioned officer and can
try only enlisted personnel for non-capital offenses. A special
court-martial consists of at least three members and a military judge.

Hering, who disappeared from Boulder a couple of weeks before he was
supposed to report back to duty in September 2006, was arrested in
Port Angeles, Wash., on Nov. 16. He is being charged with one count
of Article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, military
officials have said.

The time of Hering's hearing on Friday has not been scheduled, Lasica said.

After he was arrested, Hering's lawyers claimed he was on his way to
turn himself in to the Marines.

Hering is also facing charges in Boulder County of violating
probation, stemming from a 2004 conviction of attempted burglary, and
he is wanted by the Sheriff's Office on a false reporting charge.
--

Three types of military court-martial

Summary Court-Martial

A summary court-martial consists of one commissioned officer, and may
try only enlisted personnel for noncapital offenses. The punishment
which may be imposed depends on the grade of the accused. In the case
of enlisted members above the fourth pay grade, a summary
court-martial may impose any punishment not forbidden by the law
except death, dismissal , dishonorable or bad conduct discharge,
confinement for more than 1 month, hard labor without confinement for
more than 45 days, restriction to specified limits for more than 2
months, or forfeiture of more than two-thirds of 1 month's pay. In
the case of all other enlisted members, the court-martial may also
impose confinement for not more than one month and may reduce the
accused to the lowest pay grade, E-1. The accused has the absolute
right to refuse trial by summary court-martial. The accused does not
have the right to representation by an attorney. The accused does
have the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witnesses and
produce evidence, and to testify or remain silent.

Special Court-Martial

A special court-martial consists of not less than three members and a
military judge, or an accused may be tried by military judge alone
upon request of the accused. A special court-martial is often
characterized as a misdemeanor court, and may try all persons subject
to the UCMJ, including officers and midshipmen. A special
court-martial may impose any punishment authorized under R.C.M.1003
except death, dishonorable discharge, dismissal, confinement for more
than 1 year, hard labor without confinement for more than 3 months,
forfeiture of pay exceeding two-thirds pay per month, or any
forfeiture of pay for more than 1 year.

General Court-Martial

A general court-martial consists of not less than five members and a
military judge, or an accused may be tried by military judge alone
upon request of the accused. A general court-martial is often
characterized as a felony court, and may try all persons subject to
the UCMJ, including officers and midshipmen. A general court-martial
may adjudge any punishment not prohibited by the UCMJ, including
death when specifically authorized. Source: Military.com

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AWOL Marine to face court-martial Friday

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=106055&catid=339

by: Anastasiya Bolton
12/17/08

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A summary court-martial hearing is scheduled
Friday for a Marine accused of faking a climbing accident more than
two years ago in order to avoid a return deployment to Iraq.

The time of the summary court-martial for Lance Cpl. Lance Hering has
not been announced.

Hering's military attorney, James Culp, told 9NEWS the defense has
submitted a pre-trail agreement. The decision by the convening
authority, Hering's superior officer, hasn't been made. Culp said he
was hopeful it would be approved. He wouldn't disclose the terms of
the agreement.

Culp told 9NEWS if Hering were to receive a summary court-martial, he
would not be punitively discharged and he would not have a federal conviction.

According to Maj. Kristen A. Lasica, the maximum sentence for summary
court-martial is a 30-day confinement, hard labor without confinement
for no more than 45 days, restriction to specific limits for no more
than two months, two-thirds forfeiture of pay and allowances for one
month and military rank reduction to Private E-1.

The summary court-martial hearing officer will make a recommendation
on the appropriate sentence that will be reviewed and considered by
the convening authority, Col. Philip J. Betz. Betz will make the
final decision to accept the recommendation fully or in part.

In the summary court-martial, the military rules of evidence apply,
which means Hering has the right to present his case. How he does
that is up to him and his defense counsel.

A summary court-martial is the lowest level court-martial.

Hering, 23, was arrested in a rented airplane on the runway of an
airport in Port Angeles, Wash., on Nov. 18 on charges of desertion
and contempt of court.

The Marines took Hering into custody on Nov. 22, picking him up from
the Clallam County Jail in Washington and taking him to Camp
Pendleton in California.

Hering will still need to face charges of false reporting and failing
to comply on a burglary charge in Boulder County.

He originally went missing in the early hours of Aug. 30, 2006 when
his friend Steve Powers reported he was injured in Eldorado Canyon State Park.

After Hering went missing, 600 searchers from more than 40 different
agencies spent five days in Eldorado Canyon searching for the missing Marine.

While volunteers were gathering to start looking for Hering, the
Boulder County Sheriff's Office says the young Marine boarded a
Greyhound bus out of town.

Powers has since pleaded guilty to false reporting - a misdemeanor,
as well as failing to meet the terms of his deferred sentence for an
earlier burglary.

During Powers' two-year probation, he has been ordered to pay Boulder
County $33,057 in restitution to cover the expenses incurred by
search teams during the largest search effort in county history.

Authorities say volunteers spent a combined 7,000 hours looking for Hering.

Hering's father, Lloyd, was arrested for aiding and abetting.

Lloyd Hering was piloting a rented plane when he and his son were
arrested at the airport in Port Angeles.

In the days following Hering's disappearance, the Marine's father
made a public plea for his son to call home. Hering's father said
publicly his son would not fake his own disappearance and suggested
his son may have suffered a head injury which left him disoriented.

According to an arrest affidavit, Lloyd Hering "stated he was picking
up his son to help him turn himself in."

Hering told the officer that his father was "taking him to Virginia
to see a psychiatrist, and then he was going to meet with his
attorney in Texas and turn himself in to Camp Pendleton. Lance stated
that his parents have not known of his whereabouts and that he only
recently engaged them in conversation."

The report goes on to say, "Lloyd Hering stated that he had not seen
his son in the two years since he has been gone, and he only recently
found that he could pick him up in Port Angeles to help him get
through the process of turning himself in."

Police also found pictures of Hering and his father together at an
event in September.

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