Ft. Lewis soldier will refuse to deploy

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Ft. Lewis soldier will refuse to deploy

Submitted by Rick on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:36am.

From the Olympian

A Fort Lewis soldier is poised to become the first U.S. military officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq, his supporters said Monday.
The officer, whom supporters so far will identify only by the initials LT, will attend a news conference Wednesday in Tacoma to make his identity known and explain the reasons for his refusal.
He has the backing of both national and South Sound anti-Iraq War groups. A Web site set up by supporters, www.thankyoult.org, includes a statement attributed to the officer.
"I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression," it reads in part. "I wanted to be there for my fellow troops. But the best way was not to help drop artillery and cause more death and destruction. It is to help oppose this war and end it so that all soldiers can come home."

More in Army Times. Here's a website set up to support LT.

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If he can argue the

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:53am.

If he can argue the Constitutional angle, he has a strong case with the conflict being illegal.

The problem is that another member of the military already challenged his deployment to Kosovo under President Clinton (citing the fact Congress had not declared war) and lost.

The judge ended up ruling that he has a strong case but that it has to be decided at the higher levels of government.

I guess I should chime in on

Submitted by NWarty on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:01am.

I guess I should chime in on this one.

1LT Watada volunteered to join the Army but there are a lot of unknowns here. How long has 1LT Watada been on active duty and when did he receive his commission? Was he commissioned after the start of combat operations in Iraq? Is 1LT Watada a scholarship cadet?

The bottom line here is that 1LT Watada knew what he might face when joining the military. This is not the boy scouts and even before OIF started, it was no secret there was always the possiblity looming that anyone could be deployed into a combat zone anywhere. Officers are held to a much higher standard folks. My best guess is that it cost the US Army $50-60k to train this individual. Depending on if he were a scholarship cadet, add as much as 80 grand on top of that.

If he is refusing to deploy than he is subject to the UCMJ for disobeying a LAWFUL order. But the law looks at the facts, and this is a legal order and 1LT Watada is disobeying an legal order. If he files for C.O. status then in my opinion, he should pay back every cent of training and educational benefits the army provided him.

He is basically breaking his oath "that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God."

Let's deal with the facts.

Oh, I don't think he's going

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:07am.

Oh, I don't think he's going to win. Everything you listed is going to be cited but, here's the big question: If you're sworn to uphold the Constitution and we're engaged in an unconstitutional conflict, how do you resolve that?

Like I said, a soldier assigned to Kosovo challenged his deployment on the grounds that as a US soldier, he could not be under the leadership of foreign nationals (the United Nations) and that the Executive lacked the necessary Constitutional powers to send troops into conflict.

i get a feeling

Submitted by Crenshaw Sepulveda on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:12am.

I suspect this person signed up to defend the US Constitution, not the Iraq Constitution. Let's face it the law is constructed so that any contract or oath can be gotten out of. If LT wants to test the legal system, more power to him. I get tired of those that like to stand on oaths and contracts as being something sacred.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

I doubt if he's going to

Submitted by Jade on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:44am.

I doubt if he's going to file CO status. He is not saying he objects to all war, which is what you have to say to be a CO.

He is saying he is under illegal orders that he must disobey. That's a very different arguement. Its specific to this conflict.

I'm thinking that it's about

Submitted by Norm on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:06am.

I'm thinking that it's about to get interesting around here.

TFI, You bring up some very

Submitted by NWarty on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:13am.

TFI,

You bring up some very good points and I have little knowledge of the other case.

If he wants to skip out on

Submitted by NWarty on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:17am.

If he wants to skip out on his obligation then fine, test the system. If he loses, send him a bill for $130,000 and an "other than honorable" discharge.

I'm placing my bet on

Submitted by Norm on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:20am.

I'm placing my bet on exactly that.

now this is comical

Submitted by Crenshaw Sepulveda on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:30am.

what the heck, send him a bill for a million dollars, what ever. I love the reasoning here, LT owes the government everything, the government owes him nothing. we all know that military recruiters routinely lie to people, make false promises, do what they can to get people to take the sacred oath. so send LT a bill for 130 k, i'm sure those that support him will come up with the scratch for him. I love people that just feel they need to bludgeon people into submission. And while we're at it, those same people seem to wamt to be compensated by the goverment for their supposed losses when they can't sell their property for development. Growth management, plan for it, and don't go crying when your "investments" don't pay off the way you think they should. It is "investing" not a guarantee of profit. boohoo.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

His choice

Submitted by armywife05 on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:28pm.

I have to inform you officers are not recruited like general enlisted soldiers. He can say that he doesnt want to go all he wants. However, he will probably do a lot of time in jail for it. Its really sad that he is throwing away all job options in the future. Military or otherwise. Also as a 1LT he has only be an officer for at max probably 3 years but probably not even that many. He was probably an ROTC cadet and no when he started the war wasnt going on. That is a risk you take.

I'm willing to reckon he'll

Submitted by Jade on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 12:17pm.

I'm willing to reckon he'll have some job opportunities. There are many people who value this type of courage. I know I'd hire him.

you don't need a crystal ball

Submitted by Crenshaw Sepulveda on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 12:21pm.

I am certain that most people were aware that with Bush in office we'd be at war at some point in his administration. I just wasn't certain that it would turn out to be such a debacle.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

If you go into the military

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 12:50pm.

If you go into the military with the misconception that you won't be going into combat, you should probably re-evaluate your comprehension.

Right now I'm dealing with a military recruiter and, since I would be a "good catch," have basically been called non-stop.

Since I'm going to be entering the military anyway, I don't have a huge problem with it (though it's extremely annoying).

I can see how if someone wasn't interested in joining, they would grow tired of the whole process real quick.

are people so naive

Submitted by Crenshaw Sepulveda on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 3:00pm.

I am just wondering if there are people that join, for instance the Army, and don't anticipate there is some prospect that they could be sent into combat. I know there are lots of people that have served in the Army and have never seen anything remotely like combat. But that doesn't mean that they could not have been sent into combat. Just luck of the draw if they were really hoping not to see combat. That being said, can anyone joining the Army, at any point of history, past or present or future, realistically expect they they might not have to serve in combat? I just can't imagine anyone signing up being so naive that going to combat is not expected. That being the case, I don't think the person referenced in this article had any unrealistic expectations of not serving in combat. He apparently is not opposed to combat, this this particular military action.

"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

Here's the unfortunate

Submitted by The Fire Inside on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 3:09pm.

Here's the unfortunate reality:

The military has to act as one body.

If it's being used incorrectly, that's on leadership (both military and civilian).

Unless there's a blatant misuse (and Iraq isn't it. As Drew has pointed out, one could easily argue Empire if that's what they believe in) such as being ordered to execute another Holocaust, this individual solider is going to lose his case (and he should).

These issues have to be decided at a higher-level.

I think that you have to leave room...

Submitted by Rick on Wed, 06/07/2006 - 6:44pm.

...for the possibility that someone might have learned something that they didn't know before they joined, such as the fact that a great nation can be cynically manipulated by self-serving politicians into doing horrible things.

"we all know that military

Submitted by NWarty on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:38am.

"we all know that military recruiters routinely lie to people, make false promises, do what they can to get people to take the sacred oath."

How about some examples? Please. I've heard this line for years. People sign up for the school money hoping or maybe just fooling themselves into thinking they couldn't possibly be deployed and then screaming "my recruiter didn't tell me I could be deployed!"

The military will not care if 1LT Watada thinks it's immoral or illegal in his opinion. They'll deal with the facts in his case. I'll wait and see, but as an officer in the US Army, tried by his peers, I think he'll lose very very badly on this one.

I have an example.

Submitted by Rob Richards on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:25pm.

I joined the Navy right after high school and was misled numerous times by my recruiter. I was told story after story about how great "someone with your ASVAB scores" will have it. I also want to mention when I was honest about my high school pot use, he said, "That could cause some problems. I'm going to ask you again, have you ever experimented with any controlled substances?" This time, I answered no, and he "forgot" all about my first answer.

I was deployed, to Indonesia, and then to the Persian Gulf for nine months, I didn't then, and won't whine about it now. I will say that I specifically asked my recruiter questions about going to conflicts and being deployed to hot spots, he said, to a group of other recruits, "This is peace time, you guys are gonna have cake duty, you'll be travelling the world and doing training ops and having a great time. You'll get laid in 12 different languages." For starters, I didn't even go to twelve different countries. Finally, I would not describe my time in as "cake". Most of the people I served with kept a fantasy in their heads of meeting up with their recruiters in a dark alley, and having a "talk" with them about the lies they were told.

Yep, not the same story but

Submitted by Norm on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:30pm.

Yep, not the same story but the same hopes that I'd meet up with my recruiter in a dark alley. Hate that asshole.

1LT Watada says he doesn't

Submitted by NWarty on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 10:57am.

1LT Watada says he doesn't disagree with wars in general but doesn't feel like deploying to this one. Since when did combat arms officers get to pick and choose their deployments?

Better yet, offer him an Infantry tour in Afghanistan and see what he says. Then we'll have an idea of where this guy stands if he believes in war but not Iraq.

SO true!!!!

Submitted by armywife05 on Tue, 06/06/2006 - 9:29pm.

You couldnt be more right!

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