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AWOL Gets 6 Months, BCD
An Oregon soldier whose case has caused a stir in anti-war groups nationwide has been sentenced to six months in jail, a loss of pay, a reduction of rank and a bad-conduct discharge for being absent without leave.Pfc. James Burmeister, who was born in Portland and raised in the Eugene area, received the sentence Wednesday from a military judge at a court martial held at Fort Knox, Ky. Burmeister agreed to plead guilty to the charge in exchange for an agreement by military prosecutors not to seek more serious charges. Anti-war activists from filmmaker Michael Moore to groups such as Veterans for Peace have called publicly for Burmeister to be released, arguing that he did the honorable thing by refusing to carry out unethical orders. But Army Capt. Christopher Cross, a military prosecutor, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that "soldiers considering going AWOL... must know there are consequences for abandoning their comrades." Burmeister said he left the Army without permission because he had become disturbed by a tactic known as "small kill teams," in which soldiers would plant U.S. government equipment in parts of Iraq in the hopes that insurgents would come to claim it. Army snipers would then have an opportunity to shoot the Iraqis before they could make off with anything. Burmeister said he complained to superior officers that the snipers couldn't know for sure whether the people they shot were actually insurgents, or presented any threat to U.S. forces. Eventually, the soldier from Cheshire, Ore., was injured by a roadside bomb and sent to Germany to recuperate. While there, he left his unit and went to Canada, where he campaigned against the use of "small kill teams." Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-07-17 |
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