AWOL soldier gets 3 months' confinement (Iraq war 'immoral and illegal')

[Barrett808]

FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A Fort Bragg paratrooper who says he left his military base because he disagreed with the U.S. mission in Iraq was sentenced to three months of confinement after pleading guilty Thursday to going absent without leave.

Sgt. Ricky Clousing, 24, of Sumner, Wash., also will receive a reduction in rank before getting a bad conduct discharge. His plea allowed him to avoid a more severe sentence for desertion.

Attorney David Miner said Clousing had "no regrets" for his decision to leave his barracks in North Carolina in June 2005 after a five-month tour in Iraq, where he worked as an interrogator in a military intelligence battalion. Clousing has said that he witnessed an American soldier kill an innocent Iraqi man in Mosul and that unit leaders dismissed his account by saying he was an inexperienced soldier.

"He came to realize the Iraq war was immoral and illegal," Miner said. "Today he was able to present his side and his reasons for what he did."

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061012/ap_on_re_us/iraq_objector

[Megahurtz]

1. More Should Go AWOL.

Safety in Numbers.

[JimDandy]

2. I feel for him. The Army is not a

comfortable place to be for soldiers with true moral and ethical convictions.