AWOL G.I. Fearing Return To Iraq Battles For Asylum

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Daily News
November 28, 2008
Pg. 26

By Stephanie Gaskell, Daily News Staff Writer
AN ARMY SOLDIER from Cleveland has deserted in protest of the Iraq war and is seeking asylum in Germany.
Spec. Andre Shepherd, 31, fought in Iraq for six months from late 2004 to 2005 before being stationed at a U.S. base in Germany.
Shepherd went AWOL last year, saying he feared being sent back to Iraq and could not support the “heinous acts” taking place there.
“When I read and heard about people being ripped to shreds from machine guns or being blown to bits by the Hellfire missiles, I began to feel ashamed about what was going on,” Shepherd said during a news conference in Frankfurt yesterday.
“I could not in good conscience continue to serve.”
Shepherd enlisted in the Army in January 2004. He served in Iraq from September 2004 to February 2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic with the 412th Aviation Support Battalion and then was stationed in Germany. He went AWOL last year. According to U.S. law, soldiers who desert in a time of war can face the death penalty.
Shepherd said he hopes to find a sympathetic ear from German officials who supported postwar trials of Nazi officers in World War II.
“Here in Germany, it was established that everyone, even a soldier, must take responsibility for his or her actions, no matter how many superiors are giving orders,” Shepherd said.
Shepherd is the third U.S. soldier to desert since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.
--With News Wire Services
 
Wow, people get shot to shreds by machine gun fire in a war? UNHEARD OF!!!! Why did this idiot even sign up? And if he was a soldier who SAW this and couldn't take it anymore that's one thing, this guy was a f*cking mechanic.
 
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