Posted on 10/09/2006 9:34:52 PM PDT by Red6
He should have gone for the second time to Iraq - US soldier Augustin Aguayo fled from his apartment in Schweinfurt and disappeared. Since this week the deserter sits in the Mannheim military prison and waits for his process. He is worldwide one of thousands of cases.
Mannheim - Both military policemen sat beside his wife in the sitting room, they waited. Their tone was rough. He should pack his things, they ordered, fast. They tried to figure out how they could bring him fastest to the airport. For a long time his companions of the 1 infantry division waited at the same airport to fly back to Iraq
US soldier Augustin Aguayo stood in his bedroom in Frankish Schweinfurt and knew that he wanted not to go back to war. Not another year. " I thought only: These people will not take me." At night before he had slept in the car, missed on purpose the Movement of his battalion in the morning at 7.30 o'clock. Now, in his bedroom, he made a noise something as if he packed his equipment. Then he opened the window and jumped out of the first floor outside.
(Snip) Read bellow the rest
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
In full camouflage uniform he ran off. The 34-year-old US soldier deserted in the middle of Germany, during a sunny day at the beginning of September.
At least 8000 US soldiers have fled since beginning of the Iraq war in spring, 2003 worldwide from their units, reported recently the newspaper "USA Today". The professional magazine "Air Force Times" writes even about 40,000 deserted GI’s since 2000. Hundreds search out Canada for shelter in the neighboring country where a group of engaged US deserters fights for political asylum. However, some also disappear in Germany.
Currently two organizations in Germany look after war-tired US soldiers. The association Connection e. V. in Offenbach and the three-day event Counseling Network (MCN) in Bammental near Heidelberg. " Only in the last week alone four soldiers have called us ", says Michael Sharp of the MCN, " and have inquired about punishments for deserters. " The American discusses legal issue free of charge with MCN.
Hiding place in Bavaria
Aguayo ran so fast he could. The 34-year-old had wrapped up only some underwear and a bank map. During 1 week he hid with a friendly family in Bavaria. She gave him money, cooked for him, and gave him Jeans, a green pullover, white sneakers. " I was concerned about my wife", says Aguayo. She still sat in his house on the US base in Schweinfurt, daily there rang the military policemen.
The Mexican by birth looks gentle when he tells us at a confidential place about his escape. He speaks with quiet, high voice. Only seldom does he underline his words with careful gestures. He says the army was the wrong place for him: Already " the Cadence of violence containing songs in the basic training " psychologically stressed him.
Like many US soldier Aguayo joined because of the money. He was poor, worked as a warehouseman in Los Angeles. One night he heard a radio-advertisement which drummed with immense words for the entry into the Army. Aguayo decided to have a look at the thing once.
The man in the recruitment office promised to him a job as an medic and the possibility to begin a Bachelor's study, supported by the Army after four-year active service. " I imagined: medic sounds well", says Aguayo. When he left the office, he had signed a four year contract. " I did not know that I would sell my soul to the devil ", today he says. A year later he flew in Iraq.
I wanted to be "no tool of the war "
Barely had he arrived, the horror met him. It was his third day in Irak. The Door of his Field Aid Station in Tikrit opened up, and soldiers carried two men in, they were more dead than alive after the explosion of a car bomb. Medic Aguayo did what he had learned, squirted drugs in the veins, tried to stop bleeding. "He wanted to remain alive", says Aguayo about his patient, "he trembled all over. " But Aguayo couldn’t help the man whose arms were torn off, and the skin burnt. When the patient was dead, Aguayo went outdoors. He had to vomit.
A year remained Aguayo in Tikrit, till February, 2005. His wage was 1,600 dollars and 600 euros of bonus in the month. For that he had to put remains of people in bodybags, stood night after night on watch-towers, experienced his companions search Iraqi’s and harass them. He heard how a GI said: "I want to put down somebody, finally, I want to say that I have done it. "
To the gentle soldier was disgusted. It didn’t want to be "tools of the war " as he says. He refused to load his weapon. He decided to fight like a real soldier - against his own army.
Aguayo put an application for war service refusal for religious reasons - the Army rejected him. Aguayo refused the order for carrying of a weapon in Germany - his superiors shortened his salary. Aguayo moved before a civil court in Washington - the judge rejected his complaint on dismissal from the army. Aguayo went to appeal - the army sent him the march order to Iraq, "to the support of the global war against terror " as one said, " for at least 365 days ". The escape from the window was the last way out in his eyes.
A life in the underground no one can survive
In his hiding place in Bavaria Aguayo had a choice. For years he could endure and hope for an Amnesty and be rehabilitated like the diserters after the Vietnam war. "But I thought of my family. "He decided to take a stand. " Most deserterters return sooner or later ", says GI adviser Sharp, few last in a life in the underground.
With a detour Aguayo traveled back in the USA. After four weeks of unauthorized absence he presented himself in California to the military police. He hoped for a quick process and a mild judgment. However, it’s not that simple.
Aguayo’s, grade "Specialist", he is still a member of the 118 infantry battalion of the 1 infantry division in Schweinfurt. His superiors immediately sent him back to Germany, this time in handcuffs. Since Tuesday he sits in the US-military prison in Mannheim. There he waits for his process. More than two years of custody threaten him.
"I know what expects me in Iraq ", he quietly says. He prefers the prison clearly.
--
How the media spins- (Editorial added by Red6 / Not original article)
Reading this story is truly awe inspiring. Loaded with nearly every cliché this article is nothing but spin.
Let’s consider some facts:
Ask yourself this. In an Army of 500,000 Active Duty, 325,000 National Guard 188,000 Reserves.
Now add in 325,000 active USAF, 74,000 USAF Reserve, and 110,000 Air Guard.
Add in 180,000 Marines, and 40,000 Marine Reserves.
Then there are 330,000 in the US Navy and 80,000 Navy Reserves.
Consider there are 118,000 (All branches combined) Individual Ready Reserves. They get called up too. Usually the MSM makes a huge fan fair of this. However, it is spelled out in your contract and even verbally explained that you have a reserve commitment.
Finally add in 40,150 in the Coast Guard (They have guys in Iraq too!).
-- Over a time span of almost four years, what is a desertion rate of 8,800? What does that really mean?
Truth is this is a voluntary military. If you don’t like it, leave. And people do all the time. From a statistical perspective we are running a (Point) .1088% rate per year. One needs to ask himself if even in peacetime some soldiers don’t go AWOL? Oh yes they do. Even before 2003 we were loosing people do to this. In fact we were loosing people also after 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan due to desertion; but because the liberal and German socialist at least in part supports this mission he won’t break it down that way. The underlying message here is supposed to be that it’s Iraq that is causing this.
Let me put this in a real world perspective. This desertion rate they are talking about equated to ONE guy in our battalion not showing up when we deployed. ONE! It equates to very few not returning from mid tour leave when we had it, and we stayed for 16 months, took some of the highest casualties, and stayed in one of the worst areas in Baghdad. In fact, we exceeded our reenlistment goals by a long shot, but we’ll better not go there, it does not fit into the liberal media agenda.
Next cliché: Of course he’s a minority; Hispanic. Next: Of course he’s from a lower socioeconomic class. Next: The recruiter lied to me. Next: The horrors of war and how it's all bad - alsolutely nothing good was done in that year he was there! Next: My leadership is abusive.
Anyone here know anything about history and all the anti-war clichés on Vietnam? The only parallel between Vietnam and Iraq are those who oppose it. Those who are unwilling to see the Soviets arm the North or in Iraq, threat posed by Saddam and Islamists. Thanks Mr. Michael Moore, thanks for your great love of soldiers. I’m sure this love is your true motivation.
In this article they picked their poster child in order to perpetuate this myth. The whole content is nothing but spin based on the fallacious ‘appeal to emotions’. It’s not even so subtle anymore, but then again for the German audience their level of understanding reference the US DoD is fairly low, and their predisposition to want to believe such trash is high.
Statistically bogus, just like their claim of ‘Huge Army recruiting shortfalls’, another issue that has faded away from their screen after this was disproved, this is just another angle of attack based on some cliché.
Suggestion: Maximum sentence.
I don't see why that would not be a huge story by itself.
Good analysis.
I think i'll go and have some dessert.
This distraught victim is a victim because he was victimized by a system seeking victims.
Tragic story. Poor vagrant was just looking for cig money down at the warehouse loading dock.
Did it not occur to this patriot that people actually do sometimes die, or are severely wounded and then may die, and that the job of a medic is to save lives when possible? Not all can be saved, but that does not excuse you from not trying, again and again.
Thanks a lot for your service.
And yet, they keep feeding us the same sob story of Aguayo and what, two other people?
40,000 deserters in 6 years? BS! There might be 40,000 who were late coming back from leave, but the number of actual deserters is probably less than 100.
Catch him, put him in Levanworth for 10 years, and upon completion of sentence, deport him back to Mexico.
I'm not likely to be on your jury.
.
---I wanted to be "no tool of the war "---
What slimy, no-count piece of shit. And stupid!
Yeah, I can see that. Living the tough life underground in Bavaria. Must be almost as tough as, say, Somolia or Sakhalin.
I don't believe it. If there had been 40,000 deserters in the past six years, the MSM would have been howling about it the whole time. It would have fit their "let's-lose-the-war" agenda perfectly.
It sounds funny to me too. I don't buy it either.
Agreed. He knew in advance that millitary service means millitary service.
Besides - something funny (at least to someone who is no member of your millitary - I understand the annoyance of your fighting troops about this): During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the press branded the destroyer tender USS Acadia the "Love Boat" after 36 sailors — 10 percent of the women aboard — became pregnant while deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040615-115647-8125r.htm
Either the males on the ship were all hyper- super- supersexy ;-) or the females were simply not "motivated" to go to war. I think it is a widespread problem (on all places in this world this is no singular problem of the US forces) that many who volunteer for millitary service just do it for their own personal carrer and not because of their country. Bailing out through getting pregnant is of course exclusive to women but it gives proof to my hypothesis.
I would not bother around with such a meaningless article from the -German- Spiegel. To me as a German who lives in the left-wing media thunderstorm of Spiegel and other tabloids it is a fact that most soldiers of the US-forces are honorable. Since you have a big millitary it is unavoidable to have some deserters. So what? In every big apple pie it is possible that there is a foul one.
P.S. I owe you a answer in another thread, but I was indispensable because I changed something in my job and my house was damaged severely in a hailstrom. Since a few weeks I am dealing with 16 hour workdays. Now it is getting better and I will answer soon.
Get a rope! Make it public!
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