Posted on 11/05/2006 5:01:25 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
LOUISVILLE, Ky. Nov 4, 2006 (AP)— Since going to Canada to avoid another deployment to Iraq, Corey Glass has considered returning to the United States. But after hearing that a fellow former soldier who surrendered to the military and was ordered to return to his unit instead of being discharged, Glass may not return at all.
"They're not going to win the hearts and minds like that," said Glass, 24, who signed on with the Indiana National Guard in 2002.
Kyle Snyder, a one-time combat engineer who joined the military in 2003, disappeared Wednesday, a day after surrendering at Fort Knox and 18 months after fleeing to Vancouver instead of redeploying to Iraq.
Snyder, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colo., said a deal had been reached for a discharge, but he found out he would be returned to his unit at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
His troubles are complicating efforts for those among the 220 American soldiers who fled to Canada and want to return to the United States, according to lawyers, soldiers and anti-war activists.
"Nobody's going to come back from Canada anymore," said James Fennerty, a Chicago-based attorney who represents Snyder and other AWOL soldiers.
Several soldiers who went to Canada have said they don't want to return to Iraq. Sgt. Patrick Hart, who deserted the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division in August 2005, a month before his second deployment, said he felt misled about the reasons for the war.
"How can I go over there if I don't believe in the cause? I still consider myself a soldier, but I can't do that," said Hart, a Buffalo, N.Y., native who served more than nine years in the military.
"The whole story behind it, it all feels like a big lie," Glass said. "I ain't fighting for no lie."
Fennerty said he reached a deal with the Army allowing Snyder, a private with the 94th Engineer Battalion, to receive an other-than-honorable discharge.
It's a deal similar to one Darrell Anderson, a 24-year-old Iraq war veteran, received in October. After three days at Fort Knox, Anderson, who has denounced the war as "illegal" and "immoral," was released to his family in Lexington, then discharged.
But Snyder ended up at a bus station in Louisville, with orders to go to St. Louis, then Fort Leonard Wood. Snyder, who said the brutality of what he saw happening to civilians in Iraq prompted him to desert, left with an anti-war activist instead of going back to the post.
Gini Sinclair, a Fort Knox spokeswoman, declined to address Snyder's case. But she said deserters who turn themselves in are automatically returned to their units if the unit is in the United States at the time of surrender. Once reunited with the unit, the commander there decides what becomes of the soldier, Sinclair said.
When a soldier surrenders at Fort Knox and is sent to his unit, he is either put on a plane or a bus, sometimes alone, she said.
"In some cases, they will be escorted," Sinclair said. "I don't know what decides if that happens."
That policy, and the question of whether an AWOL soldier can reach a deal that trumps it, is causing consternation among soldiers.
"After what they did to him, I don't see anybody going back," said Glass, a Fairmount, Ind., native who is currently in Toronto.
Some are seeking refugee status in Canada. Hart, who was joined in Toronto by his wife and their 3-year-old son, served time in Bosnia in the early 1990s, became a reserve, then went to Iraq after returning to active duty. The idea of returning to the United States is appealing to Hart, because he would like to see family and friends.
"I could see going back under some kind of amnesty program or something like that," Hart said. "But I don't trust them. My enemy isn't foreign now. It's domestic."
Corey Glass seems like a regular 25-year-old; he likes skateboarding, grill cheese sandwiches and Quentin Tarantino movies; he doesn't enjoy illegally occupying middle eastern countries.
Glass spent five months in Iraq as a sergeant with the United States National Guard, before becoming a 'war-resister'. He left the army, lived underground in the U.S. for eight months and then came to Canada in August, claiming refugee status. On October 19, Glass will speak in Fredericton about why he refuses to fight.
"When I joined the national guard, they told me the only way I would be in combat is if there were troops occupying the United States," said Corey Glass in a phone interview from Toronto, where he is searching for an apartment. "I signed up to defend people and do humanitarian work filling sandbags if there was a hurricane; I should have been in New Orleans, not Iraq."
"The US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter," said UN Chief Kofi Annan during a 2004 interview with the BBC.
Corey Glass never personally witnessed human rights violations during his service but he "heard stories from people coming back from duty."
How many got to use this excuse when they thought they were joining a fighting Military, instead of a catering service for the Clinton Travel Office
Ditto.
Forget the bounty.....
Pay my expenses, and I'll glady go and hunt these cowards down.
Semper Fi
Stay in Canada you vermin. I would feel sick to know other people were going and dying in my place. Disgusting filth.
As another poster said, you can have a little understanding if there was a draft, but this is the worst kind of dodging -- taking the perks while the going is easy, but once it gets rough -- hightailing it out of the country.
Exactly! They want to come back to the US and reap the rewards of liberty given to us by men who bravely served and sacrificed for their country in time of war. They chose Canada, so they can rot there for all I care.
No deposit no return!!!!!!!!!!!
We have extradition treaties with Canada. We should use them to arrest these DESERTERS and bring them back here to make big rocks into little rocks for the rest of their ignorant, cowardly lives.
At least make him pay back all of the money uncle sam has paid him, plus interest, before letting him back in.
Hi IncPen... Hey... how in the heck to I put a photo in my postings?
Many Thanks for any help!
What is it about growing that little tuft of beard under one's lower lip that proclaims oneself to be a total jerk?
Seen it many times.
Apply for Mexican citizenship, scramble across the border, amnesty is waiting for you after the mid term election
Must be part of the military that only joined to get free education, but when it comes to defending their country, they want out, unlike the true heroes that remain in Iraq and even reenlist when they don't have to. These AWOL soldiers are thankfully a minority, I call them cut and Run Kerry types.
see your FR mail...
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