Darrell Anderson
Posted on 12/10/2006 11:47:05 AM PST by jazusamo
On the night before Darrell Anderson was supposed to return to Iraq for his second tour of duty, he got in a car and drove to Canada.
The Army specialist decided he could not go back to the place where he had shot at Iraqi civilians, been wounded by a roadside bomb, and watched other soldiers die.
So he went absent without leave.
"I'd spend three years in prison rather than go back to Iraq," Anderson, 24, said Saturday.
Instead he spent nearly two years in Canada before returning home to Kentucky and turning himself in to the military, where he faced years in prison but ultimately served only three days in confinement.
With both a Purple Heart and a less-than-honorable discharge to his name, Anderson has joined a growing effort within the anti-war movement to make heroes of Iraq war deserters who went absent without leave.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I suggest tighter screening of enlistees may be needed to weed out these traitors.
Barfer Ping
John Kerry almost got to sit in the BigBoy Chair with such credentials
Lt. Watada is not brave and he can be punished for raising his voice and taking the stand he does. AWOL will be an embarrassment forever. Service is VOLUNTARY. Don't sign up if you don't want to follow orders. These men (really boys) are criminals and should both be in prison. One of their crimes is emboldening the enemy. They are beneath contempt.
Agreed...I'm sure immaturity plays into this and in the case of Watada I believe he probably had an agenda when he joined, neither excuses their criminal acts.
An incident last April changed his views concerning the fighting.
Anderson was with a group of soldiers helping to defend an Iraqi police station that was under fire. Suddenly, a car swerved into the area, refusing to stop. Soldiers are expected to open fire when that happens where any stranger is a potential enemy and any vehicle might contain a bomb. But Anderson never pulled the trigger of his M-16.
"This car kept coming, and the other guys were yelling, 'Why don't you shoot, why don't you shoot?' But I felt the car posed no threat. Then, the window of the car rolled down, and it was just an Iraqi family," Anderson said. "I said, 'Look it's just innocent people.' But they kept telling me, 'The next time, you open fire. We don't care."'
A few days later Anderson was wounded by a roadside bomb. He received the Purple Heart. But he says the incident at the police station, not his wounds, convinced him that the war was wrong. He said he felt he was being forced to possibly gun down innocent Iraqis.
"There are no weapons of mass destruction. Innocent people are being killed every day. It's a war about money -- to keep money in rich people's pockets. There is no way I can believe in that. I still believe in my country, but I can no longer be a part of the Army or that war," Anderson said.
http://oldamericancentury.org/darrell.htm
"We want this to be what it was in Vietnam and more," said Max Diorio, an organizer with Courage to Resist, the group behind the resistance weekend.
It seems there are still deserters and draft dodgers from the Vietnam war era assisting deserters who volunteered for duty in this war. The anti-war faction is not going away.
There was another thread yesterday from a Syracuse paper where she lives that had the story of Maggi spitting in the soldiers face and they listed her current address. I'll bet she didn't appreciate that.
It doesn't even look like there are 20 people there.
The next John Kerry?????
Darrell Anderson
Doesn't look like an overflow crowd does it? :-)
I'm surprised the Chronicle printed that shot.
Max Diorio of the Bay Area chapter of Not in Our Name (NION), admits that his group didn't even take a position on the election.
"We realized it wouldn't change the fact that there was a war on. Besides, those who temporarily mobilized for the election are still here and they're still antiwar," he says.
Meanwhile, ANSWER's Becker says his coalition's long-term goal is to create a movement "big enough so that politicians will want to jump on the bandwagon, even though they'll try to take credit for it later." He notes that while the current incarnation of the antiwar movement may not be seeing huge demonstrator turnout, it's equally important that on-the-street activists let antiwar stay-at-homers know they are not alone--and that the movement learn from its earlier mistakes.
"Our target audience wasn't the Bush administration as much as it was each other," says Becker of wedges that occurred within the prewar protests. And now of course there's a new antiwar support base--those impacted by the tragic face of war.
As NION's Diorio explains, "Mothers [of soldiers who have died in Iraq] are calling us up asking us to photograph their coffins. Soldiers are going AWOL and refusing their missions. These things are also part of the antiwar movement."
But while the sight of endless rows of flag-draped coffins may turn once-pro-war military parents against the war, it can also have the opposite effect. Consider the case of local resident Chuck Perez, whose grandson, U.S. Army Spc. Morgen Jacobs, was killed in Iraq on Oct. 7, 2004.
"We have to do something about terrorism," says Perez. "Before the war I had been a Democrat my whole life, but in the last election I voted for Bush."
typical greasy, unwashed hair on 'em, too
"This car kept coming, and the other guys were yelling, 'Why don't you shoot, why don't you shoot?' But I felt the car posed no threat. Then, the window of the car rolled down, and it was just an Iraqi family," Anderson said. "I said, 'Look it's just innocent people.' But they kept telling me, 'The next time, you open fire. We don't care."'
___________________________________________________________
And yet; I would like to hear from "the other guys" perspective. IF this incident even happened.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.