US SOLDIERS AGAINST IRAQ WAR SEEKING WAY OUT

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Apologies if a dupe - but a question was raised recently about trends of troops going AWOL

From Der Spiegel, Feb 27, 2007

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,468740,00.html

Casualties of Conscience

By Mary Wiltenburg

As criticism of the Iraq war grows at home, some US soldiers abroad are rejecting Bush's mission. On military bases across Germany, many are now seeking a way out through desertion or early discharge.

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President George W. Bush's call to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq is not only providing ammunition to his political opponents; it is fueling doubts among those doing the fighting.

"Since Bush's speech, we've been swamped with new calls," says Michael Sharp, director of the Military Counseling Network, a non-profit organisation near Heidelberg that helps American soldiers who are considering leaving the service. Last month the group took on 30 new clients, three times its previous average.

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In the hospital he picked up a biography of Gen. Ludwig Beck. The former chief of staff of the German Armed Forces publicly resigned five years after the Nazi takeover; he was put to death after an attempt on Hitler's life. Evers read Beck's words -- "A soldier's duty ends where his knowledge, conscience, and responsibility forbid him to follow a command" -- and thought: Yes it does.

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Increasingly, soldiers with distinguished records, some a few years from retirement, are seeking discharge or choosing not to re-enlist, forfeiting the opportunity for generous pensions. These career military men and women say neither money nor pride can justify continuing to fight such a war. "I knew when I came back that I couldn't do this anymore. I couldn't be the tool to enforce policy that I thought was fundamentally wrong, if not a little evil," says Sgt. Bob Evers, a 14-year Army and Navy veteran now living in the Bavarian hamlet of Schnackenwerth. "It is absolutely devastating to me to see what we're doing and what we have become."

Evers, 37, is a thoughtful Nebraskan with the manner and historical insights of a political science professor. This was his second Iraq War. As a recent high school graduate, he spent 1991 on a battleship in the Persian Gulf. A decade later, in Kosovo, he saw how people welcomed American troops. "It was what I thought being in the military was all about," he says; one home he visited had photos of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair on the wall.

The Sunni Triangle was an ugly contrast. No one wanted Evers's men there, and he could see why. Escorting oil trucks up and down roads where families lack electricity and water, "you're doing more harm than good," he says, "and to me that stings."

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1. Another article from 2005

Desertion huge problem for US in Iraq war

New Zealand Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10126890

Veterans for America website article:

http://www.veteransforamerica.org/ArticleID/7818

Anderson shakes his head at the memory. “I’m already not agreeing with this war. I’m not going to kill innocent people. I can’t kill kids. That’s not the way I was raised.” He says he started to look around at the ruined cityscape and the injured Iraqis, and slowly began to understand the Iraqi response. “If someone did this to my street, I would pick up a weapon and fight. I can’t kill these people. They’re not terrorists. They’re 14-year-old boys, they’re old men. We’re occupying the streets. We raid houses. We grab people. We send them off to Abu Ghraib, where they’re tortured. These are innocent people. We stop cars. We hinder everyday life. If I did this in the States, I’d be thrown in prison.”