Army fails to discharge convicted GI

Source: Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company

DRUNKEN DRIVER: Court was told sergeant would leave service in plea deal.

A Fort Wainwright soldier convicted of felony assault after drunkenly plowing through three fences and blinding his passenger in one eye was sentenced Monday to serve only one month in jail as part of a deal he reached with prosecutors.

. . .

Judge John Suddock, who accepted the deal Bachman agreed to when she thought Zochert was being discharged, sentenced him to a total of five years in prison, with all but one month suspended. He also got three years probation, a $1,500 fine, and is required to attend in-patient alcohol treatment for up to six months. As a felon, he is not allowed to own or handle guns.

"Frankly, this whole case is appalling," Bachman said in court Monday. "(The passenger) was impaled through the eye with one of the three fence posts that Mr. Zochert drove through while he was ragingly drunk. ... I learned within the last month that he is not going to be losing his job, which is astounding to me."

Bachman has a copy of a discharge certificate dated June 22, 2006, with Zochert's name on it, but Zochert is still in the Army and has apparently been promoted since the drunken driving crash.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9481389p-9392576c.html

To feed the meat grinder in Iraq-Nam

And use something a little more efficacious than drunk driving to kill himself. I hope that he doesn't take too many others with him, because you sure as shit gotta know that the military isn't going to get this flame-out any help.

"The case has taken more than three years to come to a close.

"In July 2005, Zochert was allowed to deploy to Iraq with his unit, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, following a ruling by Judge Michael Wolverton that the situation presented extraordinary circumstances."

So in other words, he's been the Iraqis' problem for the last two years. Amazing.