I do NOT support troops protesting the war by deserting!!!

There are two reasons for this stand.

First, it makes the whole antiwar effort look very bad--"those un-American LIEberals are just using the same stunt that made us lose the Vietnam War! Why won't those dirty hippies grow up?"

And second, there's a much better way to get yourself thrown out of the Army for less than $250, with little if any jail time and a very slight stain on your record involved. Here's how it works:

The military has a program that in the Army is called ADAPCP--Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Program. It's pretty diverse--it ranges from treatment to enforcement. If you somehow get one of those "problems" the Army will help you correct it. But if your "problem" is you've been sent to Iraq six times and don't want to go back, they can help you correct that too.

Step One is to invest in a lid of marijuana. It doesn't even have to be good marijuana for this to work--it only has to be pot with THC in it. (If you're clever, you can find ditch weed in the training area of your base, so this might even be free for you.) Smoke a joint a day for three days.

Step Two is to utilize your company commander's open-door policy. Tell the CO you have a problem: you smoke weed and you want help. By Army regulation they are not allowed to take action against you for doing this. The CO will refer you to ADAPCP, and you go. ADAPCP has three tracks--Track I is "awareness education," Track II is outpatient treatment and Track III is inpatient treatment. You'll probably wind up in Track II--which includes frequent urinalyses.

Step Three is to keep smoking weed. Eventually (meaning "within two weeks") they're going to piss test you in Track II, you'll come up hot, and they'll throw you out of the Army for failing your drug treatment program. Simple, convenient and you don't wind up with a General Court-Martial in your permanent criminal record. If you REALLY want to get thrown out quick, come home from your first ADAPCP appointment and fire up a blunt in the company dayroom.

People used to eat their way out of the Army or repeatedly fail the Army Physical Fitness Test, but that takes years in some cases and you spend FAR more time at remedial PT than anyone wants to. Weed will get you kicked out in three weeks if you do it right.

The refusal to go to Iraq is both a moral and legal position. This is an unlawful war of aggression against a country that was fully contained and could not injure their next door neighbor let alone the US. The refusal of orders to report and participate in this war is a legal requirement of every Service Member including Joe Biden's son. The fact that he maybe going to Iraq soon (the son) is nothing to be proud of. Knuckling under to popular "John Wayne-ism" and the disregard of moral and legal imperatives is disgusting.

Yes, refusing to go to Iraq is moral and legal. But if soldiers just desert, they're going to get caught, they're going to get thrown in jail and they're going to spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers in a Wendy's somewhere because no one that pays real money will hire someone who spent five years in prison for desertion.

But if all the troops who were going to desert to get out of going back to Iraq instead get themselves kicked out for smoking pot, eventually the press is going to get wind of it...a thousand-percent increase in illegal-drug-related discharges will be on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and it will probably explain that the soldiers weren't pot smokers until they'd been to Iraq the fifth time. "I started smoking pot to get rid of the nightmares...every child I was ordered to kill haunted me in my sleep..."

unlawful orders is the solution. You report stateside but refuse to deploy to Iraq.

Wow wow wow. STOP smoking it has eaten your brain. I can see a job interview now, candidate A: Why did you get kicked out? i objected to the war. Candidate B: Why did you get kicked out? because i got high.

Dope can be a good thing but you should put it down.

Tell 'em you smoked weed to help you cope with the war flashbacks, and you got caught. If you get a Vietnam veteran as an interviewer they'll probably understand. (You might want to also say that since you started smoking weed, the flashbacks have gone away.)

Walk in and say you spent five years in Leavenworth for deserting the country during wartime and you'll get a different response.

:eyes:

Grow up.... smoking a joint to get out is better then offing oneself with an M16!!

I never said to off someone with an m16. I said that deserting is more of a statement against killing than, "Then i got high" which is a cheap cop out. If you oppose killing refuse, don't blame it on weed.

They're so hard up for recruits, they're taking drug dealers & murderers. You think they'll toss you out for smoking a little weed? They've even stopped persecuting gays.

dont ask dont tell ?
seems to me being denied a place in the army because you are openly gay is persecution?

On the whole, I agree that it's wrong for someone who signs up to "volunteer" in the military to not honor their committment. This is especially the case over the past 5 years where anyone who does sign up should damn well know they could be signing their ticket to Iraq or Afghanistan.

I draw the line at the redeployments and stop loss games that send some people back two or three or more times to this nutcracker...extending stays and forcing those who have served back in even after they've suffered injuries or show effects of PTSD. I've met several Iraqi vets who got stuck in this mess...some who were never trained to play military police...national guardsmen who fulfilled their commitment to active duty and are hurting our national defense and security with their continued deployments. There needs to be a system where someone who has put in xxx number of months is done, period...no more than one tour unless they request to return.

This "war" (which was never declared) is different than Vietnam where everyone from 18-23 was under the "gun" of conscription...the draft...and no matter what their political or religious convictions, were forced to serve and had few, if any options. I was in that group during the later years of Vietnam and, while I had to get a draft card when I turned 18, the war was "winding" down and I missed the draft by one year. I had my plans ready...either to find a way to serve in someplace other than Vietnam (my plan was to get into Armed Forces Radio and hope to be based at a radio shack in Alaska) or head north to Canada.

My son, who is now of draft age, has a lot better situation. Fortunately he's in college and he has the choice to avoid the military...which I currently support. If the draft were re-instituted and he faced the possibility of being pulled into this mess, I'd serious look at moving to another country to ensure he didn't end up in this mess.

That said, it's not fair to blanket all who desert or refuse to serve in one lump. Some are skipping out on their committments and leaving a bigger load to the rest to carry. Each case is unique and should be viewed as such...and there needs to be a system that can honestly evaluate each case and determine if serving does violate their beliefs or that if returning to a war they've already served in as "cruel and unusual punishement".

get shot and killed. Bitter much? YES

Just claim conscientious objector status. If I had been in the service when Bush decided to murder Iraq, I would have refused to participate in any way and taken the consequences.

But I can't imagine why anyone would have joined AFTER March 2003, unless they were extremely ignorant...

and better than a bullet by a self-inflicted wound!

Sounds to me as if you are assigning motive to these people without talking to them first.

I have heard these guys say they deserted for very principled reasons, but not one who deserted to protest.
How about a link to a statement or name one who deserted just to protest the war.
This post is Rush Limbaugh it's pathetic.

Here's what would happen in Step Two: The CO will open a drawer and pull out a bunch of pills. He'll hand them over and say "take these instead, they're better than pot, and they're military approved. Go get out there and kill more Towel-Heads".

That's how I know this will work--the Army hates pot smokers so much. It used to be they didn't throw out pot smokers at all. Then it was just pilots and MPs, and then any officer or NCO on their first positive test and any e-4 or below on their second (commanders had the option of throwing you out on your first offense at any rank), and now we're into the zero defects Army where they throw everyone out on their first offense.

:shrug:

He/she obviously has background because it is a way out of the military and the phases of the treatment program the army has is set up the way the OP describes, clearly.

you were talking about..
but then i realised weed doesnt make you that big of a dumbshit.

illegal wars arent bound by laws... sorry.

Because until it comes under official review by a court it's not truly illegal.

until, as you say, "it comes under official review by a court".

:eyes:


It's as if you've never heard of "conspiracy to commit...".


"No, your honor, I did nothing illegal because what I was doing wasn't illegal until it came to court. Since it wasn't illegal at the time, I did nothing wrong."

Seriously, go have a cup of coffee before posting.

That's what the recruiters do before it's time to piss test the future cannon fodder.

I think the Military Entrance Processing Stations rely on the old dip strip method of drug testing. Army bases used to not have GC/MS machines because they're very expensive, but now the forensic lab at Fort Meade only wants to see prescreened samples--most soldiers don't do drugs, so if you send in 100 samples that haven't been prescreened you're likely to get MAYBE one or two hot ones. Commanders also like this because they get their negative results back the next day, which cuts down on the worry.

Here's something else that should worry us all. I present to you the Article in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that covers desertion:

ART. 85. DESERTION

(a) Any member of the armed forces who--

(1) without authority goes or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away therefrom permanently;

(2) quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service; or

(3) without being regularly separated from one of the armed forces enlists or accepts an appointment in the same or another on of the armed forces without fully disclosing the fact that he has not been regularly separated, or enters any foreign armed service except when authorized by the United States; is guilty of desertion.

(b) Any commissioned officer of the armed forces who, after tender of his resignation and before notice of its acceptance, quits his post or proper duties without leave and with intent to remain away therefrom permanently is guilty of desertion.

(c) Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, but if the desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.

Now...considering we all think Shrub is a mass murderer, and even more considering Shrub still holds the US record for executing people, should desertion become too much of a problem (that was one of the reasons General Eisenhower allowed Private Eddie Slovik to be shot for desertion), I don't think George W. Bush would have too much problem with "killing the next one to get them back in line." Especially because according to the Manual for Courts-Martial, he's allowed to do that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ipdu13vNtY

Suzanne Swift
http://www.suzanneswift.org/

Robin Long
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/615/1/

James Burmeister
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/blogcategory/50/103/

Ryan Jackson
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/blogcategory/51/84/

Agustin Aguayo
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/blogcategory/24/36/

Please educate yourself. Your post is incredibly insulting to the brave troops who refuse to serve.

It means "honour." ;-) :loveya:

...that it drives troops to desert.

I was a peacetime soldier. I can only imagine the despair that some of my brothers and sisters in uniform are feeling. I'm not going to think ill of deserters until the services are brought back under (small-d) democratic control.

since the beginning of armies. I have seen them desert the service in the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush II administrations. They will desert during the Obama administration after the war. What motivates most to desert has little to do with lofty social or political issues. There are some that lamb it for reasons of continence, but I believe they are a minority. They desert during times of war and peace.

military is by voluntarily joining some branch of it, a person has to be a fucking idiot not to expect to spend some time in a war area.

I feel no sympathy and have no respect for someone who deserts to avoid serving when that person could have completely avoided the issue by not joining in the first place.

Stupid bullshit, period.

mark

same courtesy. Talk about rampant hypocrisy. (Watch, somebody will call me a freeper in about 3 minutes)

if it interferes with one's political beliefs. What a country.

they were defending us, defending democracy, fighting them there so we wouldn't have to fight them here, weapons of mass destruction and all that bullshit. Maybe some of them woke up when it was too late, and for that I do not hold it against them. And I can't blame them for wanting out of the lie.

He went in with 2 other friends of mine who were able to tough it out (they were stationed in Germany in non-wartime, so it wasn't really that bad). He would climb out of his 2nd floor window, not show up or pass out in morning formation etc. They just kicked him out because he was no good to them being a drunken stoner.

These guys are trolling your threads via a gunboard.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=747269

your post or the replies herein, so going off the Headline alone. I say, desert. If you want to. I don't give a shit. My opinion, of course, doesn't matter, but if I had a say, It would be pro deserter. I'm too drinky to really get deep in the subject.

I replied to a bumped thread from a gun nuts warning. I feel dirty for having looked at that site. I encourage castration for that bunch. Anything less would be a shame.

Actually your advice works but would he/she would be chaptered as a "Rehabilitative failure" However the process can take much longer then you would think as the army keeps you even though it is non punitive to seek treatment before pissing off on a unit command directed UA, you can still face UCMJ for continued use because you sign a treatment plan that states you will refrain from using mood altering chemicals.

That is bad advice but much better then desertion, however depeding on the unit commander he may try to "screw" you by refusing to sign your treatment plan and getting you on a random UA.

and get out that way?