Second Fort Hood war resister court-martialled
August 16, 12:34 AM
Dallas Progressive Examiner – by Herschel Tomlinson
On Friday, August 14, the second soldier from Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, was court-martialled for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. The first, Specialist Victor Agosto, was court-martialled last week and sentenced to one month in jail.
Agosto refused deployment because he sees the war in Afghanistan as illegal because it is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution and international law, including the Nuremberg Principles and the U.N Charter. “Afghanistan did not attack the United States”, said Agosto’s lawyer, James Branum.
The second Fort Hood soldier to refuse to deploy to Afghanistan was Sergeant Travis Bishop, a country musician who once opened a show for Toby Keith. He told TruthOut.org that during the 14 months he spent in Baghdad, Iraq, ” I started to see a big difference between our reality and what was in the news.” After learning that he was to be deployed to Afghanistan, Bishop started reading his Bible so as to “get right with my creator before going. Through my reading I realized all this goes against what Jesus taught….. I had a religious transformation, and realized that all war is wrong.” His decision to refuse deployment was also influenced by Agosto’s stand and by Under the Hood , a coffee shop in Killeen which provides both refreshments and support to antiwar GIs.
The people at Under the Hood told Bishop that his position sounded like that of a conscientious objector, (CO), and put him in touch with Branum. Branum told Bishop what a conscientious objector is. After hearing Branum, Bishop’s decision to refuse to deploy became firm.
Realizing that he would not have time to complete his CO application before his deployment, Bishop went absent without leave (AWOL). He stayed AWOL for a week, during which he completed his CO application. After his unit deployed, Bishop and Branum went back to Fort Hood. He was assigned a barracks room, and told to report to work the next day. At the same time, they started the process of considering his CO application and the process which would lead to his court martial. He was charged with two counts of missing movement and one of disobeying a direct order. His court-martial was to be a summary court martial, which has a maximum sentence of one year.
Bishop and Agosto are not the only soldiers to desert. The Pentagon reported that over 40,000 people deserted between 2000 and 2006, more than half of them from the Army. Bishop said that morale among both pro-war and antiwar soldiers is low, and he believes the fact that his maximum sentence was one year would encourage others to desert.
The court martial gave Bishop the maximum sentence of twelve months.
Bishop once said “My father said, ‘Do only what you can live with, because every morning you have to look in the mirror when you shave.’ If I had deployed to Afghanistan, I don’t think I would be able to look at a mirror again.”
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Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer – court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
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