SwiftVets.com

TEWSPilot · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:55 pm Post subject:

I guess my frustration is that tons of drugs and illegals pass across both borders daily and the border patrols on both sides seem helpless to stop that, yet a SOLDIER on his way to a duty station gets stopped and arrested for having a GUN in his LUGGAGE. It's akin to driving past a guy who was stopped on his way home from work by three patrol cars sitting there with flashing lights getting a ticket for doing 35 in a 30 MPH zone at 6:00 in the evening on a four lane boulevard with no other traffic around while I'm listening to the radio news reporting on another drive-by shooting in the "inner-city" and the police have no suspects and the perps are on the loose to do it again.

The phrase "low hanging fruit" comes to mind....

TEWSPilot · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: On a brighter note,....

IRAQ WAR DESERTERS Deported From Canada & Jailed

Welcome Home Boys!
Deserters deserted and jailed in the US.

Deserter Robin Long said he had been trying to gain refugee status in Canada because he believed he would suffer harm if he were to be sent back to the U.S.
Canada disagreed and deported him this week. Robin was welcomed to his new home in a Washington jail this week. (CBC)

One US Iraq War deserter was deported and jailed this week.
Another US Iraq War deserter was jailed for 9 months and stripped of his benefits.
The Star reported:

An American army deserter who took refuge in Canada before returning to the U.S. voluntarily was given a dishonourable discharge yesterday and sentenced to nine months in jail, a close supporter said.

James Burmeister, 22, was sentenced by a military judge in Fort Knox, Ky., after a four-hour court martial hearing, said Carol Rawert-Trainer, of the American non-profit group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

"It's quite a shock to everybody," said Rawert-Trainer from Louisville, Ky. "We all thought they were going to take it easy on him because he turned himself in, but it doesn't look that way."

Originally from Eugene, Ore., Burmeister went to Ottawa in May 2007 after he was injured in Iraq when he was thrown from his military vehicle by the force of a roadside bomb earlier that year.

...Yesterday's ruling will likely stand up as a felony conviction, meaning Burmeister won't be allowed back into Canada, and will likely lose his right to veterans' benefits, Zaslofsky told the Star last night.

"In that case, his post-traumatic stress disorder and some of the other problems that he has won't be dealt with properly," he noted. "I just hope this isn't an ill omen for some of the other (resisters)."

One of those other resisters is 25-year-old Robin Long.

Long became the first American war resister deported from Canada Tuesday, and could also potentially face a court martial.

Yesterday, Long was transferred from Whatcom County Jail in Bellingham, Wash., to the nearby Fort Lewis military base.