Judge finds specialist guilty of desertion

[unhappycamper]

Spc. Loren Barrett, left, is escorted to court Tuesday in Vilseck, Germany.


Judge finds specialist guilty of desertion
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, January 24, 2008

VILSECK, Germany — Deserting his unit the day before it deployed to Iraq earned a 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment soldier 11 months in jail and a bad-conduct discharge.

Spc. Loren Barrett, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Squadron, 2nd Cavalry, pleaded guilty to two charges of being absent without leave but innocent to a desertion charge during the court-martial Tuesday.

The prosecutor, Capt. Brad Gwillim, told the court that Barrett went AWOL on Aug. 4 and returned on Aug. 13, hours after his unit was scheduled to deploy on a 15-month mission to Baghdad.

But the unit’s flight was postponed until Aug. 14, and Barrett was told he was still heading downrange, Gwillim said. “He was at Rose Barracks (in Vilseck) and given an opportunity to deploy, (but) he said: ‘I’m not going anywhere,’” he told the court.

Instead of boarding a bus to the airport with his unit, Barrett went AWOL again. He was detained by German police in Heidelberg following an incident with a broken window on Sept. 7, said Capt. Abe Burgess, for the defense.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51874