AWOL soldier faces less than a year in military prison

[babylonsister]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=9253

February 22nd, 2007 2:25 am
AWOL soldier faces less than a year in military prison

KRIS-TV

FORT HOOD, Texas -- An Army soldier faces less than a year in a military prison for fleeing before his second deployment to Iraq.

In a plea deal that caps his punishment at 10 months, Spc. Mark Wilkerson pleaded guilty to desertion and missing troop movement after the military decided last month that he would be court-martialed. He is to be sentenced by a judge Thursday.

Wilkerson, 23, surrendered at Fort Hood in August, about a year and a half after failing to return from an approved two-week leave. Since then he has worked in an office at the Central Texas Army post and has been allowed to leave after initially being confined to the post, although he was never in a cell, he said.

Wilkerson, of Colorado Springs, Colo., said he was tired of running and wanted to face the consequences to move forward with his life.

He said he decided to go absent without leave because his conscientious objector status was denied a month before his unit was to return to Iraq in early 2005. Wilkerson, who was 17 when he enlisted in the Army, has said his views on the war changed after he served in Iraq for a year beginning at the start of the March 2003 invasion.

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[sinkingfeeling]

1. Poor guy. He did serve in Iraq which puts him in a much better light than

someone like, say G. W. Bush, who just plain went AWOL.