{"id":405,"date":"2009-08-21T00:02:39","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T04:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/21\/soldiers-court-martialed-for-refusing-deployment\/"},"modified":"2009-11-21T21:30:39","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T05:30:39","slug":"soldiers-court-martialed-for-refusing-deployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/21\/soldiers-court-martialed-for-refusing-deployment\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldiers Court-Martialed for Refusing Deployment"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been two interesting cases of soldiers refusing to deploy.\u00a0 Both were court-martialed and convicted, both share the same lawyer, and both are from Fort Hood–but the details of how they handled themselves (and the punishments they received) are in stark contrast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first, Sgt. David Travis Bishop, 26,\u00a0was found guilty by special court martial<\/a> and sentenced to a year in jail and a bad conduct discharge, as well as a reduction in grade and fine.\u00a0 Bishop reportedly began studying his Bible after a tour in Iraq and came to the conclusion that war was wrong.\u00a0 However, he went AWOL at deployment time for a week.\u00a0 He has apparently applied for recognition as a conscientious objector, though the status of that claim is unknown.\u00a0\u00a0If it is granted it could be a factor in an appeal.<\/p>\n

The second, Spc. Victor Agosto, 24, pled guilty to disobeying an order<\/a> to deploy.\u00a0 He was sentenced to a month in jail as well as a reduction in grade.\u00a0 According to the report, Agosto cannot be discharged at lower than “other than honorable” conditions.\u00a0 He reportedly stayed on post, reported to work every day, and did not apply for conscientious objector status because he knew that such status requires opposition to all<\/em> war–and he does not believe that all war is wrong.<\/p>\n

While both acted illegally and in violation of military orders, Agosto’s conduct, despite the disobedience, was far better Bishop’s.\u00a0 Still,\u00a0his logic for his situation is strained.\u00a0 He said:<\/p>\n

The courts haven’t recognized soldiers’ rights to refuse an order they believe to be illegal…I believe future courts will find that the Afghanistan war is illegal because it violates international law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The “right” to refuse an illegal order is actual a moral obligation<\/em> recognized by the UCMJ.\u00a0 However, the fact that Agosto believes the war in Afghanistan violates international law does not make the order to deploy illegal.\u00a0 That assessment is left to the objective analysis of others, and they have not accepted that conclusion.<\/p>\n

If Agosto disagrees, he has the “right” to refuse, if you will; and the Army has the right to court martial him.\u00a0 He accepted that outcome, which, if nothing else, seems to indicate that he is a man of principle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been two interesting cases of soldiers refusing to deploy.\u00a0 Both were court-martialed and convicted, both share the same lawyer, and both are from Fort Hood–but the details of how they handled themselves (and the punishments they received) are in stark contrast.\u00a0 The first, Sgt. David Travis Bishop, 26,\u00a0was found guilty by special court martial and sentenced to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[46,2,10],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-regulations","tag-conscientious-objector","tag-military","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}