COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Leaving Military: AWOL
Ex-Bragg paratrooper freed after serving AWOL time
The Associated Press
December 26, 2006
JACKSONVILLE,
N.C. — A former paratrooper who admitted abandoning his post
because he disagreed with the U.S. mission in Iraq was freed from a
military prison Saturday, stopping in Raleigh to greet supporters
before he headed home to Washington state.
Ricky Clousing, 24, left Fort Bragg without permission in June 2005
after returning from a five-month tour in Iraq, where he worked as an
interrogator in a military intelligence battalion.
The Sumner, Wash., native surrendered to the military at Fort Lewis,
Wash., in August, and was returned to North Carolina to face a
court-martial.
He pleaded guilty in October to going absent without leave and was
sentenced to three months’ confinement, reduction in rank from
sergeant and forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay during his
confinement, which ended with a bad conduct discharge from the Army.
The plea allowed him to avoid a more severe sentence for desertion.
“It feels good, but it feels surreal because I don’t have
to deal with the military anymore,” Clousing, who was released 15
days early for good conduct, said Saturday outside the main gate of
Camp Lejeune, the Marine base where he was imprisoned. “I’m
getting out just before Christmas, so it’s really great.”
Clousing has said he witnessed an American soldier kill an innocent
Iraqi man in Mosul, but that unit leaders dismissed his account by
saying he was an inexperienced soldier.
“My decision was never personal to my command. I had to honor my
own personal convictions,” he said. “I’m excited to
finally be finished with the military. I’ve gotten the
opportunity to learn a lot about myself and the system I fell
under.”
Clousing was heading home to spend the holidays with his mother in
Washington state but stopped on the way in Raleigh to meet with peace
activists for a wreath-laying ceremony at the city’s Vietnam
Veterans Memorial.
At a Quaker meeting house in Raleigh afterward, he told about three
dozen supporters how his patriotism initially grew after he enlisted in
the military in 2002 but was shaken by what he witnessed in Iraq.
Clousing, wearing a white T-shirt that sported the logo “Veterans
for Peace,” said he decided against declaring himself a
conscientious objector because he doesn’t believe all wars are
wrong.
He plans to spend time with his family while he figures out how to pay
for college, having lost the $30,000 in tuition he hoped to receive as
a result of his military service.
He said he will return to North Carolina in March to participate in an
annual peace rally in Fayetteville, outside his former base.
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