Posted by
AJH on Saturday, January 31, 2009 5:56:54 PM
The Wall Street Journal has a story (“U.S. Deserter 'Having Time of My Life' as He Seeks Asylum in Germany”) on a pathetic little man who is AWOL. European peace activists are fawning all over him.
"He's our poster boy."
This is the bottom line for peaceniks like Tim Huber of the so-called Military Counseling Network, a dubious part of the German Mennonite Peace Committee. This group is helping U.S. Army deserter André Shepherd and has been for some time. (I have taken all references to Mr. out of this summary because he doesn't deserve the title.)
Shepherd has requested political asylum from Germany. An Army spokesman said that the case, for now at least, is "completely in German hands." However, if the Germans return Shepherd to U.S. custody, he would likely face military justice and perhaps as much as five years in prison.
A native of Cleveland, he has been homeless and destitute at times.
Shepherd was again living in a car ... in December 2003 when he walked into an Army recruitment center in Lakewood and signed up. The new recruit was deployed to Camp Speicher in northern Iraq in September 2004, where he helped repair Apache helicopters. He didn't see action but had some contact with Iraqis who worked on the base.
In February 2005 he was sent to Katterbach in southern Germany and given a cushy desk job, where he apparently sat for long hours just browsing websites, and anti-war propaganda ones at that. While surfing the Net, Shepherd was brainwashed by the Left, convincing him that the “U.S. occupation was harmful — and that he had been contributing to civilian deaths by servicing armed Apaches.”
Shockingly his marriage to a German who he met online lasted less than a year. Did he marry this German girl merely to stay in the country, safe from the war zones? The man is a deadbeat with an obvious aversion to commitment who likes German socialism and the modern welfare state.
Shepherd has his own room and bunk bed at a sprawling refugee center. The German government provides him with meals and allows him to move freely around the Karlsruhe area. He stays in touch with German friends by mobile phone and takes language classes offered by an asylum support group.
But he doesn't limit himself to mere state benefits: Shepherd likes taking money from naive idealists. A German man named Ulli Thiel, a 65-year-old activist in Karlsruhe, and his wife recently helped Shepherd open a bank account. The couple deposits around 200 euros (about 262 dollars) every month “so he has spending money.”
Alexander Zmijewski, Shepherd's best friend back in Ohio, doesn't appear to support what he's done. Zmijewski questioned Shepherd's decision to desert. "If I put my name on something, I like to honor that," he said. He is "lucky to be working" with a family to support.
Shepherd said he planned on finishing a university degree in Karlsruhe if he wins asylum and that he could happily spend the rest of his life in Germany. Who doesn't like other people paying the bills?
"It's just amazing here," he said one morning in Thiel's living room as his host poured him some coffee.
Where is Patton when you need him?
AJH