This really chaps my fucking hide: a U.S. Marine, who’s been reported missing for a week in a Colorado state park, is an AWOL asshole.
Way to waste the time of 300 people who spent thousands of hours looking for you, fuckstain.
I’m pretty naïve (the idea that he wanted to desert never occurred to me), but I would never have thought someone capable of being so goddamned selfish. I can’t wait to see the reaction when he’s found.
I really don’t understand those that go AWOL and develop these stories that get a ton of publicity.
For the record, I think going AWOL is stupid and cowardly for any number of reasons (#1 reason being: YOU VOUNTEERED, MORON. Ahem), but if you’re going to do it, do it quietly. Get thee ass to Canada as quietly as possible and there ya go. Don’t have your friends pretend you were involved in some horrible hiking accident. Sheesh.
What’s funny (ironic funny, mostly- although, a little “haha” funny) is that this guy was trying to get out of the military, but now his ass might end up in military prison- which is a scary place. Bless his heart.
It took me about three seconds to think that he deserted, but then I’m pretty cynical. A fall from a significant distance onto rocks, a head injury, then 300 people can’t find a trace of him?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the dad wasn’t in on it as well.
I was under the impression the Canadian government doesn’t want them this go-around.
Military prisons are a much better place, last I heard, than civilian prisons.
Until you’ve actually been to Iraq, I might encourage people to withhold their criticism.
This guy has already been to Iraq, and apparently he found the process rather hellacious. Signing up for it once is understandable, but he has no real way of knowing what it was really going to be like until he got there.
Certainly, he could have found a more considerate means of deserting that didn’t involve wasting the time and risking the lives and ankles of others.
I couldn’t care less whether he went AWOL or not (Lord knows many of us haven’t volunteered for service, and most of us haven’t been to Iraq) – why he went AWOL is not my beef with him.
If he had spent a little time devising a way to go AWOL that **didn’t ** involve wasting thousands of person-hours, and lots of money and other resources, I’d be a lot less critical.
I’ve certainly agreed to things in the past that, once I discovered that it wasn’t quite what I bargained for, I wanted to get out of. For the most part, I’ve put up with it, and vowed not to make such a dumb commitment next time. I’m grateful that I never made as enforceable and dangerous a commitment as joining the armed forces.
It is a testament to the honor and bravery of those who continue in the face of fear and danger, but I find it hard to fault someone too terribly for chickening out of something I sure as hell wouldn’t want to do.
Well stated.
That’s the problem with illegal things: the government doesn’t place many easy or “good” means of breaking the law at anyone’s disposal, but for the record, faking your death via disappearing in the mountains: bad idea.
Ditto and ditto. Pretty obvious from the outset.
Yep, fleeing to Canada’s not going to do much but buy you time nowadays. Maybe a lot of it, as Canada doesn’t seem to have gotten around to deporting any US military deserters yet that I’m aware of, but they’re being denied refugee status. During Vietnam, Canada had no draft and hence no crime of draft dodging, which is what most people who ran off to Canada then were doing.