Jenkins, pleading guilty to desertion and aiding the enemy gets, six months in prison.
The prosecutor, asked for nine months. Due to a pretrial agreement, just 30 days actually served.
Why does Abney deserve years?
CMC fnord!
Because I’m not discussing Jenkins. He has nothing at all to do with this. That said, in Jenkins’ case he got off way too easy.
40 years spent in North Korea might have seemed like punishment enough. 
I’d take 4 years in Leavenworth over 40 in NK any day. If course, I have no idea if things like that are taken into account during sentencing. He also surrendered voluntarily.
Agreed, he should have gotten what the prosecuter asked for.
CMC fnord!
Capt. Seth Cohen, the prosecutor, had asked for a nine-month jail term.
Even with that distinction, zoogirl’s point stands: it was Canada that provided all of those things to Pvt. Abney, not the United States.
It strikes me that he was a dumbass for enlisting in the first place. Yes, it was apparently in the mode of “not wishing to postpone the inevitable” (i.e., what he saw as his inevitable draft notice), but given that Canada, not having a draft, was not going to extradite him for draft evasion (extradition can only be carried out when the offense is sanctioned in both signatories to the applicable agreement), he had nothing to lose by staying put. I wonder why he didn’t follow his brother’s example.
Anyway, I see in the paper this morning that the Marines are planning to dispose of this case administratively. Cite.
Well, since you lile to pick nits, he didn’t move to Canada until e was ten years old, which means that he spent over half his life taking advantage of the benefits of being a U.S. citizen. Not that I think it matters, mind you. as others have explained, dual citizenship doesn not lessen the respoonsibility to military service to either country, which makes sense. Twice the benefit, twice the responsibility.
Very unfortunate news. A slap in the face to every soldier, who served. Particulalry those who were wounded or killed. A disgusting injustice. I am deeply saddened.
[further nitpickery] Ah, but he was a resident of the U.S. as a child. We don’t hold children fully capable of making decisions as children, so why should he be punished for something he had no say in? [/further nitpickery]
This is an entirely silly argument. First of all, not everyone eligible was drafted. Secondly, even if one was drafted, there were legal ways of avoiding military service.
My dad was drafted in the very first lottery. He legally obtained conscientous objector status, and performed alternate service in the United States instead (as a social worker).
As you might guess from the part where I’m the daughter of a conscientous objector, I have a lot of sympathy for someone who didn’t want to serve in Vietnam. OTOH, he enlisted. He made a commitment, and then he deserted. He should be held to judgement for his behavior.
Leaving all nits behind and focusing on the matter of serious import: If he tried to sign up at ten, you’d have a point. But since he made the decision to sign up as an adult, you don’t. He was in Canada. He could have stayed there safe and sound. Instead, he made the conscious decision to leave Canada and sign up with the US miltary. His actions as an adult—which he had complete control over—trump all accidents of birth or childhood, in which, as you point out, he had no say in.
Oh, I agree on that point - i’m in favour of his punishment. Just pointing out he shouldn’t be said to owe the U.S. for the benefits he recieved as a citizen there due to his age.
I can’t say I totally disagree, but it raises an interesting question: at what point is someone born into the US “beholden” to the US? If this guy doesn’t owe anything to the US because, as you say his young age when he left, at what age does that change. Following your logic, one could argue that someone who is born and raised here and enlists on his 18th birthday is similarly unbeholden to the US. Do you think that to be the case?
I’m not certain as to the law over there; certainly the age at which a child can get a job, vote, and the final “cutoff” age would all come into play, at least in my opinion. I personally feel that a person does not owe their country anything until the age at which they can vote (one of the reasons i’m for lowering the voting age in my country to 16) because it is at that point that the country is formally saying “we recognise you as a person capable of their own decision-making, and thus we will treat you as such”.
Someone who is born and raised there and enlists on his 18th birthday has been “beholden” to the U.S. from the beginning of that day, to be absolutely accurate. Nevertheless, when that person enlists, he/she is beholden to the U.S. armed forces to which he/she has pledged his word and made a contract, and is legally and duty bound to fulfil that contract, as an adult recognised as being capable of making his/her own decisions.
I’m not sure I agree that the right to vote is the sole criterion that endows one with responsibility. I’m not sure I don’t either. I mean, even before you are eligible to vote you theoretically have benefited from the goverment’s protection, which I think is the primary job of the government. Granted, one can not be expected to make a contribution back to the governement as a child, but I don’t think the pass we give them means that there is zero debt (non-financial).
Tell me, do you think that a 16-year-old should be treated as an adult? I know I made some bone-headed decisions in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade.
Didn’t you also make bone-headed decisions in higher grades? 
The problem as I see it is pretty well outlined in your post - surely all people “owe” their country for the benefits they’ve received right from the time of their birth (and some time beforehand)? 16-year-olds are certainly capable of “paying them back”, through employment and thus taxation. I’d argue that the age of majority should be totally consistent - if the government treats you as a decision-making capable person on one issue, it should do the same for all issues. Yet in the UK, the age of consent and in some places the legal drinking age is 16. The minimum driving age is 17. The minimum voting age is 18. Are people only capable of making sane, rational decisions on certain subjects? I’d argue no, but that’s my opinion.
Like you, I think people are entitled to “pay back” what they owe to their country. I think this should be done as soon as is “acceptable”, and the earliest point at which the UK legal system judges people to be able to make rational decisions is at 16 - and as I think all decision-making rights should be based on a single defined age, voting (as well as driving) should be “moved down” a couple of years in order for the legal system to be consistent in it’s appraisal.
Another vote for "deport him, bar him from the country, don’t allow him to receive any payment for the Law & Order episode that will certainly be based on his case (starring, I would guess, either Max Gail or Frankie Faison depending on Abney’s race) and if he violates his “get out and stay out” order, arrest him and deal with it. Otherwise, I just cannot get worked up over something that a kid did almost 40 years ago that led to no deaths or demonstrable harm. Had he raped 20 women at knifepoint in 1968 and confessed to doing it the statute of limitations would be LONG LONG gone. To try him now would be a nightmare and, in my opinion, unjust.
How many vets who did go to Vietnam would, if they could go back in time, have deserted?
Abraham Lincoln signed numerous pardons for desertion during the bloodiest war in the history of the nation. He signed one the afternoon he was shot. Once when told by one of his generals that a certain young soldier (whose mother was pleading for his pardon) that “This man ran from enemy gunfire!” he responded something to the effect of (I can’t find the exact quote, but it’s out there somewhere) “Well… were I to march into a field and suddenly be fired upon by several men intent on killing me, I think I would find running a reasonable action myself”. If Bush doesn’t show the mercy of Lincoln in this he’s a total fool.
Which means the guy will probably be doing life at Leavenworth.
Y’know, about the whole sub-thread about being “beholden” … I can’t say I can agree with the implication in the statement that started it, that service obligation is due the country that educates you, provides you medical care, etc. I don’t thing any society seriously views military service as some sort of “payment-in-kind” for those sorts of “services rendered”.
But that in the OP case is neither here nor there – if you enter voluntarily into a legal obligation, you are bound to render it as per the terms, or avail yourself of the proper channels to withdraw from it. Duress? From all the reports, had he stayed put in Canada and done what it took he could have avoided getting drafted. And even after the fact, he could have availed himself of breaks that were offered to normalize his status.
By now, there’s little use in giving him an exemplary punishment, IMO – being able to get away with it for 30+ years tends to weaken deterrent value and makes it look like the hard time is given out of spite; but bearing with some temporary high unpleasantness is of his own doing: he could have got it over with years ago.
Revenant Threshold,
Yes, we are inconsistent here, as well. And much more egregiously. We allow people to do pretty much everything at age 18: get married, be tried as an adult, vote, even put themselves in harm’s way by joing the armed forces. But even a 20-year-old who is a Navy Seal or an Army Ranger cannot legally take a drink of alcohol until he is 21.
When I grew up, the age was 18. And slowly, state by state, the age was raised to 21. The reason is the very-well-intentioned desire to cut down on alcohol related automobile deaths.
I, too, think that there should be one age that the state recognizes for being an adult. Personally, I think 16 is a bit too young. Although you could argue that it would make/help kids become adults quicker. Given the fact that we have so many 25-year-olds still living with their parents, I’d have a difficult time arguing against you strongly.
Excuse me? You do realize, don’t you, that for a request for a pardon to reach the president there have to be a few other things happening (unless your name is Nixon)?
Cool. I’m all for leaving the little rodents (are hamsters rodents?) with good health.
Another poster addressed this already; however, I wish to add that the individual’s assumptions about the inevitably of his conscription does not equate to reality. He may have been drafted, he may not have been drafted. On the other hand, his voluntary enlistment does incur certain obligations, legal obligations.
Well, in the case referenced in the OP it appears that the individual concerned was joining up to get a few benefits: employment, choice of branch of service, fulfillment of a military service obligation once incurred, etc. And then he deserted when things got tough.
Well, as I see it–and evidently the law of the United States sees it–the individual concerned is a citizen of the United States, regardless of whatever other citizenship he holds or held at the time of his crime. Also of relevance is that the United States sees itself as a protector of its citizens, no matter where they were educated, fed, or provided medical care. Such protection, of course, is dependent on the laws of the country in which such citizens find themselves in trouble. As such a citizen, he had certain obligations, such as obeying the laws. In the case of desertion, however, it doesn’t matter what his citizenship is: he enlisted voluntarily, just as many others have done, and those others come from many countries and enlist as foreign nationals.
Right. He enlisted, he deserted, he came back into the jurisdiction. He gets to deal with the legal mess he created for himself.
Yep, they are.
I’m beginning to think I had the wrong idea about the draft. It’s been my assumption that all US citizens were drafted at 18 and subsequently classified accordingly - 1A, 4F, etc.
(Monty, nice job of rebuttal. Polite and well spoken. We may not agree, but if I’m going to get into an argument, I think I’ll do it with you! )