"Can anyone even find evidence of this guy being real?"

As I said, this is another story manufactured by Al Qaeda operatives. They are doing this to create negative emotion about the war because they are losing, and know their only real chance at winning is convincing the American people to withdraw the troops.

@rcg

This soldier knew that war was coming or that war was already occurring. He chose to sign up, he chose to receive those benefits and the drawbacks that come with it. That is the difference between a volunteer and a conscript. A conscript is forced to join an army and his rejection comes with punishment. A volunteer had the choice not sign up for the military and would have received no punishment.

That is the difference. I'm more willing to permit leaway of moral issues, etc. for conscripts that are forced to join. A volunteer understood what he was signing up for. I do not pity people who don't think before they act.

RCG, the point I was trying to establish is that he was not committing an illegal order. His officer was not telling him to break the Geneva Convention. You may disagree with the legality of the war, but that is still a debate, a discussion. Throwing grenades at a class of kids for the pure point of throwing grenads at a class of kids would be an illegal order and a crime. He wasn't asked to do that.

I target you, specifically, yes, you are correct. I'm not an operative of the US government, I'm an operative of common sense. I respond to many others, but yes, I'm not going to deny that I don't look for your posts and respond to them.

That said, that doesn't negate my points. You have yet to shown me otherwise.

To everybody else: It seems popular to support this guy just because he is opposing a war you dislike. But at the end of the day, he is free to not be involved in it: he was given that chance before he joined, when he could have not done so. Now that he has made his bed, he has to lie in it. If he wants to leave, fine. But it comes with consequences.

Nothing in life is free.

this does kinda smell like propaganda. even if it isnt, its fucking rhetoric. i have no sympathy for him. lie in the bed you made.

@alpine
Contractual obligations are not dependent on your emotions. Just because you take out a 200,000 dollar loan, realize you are working 20 hours a day to pay it back and your life is horrible, doesn't mean all of a sudden you get to renege on that.

That's why you think before you make life-changing contractual agreements.

"Al-Qaeda operatives, where have I heard that before?"

From all the other articles just like it that constantly appear on sites like these, from the guy who was never in the military lying about 'atrocities' that he saw to the repeated 'I don't support the war' fake emails and letters from fake troops.

And the fact that Al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers are behind these fake stories has been repeatedly documented. It's not like it takes much brains to post on the Internet - after all, meh, trashman, and rag all seem capable of it.