BERLIN, March 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush wants to stay the course in Iraq, but more and more of his troops want out. A desertion trial against a U.S. soldier who refused to go to Iraq opened Tuesday in Germany, and the group that counsels him says it is getting flooded with inquiries.
Specialist Agustin Aguayo enlisted with the U.S. Army in 2003, after Washington had started the campaign in Afghanistan but before war in Iraq to save money for his education.
In 2004, he served a year as a U.S. Army medic in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, after the Army had turned down his request to be classified as a conscientious objector.
Frustrated by zero progress in his protest against the decision to turn down his conscientious objector status, and faced with a second deployment to Iraq, Aguayo, stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany, last Sept. jumped out of his bedroom window and fled home to his wife in California. After 24 for days of being absent, the 35-year-old turned himself in with military officials at California's Fort Irwin.
His court martial opened Tuesday in Wuerzburg, Bavaria, but American anti-war activists are angry that the man even has to stand before the judges.
"The Pentagon is denying legitimate conscientious objection claims, and Aguayo is an example for that," Bill Galvin, the counseling coordinator at the Washington-based Center on Conscience and War, Tuesday told United Press International in a telephone interview. "He should never have had his court martial in the first place."
Galvin said Aguayo, when he first went to Iraq, refused to carry a weapon; when he was forced to do so, he didn't load it.
Despite those "clear signs" that Aguayo's conscientious objector claim was genuine, the military "made a bad decision," and turned it down, Galvin said.
He added it was unlikely that Aguayo would be convicted of desertion, but exactly that happened Tuesday in the U.S. military court in Wuerzburg.
Aguayo pleaded guilty only to charges of being absent without leave (which carries a sentence of up to two-and-a-half years in prison), but Judge Col. R. Peter Masterton sided with prosecutors in finding him guilty of desertion; she sentenced him to eight months in prison, a mild decision given the fact that the maximum penalty stands at seven years.
"It's especially ironic because Aguayo for three years tried everything legally possible, while another man in his unit went AWOL before him and got out of the military," Galvin said.
"Despite the fact that he shouldn't be in prison after all, given the time he has served and with possible parole, I'm glad that he could be out in 40 days," Michael Sharp, of the Military Counseling Network, a Germany-based group that helps overseas soldiers who want to leave the military, told UPI in a telephone interview right after he left the courtroom.
Nevertheless, opposition inside the military to the Iraq war is growing, observes say.
The Pentagon recorded 4,494 deserters in 2005, and numerous soldiers stationed in Germany, where most of the troops are parked before being dispatched to Iraq, are also unwilling to go to Iraq, said Tim Huber of the Military Counseling Network.
"Usually we average one call with interest in the conscientious objection discharge per month," Huber told Deutsche Welle Online. "After Bush's speech in January we experienced a surge of about five times that number."
Huber referred to the speech on Jan. 10, in which Bush pleaded to send more troops to Iraq to tackle the rising sectarian violence.
Galvin and Sharp said they get frequent calls from troops wanting to leave the military, including officers who have served many years.
The opposition is also becoming public.
"Over 1,300 soldiers have asked Congress to end the war and bring the troops home," Galvin told UPI.
Several anti-war groups in the United States are fighting to get U.S. procedures with conscientious objectors changed; so far, an individual has to be against any kind of war to be classified a conscientious objector -- according to international law, objection to individual wars or certain aspects of wars should satisfy courts.
At least for Aguayo, a father of twin girls, the trip toward freedom from the military could be over in a few weeks. Besides forfeiting his pay, the judge in her decision also said Aguayo will receive a bad conduct discharge.
