(I'll leave it to our Vets to comment on this one, I was 9 when the Vietnam draft ended.)
Tue Jan 17, 2006 06:30 PM ET
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A U.S. citizen who deserted the Marine Corps 36 years ago rather than ship out to fight in Vietnam was arrested late last week and could face jail time.
Ernest Johnson Jr, 55, had been living as Ernest McQueen since he fled Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in 1969. He was arrested outside Fort Worth, Texas, where he lived with his girlfriend, according to Monday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Johnson joined the Marines in 1968, but said that news of the massacre of civilians by U.S. soldiers in My Lai, growing protests against the war across the United States and stories from Marines returning from the battlefield prompted him to leave.
"I just decided I didn't want to be part of killing anybody. That's as plain as I can say it," Johnson told the newspaper. He could face up to three years in a military jail and a dishonorable discharge, according to Marine Capt. Jay Delarosa. "But it's really too early to say exactly what's going to happen to him," Delarosa said.
(more at link below)
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