Agosto facing Special Court Martial
You may remember Victor Agosto who I wrote about back in May when he refused deployment with his Fort Hood unit. I’ve been getting some email asking what his status is these days. Aside from getting a lot of love from the usual suspects and hanging out with his fellow derelicts at Under the Hood, not much. The Left recycles his story across the internet and proclaim his bravery.
Yesterday there was a bit of news, though. Apparently, his commander has recommended and approved a Special Court Martial. Of course the Left is outraged that he’s being persecuted. One blog even went so far as to call it a lynching – probably for the racial undertones of the use of that word. Since Agosto continues to provide us with a paper trail to his jail cell, I’m willing to publish it;
I hope the court martial board takes into account the influence that Agosto’s refusal has had on other troops as conveniently documented by Dahr Jamail at HuffPo;
I spoke with [Sergeant Travis Bishop] briefly after he turned himself in at his base in early June. He said he’d chosen to follow Specialist Agosto’s example of refusal, which had inspired him, and wanted to be present at his post to accept the consequences of his actions. He, too, hoped others might follow his lead. (He and Agosto, now in similar situations, have become friends.)
Maybe they can get adjoining cells.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Usual Suspects
About time. I was wondering when they were going to do something. The main page I used to follow him was on the Rag blog. Got some nice gems over there.
Also on another note, got a new phone that I can read the net.Go me.
All these idiots that have joined the military and are “protesting” the war by refusing to follow lawful orders should be tried and then shot for treason & aiding & abetting during time of war.
In case they weren’t aware (a high probability), this is an ALL VOLUNTEER military. No one held a gun to their head to make them join. No one forced their right arm into the air and made them swear to the Oath. All that the law requires is that you register. I guess they thought that they would have an easy term of enlistment while doing as little as possible while collecting a monthly paycheck.
They didn’t think ahead (again, DUH!) about what it means to be in the military, and what the possibilities and hardships of that job might entail, up to the ultimate sacrafice of life for one’s country.
If you don’t think you can go the distance (or at the least, give it your best effort), don’t start the race.
B Woodman
SSG (Ret) US Army
III
Well, Victor, Debbie, and I have gone around on this issue and I told Victor, at that time, that he, alone, would face the consequences of his actions. Not the old bitties in the photo with him; not the people at the traitor hood coffee house and commie hangout, not the people that write encouragement to him, as they freely go about their day. No; he will be the one that will get the BCD. He will be the one who will lose any benefits garnered by his service up to the point of refusing to go. No Veterans assistance, no jobs with companies that have government contracts, or sub-contracts. He will be a marked man for the rest of his life. All the ones that work on getting a soldier to do what he did are happy and content, because their words ruin other peoples lives, as theirs goes merrily along.
I treat those people as the bottom feeders they are and every single one of them deserves a throat punch.
I disagree VEHEMENTLY with how the war is being managed instead of being fought and with the nation building, but if the order comes down to deploy again, my bags will get packed & I will go. It’s been a VOLAR since the 70s.
Any nation that doesn’t have an adequate defense deserves to be frog marched into slavery.
It’s a shame to see that Under The Hood Cafe is getting bashed like it is. Let me make it clear that while he does get support there, they also use peer counseling, and medical referrals to doctors willing to treat Soldiers for free for mental and physical problems. No one talks anyone into going AWOL or not deploying. If they used heavy handed tactics I would not endorse them like I do. Gen. Rick Lynch promised major changes that would improve care for Soldiers. I left the Army June 15th and I saw no difference at all. Under The Hood takes in those Soldiers with problems like drug abuse and alcohol and helps to get them clean. I have witnessed this first hand. They do good work for Soldiers that, sad to say, the Army does not see fit to help. The name calling is really unbecoming any vet. If you have questions, please ask me. I will be happy to answer them, so long as it is done with respect.
I have experience with soldiers suffering TBI and PTSD and in those experiences, the military performed as they should. Once they released the soldier from active duty, they then went on to continue receiving follow up care through the VA system with the help and guidance of the CVSO and the Veteran’s Organizations, which is why they are there and why they’ve been around for 90 years. Besides helping Vets get the care they need through the government channels, the VSO’s also have vast networks of orgs that work with helping soldiers in other areas, like camps for combat Vets to go to, after returning, so that they can decompress and relax with other combat Vets. This is done at no charge. Or, family assistance with alcohol and drug rehab, financial issues, counseling for the individual and family, especially in the area of PTSD, because the soldier that is suffering and has a family, isn’t suffering alone. In fact, the one thing that they don’t do, is coddle, support, or condone the actions of those that choose to not honor their commitment. VSO’s are world wide, have been doing this for many, many, years, and are all peers, with no political affiliations. Now, as far as you saying that Under the Hood doesn’t talk anyone into going AWOL, or not deploying; if they are giving support to those that do, including a place for them to meet people that will attempt to talk someone into doing any of those things, or providing a place for those that are, in fact, doing those things, then they are, by their allowing this to happen in their place of business, doing just that. If you want to step up to a Veterans Service Organization, then by all means, do so, because there are some legitimate ones out there that are ready and able to serve the needs of the Veteran and their families. If you want to choose to stay with the anti-war, duty shirking enablers, that’s fine too, but please don’t try to qualify their existence by adding trinkets onto what their… Read more »
The organization is the coffee house itself.
I’m not sure they on the director, but I can check for you.
Their support network is local as far as central Texas goes, and it is small, but growing.
Funding comes strictly from donations. I have donated quite a lot myself. So if this was a place where Soldiers where pressured into going AWOL, I promise you, I wouldn’t give them a dime. I faced heavy handed tactics to pressure me from not going back to Iraq for a second time once I was Stop-Lossed. It was a from a completely different group of people, but I know how that feels and do would not allow that to happen to anyone if I came across it.
They have a Non-Profit Status. A 503c I think it is called?
They have a board, and a person that runs the coffee house daily, a wife on an active duty wounded vet of Iraq. Yet another horror story how he was treated.
The website is http://www.underthehoodcafe.org
I’m not saying everyone in the VA is bad, or that the whole VA is bad. But medical care at Ft. Hood for Active Duty Soldiers is a disgrace to this nation. We can lead the way in bombs and bullets but not Soldiers health care? While many do care, they are fighting a system on the Active Duty side that serves only the Army. For example, several Soldiers in my unit that where getting out, or entering retirement came home to find large chunks of their medical records missing. Including me. I’m not talking one or two or three, but dozens. So either incompetence is trained into the medics, or someone did a nice slash and burn on our records. Lucky for me, I have lots of copies of everything. But no one is ever held accountable for this and if you bring it up you are told to shut up.
Well As far as the records go, the Army was moving towards paperless records. That was in 2007. They where also doing away with hand held records for PCSing and ETSing. The Medics did help out in the records room. But they stopped that in early 2008.
But I was talking to a PA in Iraq and he said that there would be more oversight to make sure that the errors would not happen as they did in the past. I think it started in mid to late 2008. So I am not sure if it affected the people your talking about.
Maybe they will be in the same cell together since both are BFs
Wow. I didn’t even know this was going on here. Very sad. Why take an oath as a Soldier and then not fulfill the job? I mean, it’s not like this war started yesterday. I tell my boys, “You will make choices in life, and your choices will have consequences. Live your life with honor, not running away from difficult times.”
Casey,
Thanks for the information. You said to ask and I did and then you held up your end, also, with the answers.
I never said that the active military was perfect, in fact, my tongue would fall out if I ever tried to utter the words. I think that maybe some of the problems aren’t emblematic of the military as a whole, but maybe more localized, as in the case of your examples of Ft. Hood?
My entire beef is with those that sign on the line and raise their right hand during war and then decide whether before their first deployment, or before their second, that the war is illegal and they aren’t going to go. They gave up that part of the decision making process before the deployment order came around.
If they were drafted, then I could see it more so than when they volunteer. The buzzwords being used today were exactly the same ones used during Vietnam, where the original slogans were provided by our friends in the communist movement (and everyone knows that communists never fight wars, illegal or otherwise, false imprisonment and oppressing their populations are more to their liking) and I’m finding many of the same things today. All you have to do is follow the organizers links and affiliations and you will find some commie cockroaches under the rocks.
Victor will have to deal with the consequences of his inactions, just as the others will have to deal with theirs. I find no honor in shirking ones obligations and duties, although we live in a world, these days, where moral relativism is the name of the game i.e. it’s shows great courage to “resist” going, when it really isn’t resistance since you willingly signed up to begin with and it’s not courage, but cowardice, to say you will do what you signed up for and then back out when there’s a possibility that you might have a chance of being in harms way.