Everyone comes to TAH; the Andre Shepherd version

Yes, everyone comes to This Ain’t Hell sooner or later. Everyone we’ve written about has eventually had someone who knew them “back when” come forward and tell us their back story. Today we feature a tale about Andre Shepherd, the soldier who went AWOL in Europe and is applying for refugee status to avoid doing his jail time. In fact, we expected the Germans to arrive at decision last month about him.

But here’s the real Andre Shepherd from someone who knew him. He came by here yesterday and left a comment. I contacted him last night and asked him if he could expand his thoughts and here they are;

Wowwwww, I mean wowwww… ok I have to say a few words now…

My name is Joe, I was born in Torrance California and moved to Kent Ohio in July of 1999. What you don’t know is Andre Shepherd was one of my first friends when I moved to Ohio met him in 2000 . He was my manager at McDonalds at Kent State University. The guy was pretty cool he was into video games, movies – he was a geek like myself.

In 2000 Dres roomate was moving out of his place and I was living with my then girlfriend in a nice 1 bedroom apartment. He came to me and asked if we could move into his place. He didn’t want to leave his lease, So i talked my gf into doing it I trusted Dre as he was a good friend so my girlfriend did as well. We move in with him everything is going fine for about 6 months. One day Dre comes home and tells us he got fired from McDonalds. I;d get home from working a 8 hour day and he’s playing my Dreamcast.

At first, whatever, he just lost his job but it kept going on and on I’d get home he’s always in the same spot im like man you need to go out and look for a job. He tells me I did look I just got back just running me lines of bullshit. He never wanted to go back to fast food but I told him I could see if I could get him into Burger King he had plenty of experience. Didn’t take very long and Burger king hired him on the spot as a shift manager, he trained for a few months and was a assistant manager making salary.

Everything was fine till around October. He decided to quit the job he was done with fast food and all the drama. He left one day and never came back. Andre flat out left me and my girlfriend to pick up the slack 6 months he was gone. Daily I would get home and there would be 50 messages on the answering machine of people trying to reach Dre. The phone would ring off the hook and we would tell the bill collectors no we have not seen him, sometimes the bill collectors would tell us we were lying and that he was home and we were trying to hide them.

We would get knocks at the door of people trying to find him so they could start repossessing things of his. My girlfriend maxed out 2 credit cards and we were 3500+ in the hole having to pay his half of the rent, we tried to get out of the lease but they said tough shit pay us. I was sitting there playing my Dreamcast and in walks Dre after 6 months no calls no one knows where the hell he was.

I was livid I let out all I had on my mind. He apologized but that was not good enough. My then girlfriend told me how she lost respect for me and lost all trust cause it was my fault I told her we would be ok moving with Dre he had a job, well, wow, did that all hit me in the face.

So after I cooled down he told me how he got this job selling these awesome Kirby vacuum cleaners. He tried to sell one of these Kirby vacuums they’re like 2 grand and I couldn’t believe it. He made this sales pitch, granted he did a good job showed us how this vacuumed could do all these things – it was impressive. We told him “hell no” we’re not gonna buy this and he got pissed at us for not doing so, how can we afford a vacuum cleaner at this point when were so far in the hole?

The point I’m making here is the guy ran away from everything just as I’m finding out now he ran from the Army and is banned from the USA. WOW, really? I know more about the dude being his friend for 5 years. The dude was a Republican would never join the military unless he had to for financial obligations. Let me tell you when I sit and read all this stuff he makes him self out like some hero. Truth be told he’s doing what he always had run from everything, run from his job, run from his friends. He lived in his car the 6 months he was gone. His bills were piling up so high you couldn’t see half of his door to his room, the door is almost 7 feet tall.

He owes me almost $3500 in bills we had to pay for his lease obligation , we were paying his half of his rent with credit cards till they maxed out. He owes another friend $2k for buying his Dodge Intrepid at the time he had a job at Burger King and thought he was gonna get paid back. Dre, as far as a person goes, is the nicest person and caring person you would ever meet. His obligations however are a mess and anytime something would come up the first thing he would do is run from them like he did to us. His bills got so bad, his life got so bad having to live in his car he didn’t have a choice.

Joining the Army would pay his bills. Now I’m not saying he’s not fighting for a good cause, i believe he is doing something he strongly believes in, he thinks the Iraq war is pointless and, yes, I agree it is pointless and its a war that will never end. But when you sign up for the army or anything you are committed to do whatever is asked from his country.

He swore an oath, and he ran. Not only did he run but he ran during a war which is the death penalty in the USA he is a traitor to our people. The problem is he always thinks about him self but there is gonna be more long term impact on what he’s doing with this thing in Germany. If they grant him amnesty you are gonna see thousands of people trying to do the same thing he’s doing and that is not right.

Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Phony soldiers, Usual Suspects