Birther Army Officer to appear in court
Jerry920 sent us a link to the Associated Press story that the “birther” doctor, LTC Lawrence Lakin, who I wrote about in April, has a court date;
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, an 18-year-Army veteran, disobeyed orders to report earlier this year to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to prepare for deployment, saying he believed the orders were illegal.
In videos posted on YouTube, Lakin aligned himself with so-called “birthers” who question whether Obama is a natural-born citizen as the U.S. Constitution requires for presidents.
Lakin says in the videos that any reasonable person looking at available evidence would have questions about Obama’s eligibility to be president and that he had “no choice” but to disobey orders.
In my opinion, anyone who chooses to make a political statement out of their military service, whether it’s IVAW, IAVA, VoteVets or these “birthers”, especially in the time of war, are doing nothing except giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Military service is a sacred trust between the people of this nation and those who’ve promised to serve. I’ll grant that many of the people have violated that trust, but it doesn’t excuse service members’ violations of those bargains.
I hope Lakin gets the maximum sentence and loses the right to call himself a veteran. That’s justice.
Category: Military issues
He needs to be hammered. His orders come from his commanding officer, not the president. He is guilty of missing movement at a minimum.
Nobama’s birth certificate does not come into play in this equation.
Isn’t it a fine edge to walk? If Lakin is making some sort of overt political statement then by all means place him alongside those others and drop the hammer. As it is he is simply refusing to obey an order he believes to be illegal.
However he doesn’t seem to be anti-war, nor does he blame ‘the military’ for every hangnail he might suffer with.
As near as I can determine he hasn’t asked for special treatment and appears to be ready to face the consequences for his actions.
He may be full of shit, a jackass, and a disruptive influence, but I find it hard to lump him in with ‘those’ others.
I agree with USMC and John.
I have absolutely zero respect for this guy. Others have deployed regardless of their political beliefs and affiliations.
To serve and to deploy is an honor to most of us, and to serve and deploy is a requirement for those in the armed services and something they promise to uphold.
I find it incomprehensable that the good LTC missed movement. He knew his duty and he wilfully dismissed it. I personaly believe someone with a political agenda got in his ear and convinced him to make the biggest mistake of his life. I hope they throw the book at him.
this dickhead must’ve missed the part “I will obey the orders of the president and the officers appointed over me”
Follow me for just a minute if you will.
Perhaps the best person to take a bullet is the person wearing the bullet proof vest.
This person has 18 years of service and can’t be accused of not wanting to serve his country. He is a doctor and can’t be said that he is afraid to deploy. His kids are also probably out of college and he has no remaining dependents.
If anyoune could risk their military career and in fact their lively hood and continued happiness to prove that a potentially phoney president is indeed a phoney, this Lt Col may be the best person for the job… and I think he knows it.
As a meer civilian who has no means of protecting our troops from the deliterious, nieve orders of a man who may not even be an american, besides my vote in 2012, I am thankful that this Army doc is willing to take this figurative bullet.
If he is wrong he will face consequences he is prepared to face. But if he is right he will expose a phoney who has needlesly underfunded and misdirected our troops as well as lied to the american people.
And I thought exposing phoneys was something the readers and contributers to this site were all about. Right?
Wrong Foxbat.
Read posts #1, 4, and 5.
It’s not his choice or ‘right’ to pick and choose what he wants to do or not do.
His time in service is irrelevant. I have no more sympathy for this character than I do for someone who refuses to deploy because they think the U.S. is committing atrocities in Iraq/Afghanistan, or some other ridiculous reasons.
And what upsets me most about people like these, is that there are so many of us civilians that would do anything for a chance to put on a uniform so we can serve our country.
Willing to give up a well paying job, sacrifice a lot of the comforts we take granted for, just to have the chance to serve.
Yet we (I) can’t due to a medical condition or other issues over which we have no control or say (yes, I did talk to multiple recruiters who told me they had no waiver for my condition).
Tman: It’s not his choice or ‘right’ to pick and choose what he wants to do or not do.
I disagree. There IS always a narrow area where we must make choices.
Someday our soldiers will be robots, perhaps, but until that time the trigger puller has some responsibility for his actions.
It’s sad, at least, that Lakin picked this particular issue, but war crimes are also a very real issue and can’t be tossed into the “I was only following orders” catch all.
@ Ponsdorf
Not following an order to shoot 30 civilians sitting in a church is the right thing to do (that would be an illegal order). Missing movement is disobeying a Legal order. If he believed that POTUS was not a citizen (not making a judgement here just stating his case) than the LTC should have resigned his commision. There are few things in my Army worse than missing movement…very few things.
RobD #10: I take your point, and rather agree. But I don’t think I equated Lakin’s actions with shooting civilians. I said only that ‘ALL orders are not legal orders’ as a reply to the specific statement I cited.
Still, Lakin didn’t go AWOL and announce his birther ideas from Canada. He hasn’t claimed ‘the military’ made him into a birther.
So this ‘birther officer’ had no qualms about serving all this time after Obama was elected, but all of a sudden decides that he needs to challenge Obama’s birth certificate. When his unit was ordered to deploy.
Yea, big “coincidence” there.
Now this is what infuriates me. This officer is a doctor, right? As we all know too well from the headlines, the casualty rates have been increasing in Afghanistan. Our brave troops are putting their lives on the line and suffering injuries. You would think that an Army doctor would be aware of this, and they are more than ever needed on the battle fields.
Yet, this self centered “birther” cares more about himself and his pet causes than serving and assisting the brave men and women who put their lives on the line everyday.
Hardly anything to do with Army values. This birther should be ashamed of himself and his butt needs to suffer the severe consequences.
I still call Bullshit. So what if he was born when HI was a territory not a state? Martin Van Buren the EIGHTH president of the United States was the FIRST to be born a US citizen. and William Henery Harrison who came after him was born in 1773. . . so he could not POSSIBLY be a US citizen at birth.
This dickhead took an oath to obey the orders of the duly appointed civilian government. The second we DISOBEY those orders we become no better that those jack asses we’ve fought, and continue to fight. he spit on the ONE THING that truly sets us apart, and I for my part want him to burn for it.