Veterans for Common Sense

November 25, 2008 – A limited test of a streamlined system to more speedily and equitably evaluate wounded and injured troops is tentatively set to expand over the next seven months from the Washington, D.C., area to 16 other bases in the continental U.S., the Department of Veterans Affairs says.

The test aims to replace the cumbersome evaluation system exposed by the 2007 Walter Reed scandal with a single exam and disability rating system. Officials say the new system will cut in half the time from a recommendation for medical evaluation to medical separation or return to duty.

The program, which officials emphasize is a work in progress, has done just that, said Tom Pamperin, deputy director of VA’s compensation and pension service.

The test began a year ago at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.; and Malcolm Grove Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. It was expanded Oct. 1 to Fort Belvoir, Va., and Fort Meade, Md., and Nov. 1 to Balboa Naval Medical Center, San Diego.

Defense Department officials said an expansion of the final program has not yet been given final approval. “We are considering expanding the pilot, but cannot speak to the details until final decisions are made,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez.

One problem identified out of the Walter Reed controversy was the long delay service members experienced in the processing and receipt of VA benefits. Under the pilot program, the delays appear significantly reduced.

As of Oct. 26, some 779 service members had entered the Washington-area pilot program, Pamperin said. All received one physical exam from a VA-qualified provider using VA’s evaluation standards. The exam is normally a two-part ordeal with differing standards. Under the pilot program, is is administered as part of the standard Medical Evaluation Board, which determines a member’s fitness for duty.

Of the 779 troops, 73 were found fit and returned to duty. Of the 611 who remain in the program, some have yet to be evaluated and others have received ratings and are awaiting discharge.

A total of 46 were retired, nearly all of them medically retired, and 15 were separated from service with severance pay. Of this group, Pamperin said, “All but three were awarded VA benefits on the day they separated.” One of the three took an added week because of a severance pay issue, he said, while the physical or mental condition of the other two required fiduciary aid and more time to complete.

Service members rated at 30 percent disabled or higher are medically retired; those rated at 10 percent or 20 percent are separated with severance pay.

Two troops were separated without severance pay. Pamperin said such cases involve unfitting conditions considered zero-percent disabling or conditions judged to be pre-existing. The remaining 32 members left the program for various reasons. Two died, some were given administrative separations and some moved out of the Washington area, Pamperin said.

All service members who have been evaluated in the pilot program received VA’s decision on their disability percentage on the same day they received the finding of the Physical Evaluation Board.

After the MEB renders its decision, the PEB decides whether to retain or separate the service member, Pamperin said.

When the pilot program was launched, officials also said they hoped to cut in half the amount of time spent in the system. “It’s actually a little bit better than that,” Pamperin said.

The pilot program gives service members enhanced rights of appeal. Previously, a member could appeal to the PEB the conditions considered unfitting, and the fitness determination.

Under the pilot program, when a member rebuts that finding, the PEB notifies VA, which initiates a Decision Review Officer Process that considers the member’s medical evidence or legal argument about the application of the ratings schedule. VA’s decision is then binding on the PEB, Pamperin said.

November 28, 2008 – As he prepares to take office, President-elect Barack Obama is relying on a small team of advisers who will lead his transition operation and help choose the members of his administration. Following is part of a series of profiles of potential members of the administration.

Name: Tammy Duckworth

Being considered for: Secretary of veterans affairs (if she is not tapped by the governor of Illinois to replace Mr. Obama in the Senate seat he gave up).

Would bring to the job: Intensely personal experience as a disabled veteran of the Iraq war, where she lost her legs when the helicopter she was flying was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on Nov. 12, 2004. She became an advocate for veterans while still a patient at Walter Reed Medical Center, and she began speaking out – before Congress and later in an unsuccessful bid for Henry J. Hyde’s former seat in the House – about unmet needs regarding health care, employment and housing. Still a major in the Illinois National Guard, she has credibility with other service members (especially other Iraq veterans), whom she often refers to as “my buddies.” She has dealt with the nitty-gritty of a veterans affairs office – albeit on a far smaller scale than the federal agency – as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which claims more than $70 million in new initiatives during her nearly two years in the post.

Is linked to Mr. Obama by: The 2005 State of the Union address, which Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois invited her to attend as a veteran still recuperating in Walter Reed Army Medical Center. There, she says, she met Mr. Obama, who later visited her at the medical center and went on to support her unsuccessful 2006 campaign for Congress (as did Mr. Durbin and Rahm Emanuel, the representative who led the House Democrats’ fund-raising efforts that year and has been tapped to be Mr. Obama’s chief of staff).

In her own words: “I had my legs blown off in Iraq, and because I had my legs blown off in Iraq, people are listening to me. I’m not going to get my legs back, and that’s fine, but if that gives me a platform to talk about the things that are important to me, like education and jobs, that’s great.” (A 2005 interview in The New York Times)

Used to work as: A manager at Rotary International handling offices in Tokyo; Seoul, South Korea; New Delhi; and Sydney, Australia; and helping to open a Rotary club in Afghanistan. She also coordinated the Center for Nursing Research at Northern Illinois University. In 17 years of military service (in the Army Reserve and National Guard), she was deployed several times, including for humanitarian trips and training missions to Guyana, Iceland and Egypt.

Carries as baggage: At 40, Ms. Duckworth has never held elective office. And though she has testified repeatedly before Congress, she is virtually untested in Washington. Some suggest that her blunt support for veterans would be met with a tough, complicated reality of financial limits and the bureaucratic morass in the capital. The Department of Veterans Affairs is also a vast enterprise with enormous problems that will test the leadership, organizational and management skills of whoever gets the appointment.

Is otherwise known for: Despite using two artificial legs and, at times, a wheelchair, completing the Chicago marathon this fall on a hand-cranked bicycle (time: 2 hours, 26 minutes and 31 seconds). She is working on regaining her scuba certification. With a father of English descent (whose family has roots in this country since the American Revolution) and a mother who is ethnically Chinese, was born in Thailand and is an American citizen, Ms. Duckworth is fluent in Thai and Indonesian. She is returning to flying small aircraft (“I’m not going to let some dude in Iraq who got lucky with an RPG decide when I will stop flying”).

Résumé includes: Born in 1968 … grew up in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia and Hawaii, because of her father’s work with United Nations development programs and international corporations … bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Hawaii and a master’s in international affairs from George Washington University … was working toward a doctorate in political science at Northern Illinois University when she was sent to Iraq, and says she still plans to complete it … is married to Bryan Bowlsbey, a major in the Illinois Army National Guard who returned from a deployment to Kuwait earlier this year … they live in Hoffman Estates, a northwest suburb of Chicago.

November 30, 2008 – Just about anywhere Ben Tapia goes between now and Dec. 25, he can expect to hear Christmas carols.

“To this day, my wife and daughter get on my case,” said Tapia, a 61-year-old Ceres resident. “I can’t stand Christmas music. It irritates the hell out of me.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, he said. But spending Christmas under attack by the North Vietnamese 41 years ago gutted his holiday spirit.

“My son was a Christmas baby (born while Tapia was in Vietnam),” he said. “The chances of ever seeing him were not the best. We were getting (shelled) all the time. Now, I don’t want to deal with the occasion. I don’t see the joy in it. It just pushes buttons.”

Tapia isn’t alone in his feelings. It’s a common sentiment among combat veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and it doesn’t matter whether they fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or either of the wars in Iraq. Being in combat during the holidays creates a life-changing void, said John Middlesworth, a readjustment counseling specialist at the Vet Center in Modesto.

“Thanksgiving and Christmas — that month in between,” said Middlesworth, a former Marine. “Young men and women getting shot at and shooting. These are the two times out of the calendar year when we think about being home and they’re thinking about us. If you’re going to get depressed, those are the days, and it stays with you. It’s the most emotional time of the year. Vets can go literally into a six-week lockdown. I start counseling them in October for the holidays.”

It doesn’t matter that Tapia and Bobby O’Neal, a 76-year-old Korean War veteran, are active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Ceres Post 10293 and work to help other veterans.

O’Neal said he accepts the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ as Christmas.

“I never heard a man who was wounded or dying call out, ‘Oh, President Bush,’ ” O’Neal said. “Or, ‘Oh, mom.’ But ‘Oh, God!’ Religion, yes.”

It’s the frivolity and commercial aspects of the holidays that bother many of these veterans.

The emotions remain, and both men turned to Jack Daniels No. 7 at some point for comfort.

“I spent 30 years wondering how I got through the other 30 years,” said O’Neal, a former Marine.

He recalls spending one Christmas on the eastern side of South Korea, preparing for battle.

“We were scheduled to go to the (front) line, but they held us back for Christmas dinner,” O’Neal said.

One young soldier had worn out his boots, and size 13s were hard to replace. O’Neal felt bad that this soldier would be sent into battle shoeless and at such a horrible disadvantage.

“They were going to send him to the line with his feet wrapped in rags,” O’Neal said. “At the last minute, they got him some shoes, but only because we’d been held back. It was the happiest moment of my life. (After the war) I had about 30 pair of shoes and never wore out a pair. All through life, things stick with you.”

Rod Whaley, a 59-year-old former Marine, tries to get in the holiday spirit by driving his vintage firetruck to elementary schools and playing Santa Claus for the children. But the wounds of the Vietnam War run deep for the one-time field medic.

“Why is (Christmas) such a downer? Because it’s never been an upper,” Whaley said.

His father was a field medic during World War II, he said, and he followed in dad’s footsteps. Both were affected the same way because of what they experienced in battle.

“I’m a poster child for PTSD,” he said. “My dad had PTSD and I have PTSD. Nineteen days after I was in the jungle, I was in San Francisco and in a mental ward because I couldn’t adjust to being a citizen. I have a real problem with authority.”

Which is why the Vet Center, which opened in July, has become so important to these and other veterans dealing with PTSD. Help is available. And how will Middlesworth assist them in overcoming their PTSD-driven dislike for the holidays?

By confronting those demons head-on. The Vet Center will hold a Christmas party — the very kind of thing many vets detest — for the vets and their families Dec. 11. They are asking for donations of toys and other gifts, turkeys, food and other basic items. Center Director Stephen Lawson is hoping people in the community, along with churches and service clubs, will help out.

Middlesworth will take them to visit other veterans in hospitals and nursing homes — “to get these vets back out into the world,” he said.

He also plans to take some of these vets to the mall — a place many avoid even though their wives, children and grandchildren love the crowds. It’s an atmosphere the vets distrust and detest — particularly the Vietnam vets, who fought in a war in which it was hard to differentiate between their allies and enemies. Crowds can make them edgy and on alert.

And Lawson hopes that by recruiting some vets to begin working — now — on next year’s Veterans Day parade, the tasks of making arrangements, finding sponsors and promoting the event will provide a positive distraction from the holidays that can otherwise affect them so negatively.

Still, Christmas will arrive, as will that moment when their grandkids gleefully tear open packages. How will these vets handle it?

As if working off of a script, Tapia, Middlesworth and O’Neal replied in unison:

“You fake it.”

November 29, 2008, Fort Campbell, KY – Some 15,000 soldiers are heading home to this sprawling base after spending more than a year at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military health officials are bracing for a surge in brain injuries and psychological problems among those troops.

Facing prospects that one in five of the 101st Airborne Division soldiers will suffer from stress-related disorders, the base has nearly doubled its psychological health staff. Army leaders are hoping to use the base’s experiences to assess the long-term impact of repeated deployments.

The three 101st Airborne combat brigades, which have begun arriving home, have gone through at least three tours in Iraq. The 3rd Brigade also served seven months in Afghanistan, early in the war. Next spring, the 4th Brigade will return from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan. So far, roughly 10,000 soldiers have come back; the remainder are expected by the end of January.
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Army leaders say they will closely watch Fort Campbell to determine the proper medical staffing levels needed to aid soldiers who have endured repeated rotations in the two war zones.

“I don’t know what to expect. I don’t think anybody knows,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, as he flew back to Washington from a recent tour of the base’s medical facilities. “That’s why I want to see numbers from the 101st’s third deployment.”

What happens with the 101st Airborne, he said, will let the Army help other bases ready for similar homecomings in the next year or two, when multiple brigades from the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division return.

Noting that some soldiers in the 101st Airborne units have been to war four or five times, Chiarelli said he is most worried the military will not be able to find enough health care providers to deal effectively with the troops needing assistance.

Limited access to help
Many of the military bases are near small or remote communities that do not have access to the number of health professionals who might be needed as a great many soldiers return home.

More than 63,600 active duty Army soldiers have done three or more tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. That is a nearly 12 percent of the total number of soldiers who have deployed at least once. Roughly four in 10 soldiers who have gone to war have served more than one deployment – and that number is growing steadily.

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One solution under discussion is the formation of mobile medical and psychological teams that can go to Army bases when they are expecting a surge in activity from returning units.

At Fort Campbell, the director of health services, Col. Richard Thomas, has roughly doubled his authorized staff of psychologists and behavioral specialists to 55 and is trying to hire a few more.

“I think we have enough staff to meet the demands of the soldiers here, but I could use more, and I’ll hire more if I can,” said Thomas. “I’ll hire them until they tell me to stop.”

He said he expects the increased staffing levels to last at least through next year.

‘They’re not bipolar’
For the first time, Thomas said, every soldier returning home will have an individual meeting with a behavioral health specialist and then go through a second such session 90 days to 120 days later.

The second one is generally the time when indications of stress surface, after the initial euphoria of the homecoming wears off and sleeplessness, nightmares, and other symptoms show up.

“We’re seeing a lot of soldiers with stress related issues,” he said. “They’re not bipolar or schizophrenic. But they’re deploying three and four times and the stress is tremendous. They’re having relationship issues, financial issues, marital problems – all stress related.”

According to Dr. Bret Logan, deputy commander for managed care at the base, extended war zone stints that have lasted as long as 38 months over the course of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken a severe toll.

November 30, 2008 – Air Force veteran David Chini has lost track of all the times the Department of Veterans Affairs lost records he sent to it.

Registered mail? A VA worker signed, and the paperwork vanished. By fax? Chini, 69, of St. Petersburg said the VA claimed it never arrived. Regular mail? Don’t even ask.

And if something doesn’t arrive, the agency threatens to discontinue his medical benefits because Chini isn’t sending the papers it needs.

“It’s just totally demoralizing,” he said.

Recent revelations that workers in 41 of 57 VA regional benefits offices, including St. Petersburg, improperly set aside hundreds of claims records for shredding came as no surprise to veterans.

The VA, critics say, has long operated in a veritable culture of lost paper and was losing records many years before this latest scandal. Lost paperwork sometimes leads to delayed, denied or abandoned claims for medical or financial assistance.

And it leaves some questioning if workers lose it deliberately to ease workloads. At least two VA employees outside Florida are being investigated for just that.

“I remain angry that a culture of dishonesty has led to an increased mistrust of the VA within the veteran community,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

The VA notes it is the most paper-intensive federal bureaucracy, sifting through 162-million pages of claims documents a year.

And while the VA hopes to have largely paperless claims filing by 2012, the size of the agency makes computerization a challenge.

“Until we get out of the paper business, lost documents are something we’re going to have to contend with,” said Mike Walcoff, the VA’s deputy undersecretary for benefits in Washington.

Walcoff said it is unfair to criticize thousands of dedicated VA employees for the failures of a small minority, and said the VA is working hard to improve its performance.

Others remain skeptical, and question why it has taken so long for the agency to move toward digitized records.

“It’s ludicrous that we have the most highly technologically advanced army in the history of the world and still come back home to an antiquated system that is all on paper,” said Rick Weidman, director of governmental relations at Vietnam Veterans of America.

Take a look at one measure of the problem: the Board of Veterans Appeals in Washington, where veterans appeal the denial of claims.

Searching an online database of appeals decisions for “destroyed records” reveals 20,000 cases where those words appear. “Missing files” locates 33,000 cases.

Disappearing files

Through VA history, confidential claims papers have been found in some odd places: above ceiling tiles, inside closets, in curbside trash at a VA lawyer’s home, and in one case at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

“It’s a corporate culture of disappearing records,” Weidman said. “It’s just generally a disdain for the individual veteran that needs to be changed.”

But Weidman applauds the VA for moving quickly to suspend shredding nationally after discovering the latest problem and then implementing new policies.

Now it will take the approval of three VA employees before any document is shredded. Records czars are being appointed in all 57 regional offices.

The agency also said it has reminded employees that claims records can’t be stowed in unauthorized areas. Workers who do so can be fired.

And the VA has announced a temporary policy (see accompanying box) allowing, in some cases, veterans to refile crucial paperwork if they think the VA lost it.

“We’re taking the steps that we need to do to get the trust of the veteran community again,” Walcoff said.

He said moving to digital records too quickly would only lead to more problems, though Walcoff noted that much of VA operations are already computerized.

But the VA wants to integrate all its activities in five separate business lines, including insurance, loan programs and medical, an enormously complicated process. That takes time, Walcoff said.

Filner remains wary about any proposed fixes.

“We have heard promises from the VA before,” he said after a Nov. 19 meeting in Washington on shredding with members of his committee, the VA and veteran advocates.

Filner was particularly displeased that he and other members of the veterans committee found out about the shredding problem in news reports, not from the VA.

“The way to build confidence is to tell people about it before it appears in the paper,” Filner said.

Many critics point to one thing as the biggest incentive for workers to “lose” records: incentive bonuses to quickly resolve claims and improve their numbers.

The VA’s Walcoff denied that the agency believes there is any link between bonuses and misplaced paperwork.

Weidman at Vietnam Veterans of America said the VA needs to enforce employee accountability and offer better training and competency tests for anyone deciding a claim.

“Unless the VA changes how it measures work, we will be back here again in eight years doing the same thing,” said Ron Abrams, joint executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program.

November 27, 2008 – With a substantial majority, the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday ratified a sweeping security agreement that sets the course for an end to the United States’ role in the war and marks the beginning of a new relationship between the countries.

The pact, which still must be approved by Iraq’s three-person presidency council, a move expected in the next few days, sets the end of 2011 as the date by which the last American troops must leave the country.

Its passage, on a vote of 149 to 35, according to a parliamentary statement, was a victory for Iraq’s government as well as for the often fractious legislative body, which forged a political compromise among bitterly differing factions in 10 days of intense negotiations.

After notable failures on some critical issues, including a law to divide oil revenues and another to determine the future of the disputed city of Kirkuk, the vote on Thursday represented a coming of age for the three-year-old Parliament.

“This is the day of our sovereignty,” said Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. “Together we will go forward toward a free, prosperous and glorious Iraq, where Iraqis can live with pride and dignity and can be proud that they are sons of this beloved country.”

The cabinet approved the final version of the security agreement on Nov. 16. Since then, the government has furiously worked to gain approval of the measure, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, when the United Nations mandate that currently governs American troop operations in the country expires.

In sharp contrast to the atmosphere during the drafting of Iraq’s Constitution in 2005, there was relatively little violence on the streets during the parliamentary negotiations, despite intense and sometimes contentious debates. Within the halls of Parliament, Shiite religious clerics in swirling robes and turbans and women in long black abayas huddled in consultation with secular Sunnis and Kurds in tailored suits. There was far less of the intense mutual distrust that defined the discussions three years ago.

President Bush congratulated the Parliament on the vote.

“Today’s vote affirms the growth of Iraq’s democracy and increasing ability to secure itself,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “Two years ago this day seemed unlikely – but the success of the surge and the courage of the Iraqi people set the conditions for these two agreements to be negotiated and approved by the Iraqi Parliament.”

The security agreement and an accompanying document that outlines America’s relationship with Iraq in areas like economics, health care and education, would grant Iraq considerable authority over American troop operations, requiring court orders to search buildings and detain suspects.

It also sets out a timetable requiring American troops to withdraw from cities and towns by June 30, 2009, and for all troops to leave the country by the end of 2011 unless the Iraqis and Americans negotiate a separate pact to extend the American military presence. (In contrast, President-elect Barack Obama campaigned under a promise to withdraw all American combat brigades from Iraq by May 2010, but set no date for a complete withdrawal.)

The agreement commanded broad support, although it remains unclear how the several dozen lawmakers who failed to show up would have voted. There remained vocal opposition from followers of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and some hard-line Sunni Arabs who disagreed vehemently with the idea of striking a deal with the United States, a country they view as having waged an illegal war.

“America couldn’t gain international legitimacy before the war,”said Mohamed al-Dayni, a member of the National Dialogue Front, one of the Sunni parties. “And they didn’t have it until a few seconds before the vote, but unfortunately they got it from the Iraqi Parliament.”

Nevertheless, the agreement enjoyed broad support across sectarian lines, largely because of the insistence of Iraq’s pre-eminent religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who from his modest office in Najaf has reached out to leaders from every faction.

The ayatollah told legislators and other members of the Iraqi government that it was not enough just to get the bill through, but that they needed to build a broad national consensus. That meant that the Shiite and Kurdish lawmakers who supported the deal from the outset had to fashion several accompanying measures to satisfy the doubts of a number of wary Sunnis.

Approved Thursday along with the security pact were a nonbinding resolution that included a commitment to address longstanding grievances of minority blocs in the Parliament as well as a law requiring a referendum on the pact to be held in July 2009. This resolution explicitly addressed Sunni demands for the enforcement of an amnesty law for thousands of detainees in Iraqi custody and for a greater sectarian balance in the security forces.

Many Sunnis and independents in Parliament cited the referendum to justify their support of the agreement. With provincial elections scheduled for the end of January, none of the political parties wanted to be accused of making an unpopular agreement with the Americans, who are widely viewed here as an occupation force.

The approval of the referendum was seen as a way to ensure that the Americans respect the pact’s terms – at least in the coming months, said Adnan Pachachi, a senior member of the secular Iraqiya Party. The referendum will make the Americans “more careful and they will not make mistakes that will cause the Iraqi people to reject the agreement,”he said.

Although Sunni lawmakers were the most vocal about their concerns, most of Iraq’s political parties submitted lists of demands to the government, exposing a chasm between Mr. Maliki’s circle and the others. Even some of the toughest holdouts acknowledged that their objections were not to the pact itself; they resisted, they said, because of the likelihood that its passage would bolster Mr. Maliki’s government.

Throughout the government’s negotiations on the pact, which officially began on Aug. 26, 2007, but got under way in earnest last spring, neighboring countries, especially Iran, have been invisible but influential players. As recently as Wednesday night, lawmakers said messages came from Iran expressing disapproval of the political deal that was essential to the pact’s ratification.

But lawmakers nevertheless pushed on with the negotiations, and the final compromise, arrived at less than an hour before the Parliament vote, differed little from the version rejected by the Iranians. Lawmakers who over the past few days had been tense, chain-smoking and sleep deprived, appeared relieved and even a little proud that they had come together and, despite accusations that they lacked patriotism, approved a pact that they had come to call “The Withdrawal Agreement.”

“In 2003 we didn’t have a right to decide, but now we have a chance to deal with reality and to deal with the occupation forces,”said Dhi’aa al-Deen al-Fayeh, a member of the Shiite majority bloc in Parliament. “Now we can regain our sovereignty gradually, and now we have a timetable and the whole world is a witness to this agreement.”

November 27, 2008, Frankfurt, Germany –  A U.S. soldier who deserted his unit to avoid returning to Iraq has applied for asylum in Germany, saying the Iraq war was illegal and that he could not support the “heinous acts” taking place.

Andre Shepherd, 31, who served in Iraq between September 2004 and February 2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic in the 412th Aviation Support Battalion, has been living in Germany since deserting last year.

“When I read and heard about people being ripped to shreds from machine guns or being blown to bits by the Hellfire missiles I began to feel ashamed about what I was doing,” Shepherd told a Frankfurt news conference Thursday.

“I could not in good conscience continue to serve.”

Shepherd, originally from Cleveland, Ohio and ranked as an army specialist, applied for asylum in Germany Wednesday, said Tim Huber from the Military Counseling Network, a non-military group which is assisting him.

According to U.S. law, soldiers who desert during a time of war can face the death penalty.

The soldier said he was particularly hopeful he would be granted asylum in Germany, a staunch opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, due to the legacy of the post-war trials of Nazi officials, notably in Nuremberg in 1945-1949.

“Here in Germany it was established that everyone, even a soldier, must take responsibility for his or her actions, no matter how many superiors are giving orders,” he said.

Shepherd, who enlisted in January 2004, is only the second U.S. soldier to have applied to Germany for asylum “in a similar situation,” said Claudia Moebus from the government’s department for migration. The earlier application was later withdrawn.

The specialist was posted to Germany in 2005 where he undertook desk jobs, but he gradually began questioning the justification for the Iraq war and began worrying he would be sent back to serve there, said Huber.

“That’s when he went AWOL,” he added.

Earlier this year, Jeremy Hinzman, an American who applied for refugee status in Canada after deserting the U.S. Army when he received orders to go to Iraq, said he would appeal a deportation order returning him to the United States.

Another U.S. deserter, Robin Long, was deported from Canada in July and sent to jail in Colorado