The Associated Press
Wuerzburg, Germany — A U.S. Army medic who refused to return to Iraq because he said war is morally wrong was convicted of desertion Tuesday and sentenced to an eight-month prison term, far short of the maximum seven-year sentence.
Spc. Agustin Aguayo, 35, and his attorneys turned to each other and smiled after the judge, Col. R. Peter Masterton, read out the sentence.
Aguayo, a U.S. citizen born in Guadalajara, Mexico, had been jailed for 161 days awaiting trial and his attorney, David Court, said he did not expect him to serve more than about six more weeks.
In a shaky voice, Aguayo told the court during the one-day court martial at the Army’s Leighton Barracks near Wuerzburg, Germany, that his convictions led him to jump out a window at base housing in Germany last September and flee home to California rather than be forced to go back to Iraq.
He turned himself in to the military at California’s Fort Irwin about three weeks later.
Aguayo pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of being absent without leave and missing a troop movement, but was unsuccessful in contesting the more serious desertion charge.
The judge found him guilty of desertion after Capt. Derrick Grace, the lead prosecutor, told the court being absent without leave was by itself grounds for a desertion conviction. The judge also ordered that Aguayo be reduced in rank to private, forfeit his pay and receive a bad conduct discharge.
Aguayo, who was with the 1st Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, served a year as a combat medic in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2004 after the military turned down his request to be considered a conscientious objector.