Army Spec. Suzanne Swift, 21, Arrested for Refusing to Deploy to Iraq.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRF_SOLDIER_DETAINED?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- A 21-year-old woman who refused to deploy with her Army unit to Iraq for a second tour has been arrested and will be returned to Fort Lewis, Wash., Eugene police said Monday.

Eugene Police spokesman Sgt. Rich Stronach said Spec. Suzanne Swift, 21, told officers she did not want to go back to Iraq. She was picked up Sunday night at the request of the Army.

Stronach said Swift at first did not say who she was but was identified by tattoos described in the warrant and was arrested at her family's home without incident.

She was listed as AWOL late last year and her unit left for Iraq without her. She served her first tour in Iraq with a military police unit in 2004, her mother, Sarah Rich, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

I'd do the same thing. Bush is a criminal.

They were lied to by their commander in chief, and told that Iraq attacked us, and many of them are there with patriotism and revenge in mine.

They need to turn their backs on this so called commander in chief and be patriotic dissenters like this American G.I.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/06/13/a1.arrest.0613.p1.php?section=cityregion

Army specialist refuses to return to Iraq
AWOL soldier's arrest brings out supporters
By Susan Palmer
The Register-Guard
Published: Tuesday, June 13, 2006


Suzanne Swift

Kevin Clark
The Register-Guard


<snip>


Swift's mother, Eugene social worker Sara Rich, has been a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, but said she didn't stand in her daughter's way when Swift decided to join the Army in spring 2003. Swift had graduated from South Eugene High School the year before and had been working, but felt she wasn't getting anywhere, Rich said. The message from Army recruiters - that she could receive an education and travel - resonated. Rich said recruiters told her daughter if she signed up for a five-year tour with the military police, she would not be sent to Iraq.

But it didn't work out that way. After Swift became part of the military police, her company was deployed to Iraq in February 2004.

<snip>

She came home to Fort Lewis in February 2005, believing she had the standard 18 months decompression time before she would be redeployed, Rich said. Mother and daughter visited whenever they could, but Swift didn't tell her much about what she'd seen of the war. "She had been through so much, but she didn't want to freak me out," Rich said.

Then Swift was asked to sign a waiver agreeing to return to Iraq early, in January, 11 months after returning to the United States. It was the last thing Swift wanted to do, Rich said. Having seen the war first-hand, she had profound doubts about it, and had told her mother she thought the war lacked purpose and that no one had benefited from the U.S. presence in Iraq.

<snip>

She joined in 2003? She knew what she was getting into.

I'm a veteran and I never would have enlisted with this crazy incompetent warmongering piece of garbage masquerading as president

She knew what she was getting into, they all did, none were drafted.

I've never been in the military and may be unqualified to speak to this, but, I know of a lot of people who joined and regretted it. And let's face it, this is the neocons we're talking about, and they flat out fooled all these people.

And in this woman's case, she was tricked several times.

I don't believe she knew what she was getting into, and do feel sorry for her.

Anybody who trusted Bush was a fool.

invaded Iraq in March, 2003 and the bloom didn't start coming off the rose for the vast majority of people until, at the earliest, the Abu Ghraib scandal.

I'm not making excuses for her, any more so than I would for any of the people caught up in this "poverty draft."

"I won't go!"

We've had enough killing by the cowards, Bush/Cheney!

troop disobedience to tell the cons that this is an illegal war.

Army officials at Fort Lewis say she's been listed as a deserter since February but her family says she sufferers from post traumatic stress disorder and was sexually harassed multiple times by Sergeants in Iraq leaving her unfit to go to war again.

Since January Sarah Rich's oldest daughter, 21 year old Suzanne Swift has been in hiding. Swift's attorney says he has been in contact with the Army since January. We've been "working to legally get all the ducks in a row so she could turn herself if eventually that was going to happen," said Rich Monday. Swift had been staying on her mother's couch.

Rich says she just wants her daughter to be safe, monday she met with members of community alliance of lane county hoping they can help her daughter. Rich says, "she went to Iraq once and she was my hero she decided not to go back and she's even more my hero."

http://www2.kval.com/x56846.xml

PTSD and Sexual Harrassment. Nothing political, just personal I guess.

The republicans will call her a coward of course.

Your courage in the face of criminal war to not be coerced
in to being an accomplace to a war crime. If only the whole
army had the courage to put down their guns and not move a
finger, the plans of war criminals would be foiled.

Taken from the Lane County Jail after being arrested and booked.



PB

"And if two people, can you imagine two people? Walkin' in, singin' a bar of 'Alice's Restaurant' . . . in harmony? They'll think they're both faggots, and they won't take either of them. And can you imagine fifty people a day, I say fifty people a day walkin' in, singin' a bar of 'Alice's Restaurant' and walkin' out? They may think it's a movement. And that's what it is, the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement, and all you gotta do to join up is to sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar."

Much thanks!

PB

during her first tour. Get the fucking Bush twins and send them instead.

for her second tour of duty AFTER Jenna and Barbara Bush finish their first tour. :grr:

Hopefully, things will work out for you. I will be thinking about you! Good job for standing up to them and never mind what other people think. You are very brave and I salute you! :)

Ft. Lewis Soldier Detained After Refusal To Return To Iraq
June 12, 2006
http://www.komotv.com/stories/43886.htm

~snip~

"Pentagon statistics indicate that since the beginning of the war more than 7,900 members of the four military branches have deserted but that desertions have declined as the war progresses."


She needs to hear support for her actions, I would think.

Hero!!!

:patriot:

Why are the civilian police arresting her? Why is the army having the local police do their dirty work?

Why not the military police, since this is not a civil issue?

Use their own stupidity against them.

NT!

recommended

I like them, but if it came down to it and something like this happened, you can be recognized easily by those tattoos on your arms and neck, etc..... I give this girl credit for standing up to this war, and this is coming from the Mother of a child in Iraq... I so wished he wouldn't of gone...

END THE WAR OF LIES BASTARDS!

I applaud the actions of all the brave and patriotic dissenters who don't wish to contribute any more senseless carnage to this criminal and duplicative enterprise.

And I agree with others on this thread that we will be seeing more and more of this.

PEACE.

...a couple of weeks ago on AfterDowningStreet.org:

Sara Rich, my friend from Eugene, has a daughter, Suzanne, who was sent to Iraq. She had a very hard time coping with the events she saw and was asked to participate in, and experienced sexual harrassment from her superiors in the army. She lodged 3 sexual harrassment complaints - 2 in Iraq, and one at the base in Bellingham, Washington. After returning to Eugene a few months ago after her tour of duty, she was told she needed to return - the furlough was first for 6 months, then shortened to 3 months. A few days before the date she was told to report for duty, she told her Mom she just could not go back.


http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/11397


Steph

Fear for my daughter
By Sara Rich

It started out with being scared for her life when she signed up for
the military. She assured me that she was promised she would not go to
Iraq. I was not as trusting.

She was sent to Iraq right out of her basic training. She assured me
she would be ok as we cried while she was packing. One of her Sgt.
assured me. "Don't worry Ma'am, we'll take good care of your daughter."
I desperately hoped that I could trust him to watch over her. I later
found out he was one the first predators to try and have sex with her
and make her "his private"


http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/11791

and he became the President!!