Texas soldier who wouldn't serve U.N. mission loses Supreme Court case

[rainbow4321]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8OMFU200.html

Michael New, a Texas soldier who refused to serve on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia, lost an appeal of his bad-conduct discharge at the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.


He was supposed to be among a few hundred soldiers who were sent to Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic, to guard against the spread of unrest from other areas of ethnic fighting.

<snip>

He refused to wear the insignia and blue beret of the United Nations, saying he would not serve a foreign power. Part of his appeal involved whether U.S. soldiers should be required to wear U.N. apparel.

In his appeal, he questioned the practice of "turning American soldiers over to U.N. command and control — to foreign officers who neither report to nor take orders from the president."

[Rex]

1. Must be having a hard time finding work with a bad conduct discharge.

Sounds like he earned it. Loser.

[AnneD]

3. You missed the mark.....

this guy's point was he was sworn to fight and defend the US and was a US soldier, not a UN soldier. He was totally right. The guy had no problem being in the military and came from a line of REAL soldiers, he just had a problem with who was going to give him orders. Lot of folks here backed him on this. This is a slippery slope. Say our guys get called for an action in this country? Think about it?
He is a man of integrity that stood on principle. Folks like that don't have trouble finding jobs. SCOTUS is short sited again.

[MADem]

2. The justices, without commenting, declined Monday to hear his case.

He started this little adventure when CLINTON was President, and he didn't think that "obey the orders of the commander in chief" in his enlistment contract should apply to Bubba--imagine his cognitive dissonance today!

You don't question the Commander in Chief without consequences. If you're sincere in your belief, question away, but there are consequences if you don't win your argument on the merits. And his argument didn't have a prayer at the outset. But hey, he's a doofus, who can't see a larger 'command and control' picture...