[DIV class=storyheadline]
U.S. arrests B.C. man who fled Marines in 1968[/DIV][TABLE width="100%" border=0][TBODY][TR][TD colSpan=2] [/TD][/TR][TR][TD colSpan=2][FONT class=storybyline]Darah Hansen[/FONT][/TD][/TR][TR][TD colSpan=2][FONT class=storypub]Vancouver Sun[/FONT][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE][DIV class=storydate]
Saturday, March 11, 2006[/DIV]
[DIV class=storytext][!--begin story text--]An East Kootenay man who deserted the U.S. Marine Corps almost 40 years ago is in a California military jail this weekend facing a possible court martial after he was arrested Thursday by U.S. border guards in Idaho on an outstanding warrant dating to 1968.
Allen Abney, 56, of Kingsgate, a small community about 25 minutes south of Creston, was travelling in the U.S. on holiday with his wife at the time of his arrest, his daughter Jessica said in a telephone interview Friday.
Abney, a Canadian citizen, had passed through the border countless times since he deserted the U.S. Marines in 1968, in opposition to the war in Vietnam, Jessica said.
On Thursday, however, he was detained by U.S. border guards after his name showed up on a federal database during a routine records check. He was held overnight by civilian authorities in Idaho before being transferred Friday to U.S. Marine Corps custody and sent to Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he now faces penalties under U.S. military law.
Jessica said the family is in shock over the situation.
"It's been so long since my dad left the military. Why have they suddenly decided to do this now?" she said in a press release issued Friday by the Canadian War Resisters Support Campaign.
"My dad is not a young man, so of course I'm worried about what's going to happen to him."
Born in Louisville, Ky., Abney came to Canada with his family in 1959, when he was 10 years old, Jessica said. He maintained dual citizenship, however, and, in 1968, enlisted in the U.S. Marines. Jessica said her father fled to Canada a few months later, along with thousands of draft-age American men who were opposed to the Vietnam war.Jessica said Abney didn't return to live in the U.S. and crossed the border only on short trips.
In 1977 then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter signed a pardon for Vietnam draft dodgers and deserters, but the program required deserters to apply for the special discharge review program. Abney didn't apply.
On Friday, Lieut. Lawton King, a U.S. Marines spokesman at Camp Pendleton, said Abney's original arrest warrant was still active when he crossed the border.
"Thirty days after a service member deserts his unit, a federal warrant is issued and that warrant is outstanding from there on out," King said.
King said Abney will be returned to the same unit he deserted in 1968, where charges against him will be processed. "Ultimately, it's the unit commander who will determine the next course of action," he said.
King said details were not available Friday regarding Abney's former unit, including the identity of the current commander.
As for possible penalties, King said the commander may opt to convene a court martial, "then again, he may not."
"That decision rests in his hands," he said.
It's not the first time a U.S. military deserter has been arrested on decades-old charges.
In 2000, Richard Allen Shields, a truck driver from Castlegar, found himself behind bars in Washington state on an old warrant charging him with deserting the U.S. Army in 1972. Shields left at age 19 during training in Fairbanks, Alaska, following a one-year tour in Vietnam. The Eugene, Ore., native enlisted when he was 17 years old.
Like Abney, Shields didn't apply for a pardon through the special discharge review program.
Shields spent three weeks in jail -- first in a Washington county jail and then in a military barracks at Fort Sill, Okla. -- before winning a general discharge.
He urged other AWOL soldiers in Canada at the time to make sure they fill out all the necessary amnesty forms before attempting a border crossing.
Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resisters Support Campaign, which provides support for war resisters from the U.S., said Abney's arrest comes as the U.S. is cracks down on Iraq war deserters.
"They [the government] are using Mr. Abney as a sort of example of what could happen to them, and what they should be afraid of," said Zaslofsky. "Mr Abney does not deserve to be made an example of. Apparently, he is a fine person and a good citizen of Canada and we think that it is just vindictive, really."
[email protected][!--end story text--][/DIV][DIV class=storycredit align=center]© The Vancouver Sun 2006[/DIV]
