May 26, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org NEW YORK --
Under pressure from a New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, the U.S. Army has
granted Conscientious Objector (C.O.) status and honorable discharge to Sergeant
Corey D. Martin, whom the Army previously had tried to deploy while his C.O.
application was still pending, the NYCLU announced today.
"We're
thrilled to have thwarted the army's effort to subvert Corey Martin's
application and deploy him to a combat zone," said NYCLU Executive Director
Donna Lieberman. "The Army has finally granted him the fair and constitutional
treatment he deserves."
Martin was stationed at Fort Drum, New
York as a Sergeant . He applied for discharge as a Conscientious Objector in
December 2005 after realizing that he was ethically opposed to war. The Army
granted first-level approval to Martin's application for C.O. status, but then,
while two more levels of approval were still pending, it informed Sergeant
Martin that he would be deployed to Afghanistan on March 14, 2006.
In response, the NYCLU filed a federal lawsuit on Martin's behalf
and obtained an injunction to prevent the Army from deploying Martin to
Afghanistan while the application was pending.
Last week Martin
was finally awarded his official C.O. status and has now been honorably
discharged from the army. Next week the NYCLU will ask a federal judge in
Syracuse to dismiss the lawsuit.
Martin joined the Army in 2001,
received excellent performance evaluations as a soldier, and was promoted to
Sergeant. But beginning in the winter of 2002 he began to have personal doubts
about war, and he undertook a personal study of texts on war and peace, the
NYCLU said. By the fall of 2005, Sergeant Martin realized that he opposed all
war morally and ethically and that he could no longer participate as a soldier
in the U.S. Army.
The Army Investigating Officer who reviewed
Martin's C.O. application in the first round of the three-step process
recommended that the application be approved. He determined that Sergeant Martin
"is sincere in his beliefs of conscientious objection ... with the underlying
belief as his opposition to all wars and the unintentional consequence which war
produces, which is casualties and suffering it produces to innocent civilians."
