Left his post because the army could not treat his PTSD.
November 15, 2007
Army Arrests Sergeant Who Went AWOL
A soldier who left his post at Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., without leave more than a year ago to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder was arrested yesterday at a cafe eight miles from the base as he was preparing to surrender, his lawyer said.
The soldier, Brad Gaskins, an Army sergeant who had served two tours in Iraq, was speaking with a television reporter at the cafe when two officers from the fort entered with two local police officers, who took him away, his lawyer, Tod Ensign, said.
The officers returned Sergeant Gaskins to his unit, the Second Brigade Combat Team. Whether he will face military prosecution will be up to the unit’s commanders, said Benjamin Abel, a spokesman at Fort Drum.
Sergeant Gaskins, 25, was transferred to Fort Drum after he returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq in February 2006. Six months later, he went home to East Orange, N.J., on leave and did not return. Mr. Ensign, who is the director of Citizen Soldier, a veterans’ advocacy group in Manhattan, said the sergeant felt the Army was not giving him adequate treatment.
“They just don’t have the resources to handle it, but that’s not my fault,” Sergeant Gaskins said at a news conference in Syracuse, just hours before his arrest, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Abel said that soldiers who are absent without leave — or AWOL — for 30 days are classified as deserters and a federal warrant is issued for their arrest.
Mr. Ensign said he had been negotiating Sergeant Gaskins’s surrender with a military prosecutor over the phone when the police officers arrived. Mr. Abel said, however, that the Army does not negotiate the surrender of a soldier who is AWOL. “It’s the soldier’s responsibility to report to his place of duty,” Mr. Abel said.
Sergeant Gaskins faces several options, Mr. Abel said. He could be referred for medical treatment, discharged from the Army or court-martialed. Sergeant Gaskins enlisted in the Army in 1999 and took part in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo before being deployed to Iraq in 2003. He returned for a second tour in 2005, and part of his job was to find roadside improvised explosive devices.
Mr. Ensign said that the sergeant’s unit was ambushed many times and that he witnessed the aftermath of several suicide bombings, which compounded the emotional difficulties that had already started to flare up.
He has suffered from night terrors, flashbacks and insomnia, and he has had suicidal thoughts, Mr. Ensign said. Once, after his wife came home late and startled him awake, Sergeant Gaskins grabbed a knife and chased her around the house, unaware of his actions, he said at the news conference.
After the incident, the couple separated and his wife obtained a temporary order of protection against him, Mr. Ensign said. During his time at home, Sergeant Gaskins was allowed only supervised visits with his 3-year-old son and his 9-year-old stepdaughter.