He chose not to deploy rather than keep pursuing this while deployed because he didn’t think it was fair to have this stuff going on when he was supposed to be giving the wounded his full attention.
He pursued this for 2 years before he was ever given deployment orders so this was not about trying to keep from being deployed, nor was it about Obama’s politics, since his pursuit of this was while Obama was still a primary candidate.
The long and short of it is that Judge Lind ruled that the President is totally irrelevant to the lawfulness of combat operations. Serious doo-doo.
He should have put this on hold, done his duty and provided the troops with an experienced combat surgeon, and re-visited it when he returned. Better yet, he could have refused to return, disobeyed his orders and missed movement from there.
“I don’t want [my career] to end this way,” a tearful Lakin said to military jurors during the sentencing phase of his trial Wednesday afternoon. “I want to continue to serve ... It crushed me not to be on deployment. I can be on a plane tomorrow. I’d truly do that.”
Lakin, a 17-year Army physician, was sentenced to six months in prison and dismissal from the service on Thursday after being found guilty of disobeying orders and ignoring his deployment orders. In April, Lakin posted an online video declaring he would not return to Afghanistan with his unit until questions regarding Obama’s birth certificate were answered to his satisfaction. The move made him an instant hero to the birther movement, which helped him raise money for his legal defense.
Obama was born in Hawaii, but questions about his parents and overseas upbringing were raised during his 2008 presidential campaign. Hawaiian officials that year verified the existence of his birth certificate, addressing those issues for all but a fringe group that insists that the president is not legally qualified to serve in the White House.
As part of their sentencing evidence, prosecutors played Lakin’s video for the jury. In it, he states that a president who is not a natural-born citizen “would subvert law and truth” and demands that Obama “release your original, signed birth certificate — if you have one.”
more at Stars and Stripes