Brickbat: The Fugitive
Louisiana Police nabbed Alan Gourgue for driving too slowly and having an insufficiently visible license plate and took him to jail. The next morning they told him he had a warrant out for being AWOL from the Marines. Gourgue tried to explain to the cops, the Marines and anyone else who might listen that he’d been honorably discharged five years earlier. But computer records showed he’d deserted in 2008. He was hauled in handcuffs to Camp Pendleton and put on work detail. A month later, the Marines admitted that he had indeed been honorably discharged and released him. In the meantime, he’d lost his job.
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If you don't do anything wrong...
oh, wait!
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Mistakes were made. The passive voice will be used in this case.
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When they tell you to keep your DD 214, they really mean it. Not that I have it on me in my car. Sounds like Marines owe him a month's pay at his rank of discharge.
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a month's pay, and maybe some help getting his goddamn job back.
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No. It sounds like the Marines owe him a month of pay at his rank, and whatever lost wages he's had since he lost his job because of this debacle.
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Yay government!
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He's got a good Civil Rights lawsuit, I'd imagine.
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"driving too slowly" link is broken.
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I wish they had done this to Wesley Clarke.
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This is why we can never cut the defense budget!
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Surprise, surprise. Any one can make a mistake, but it really takes the gov't, the cops, and a stupid computer to really frack things up!
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but hey, the ginormous assemblage of computer systems that will manage Obamacare will never make a mistake. a mistake that will probably cause someone's death.
Neva.
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The icing on the cake is that, as he was mistakenly arrested, the marines won't even pay him the salary and benefits he would have been entitled to if he *had* been a deserter they caught.
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Its also one of those wierd things about our legal system - he hadn't commited a crime, but if he had walked away from the Marines while waiting for them to figure out their mistake, that *would* have been a crime he could go to jail for.
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The Marine Corps is a Federal outfit.
Will Obama sue Louisiana for trying to enforce a Federal violation ala Arizona.?