AWOL Soldier Cites Army Inadequacies

HOUSTON —  An Army National Guard soldier said Tuesday that the inadequate training and equipment he received had led him to abandon his unit rather than face deployment to Iraq.

“I guess I’m AWOL right now,” Spc. Joseph Jacobo, 46, said in a telephone interview from the Los Angeles area.

Among his concerns, Jacobo said, was that he had been unable to find anyone at his Texas training base who could fix his M-4 assault rifle, the primary weapon he would carry in Iraq. The weapon jams, he said.

“They try to put old parts in new rifles,” he said. “It doesn’t work. We’re having all kinds of problems with our automatic weapons.”

Soldiers in Jacobo’s Modesto-based National Guard unit -- the 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry Regiment -- went public late last month with concerns that they would suffer needlessly high casualty rates in Iraq because of poor training. Military officials have denied the soldiers’ charges, voiced in an article in the Los Angeles Times.

Similar tensions have arisen in other units as the military, short on active-duty personnel, has given National Guard and Reserve soldiers increased combat responsibilities and lengthy overseas assignments.

The soldiers, who trained at the Army’s Ft. Bliss Training Complex, said there were equipment problems, including trucks without adequate armor and a shortage of night-vision goggles. They also said they had received very little “theater specific” training to prepare them for conditions in Iraq. For example, the soldiers said they had learned nothing about convoy protection or guarding against insurgents’ roadside bombs.

Airing their concerns publicly, Jacobo said, only seems to have made matters worse. He said soldiers who were suspected of having spoken to the newspaper were called “cowards” and “yellow-bellies” by their supervisors. Equipment woes were not addressed, commanders became more strict and morale reached new lows, he said.

“They didn’t change anything,” Jacobo said. “How are we supposed to have any pride?”

His unit is scheduled to deploy to Kuwait soon, possibly by the end of the week, and then onto Iraq. Jacobo said he has been absent without permission since Jan. 2, when the soldiers were supposed to return from a brief holiday leave.

Jacobo, who is married with two grown children, said he was staying with relatives. He has spent much of his adult life in the military, he said, including a six-year stint in the Marines that took him to Nicaragua. The message on his cellphone voicemail concludes, “Semper fi” -- the Marine motto that is shorthand for semper fidelis, or “always faithful.”

Jacobo said he decided to rejoin the National Guard last year because he believed in the Iraq mission.

“I just thought it was the right thing to do,” he said.

Jacobo faces a range of possible punishments. If he rejoins his unit soon, he probably would face “nonjudicial” punishment that could include extra duties and a reduction in rank, said Lt. Col. Coennie Woods, a National Guard spokeswoman in Washington. Jacobo also could be declared a deserter because his unit was preparing to go into combat when he disappeared. In that case, Woods said, he could be court-martialed, imprisoned for five years and dishonorably discharged.

Woods said she could not comment further on the situation. Military officials at Ft. Bliss did not return calls seeking comment.