9 years after leaving Army, veteran mistakenly declared AWOL is arrested, jailed

UPDATE

Army finalizes discharge for veteran mistakenly jailed as AWOL
By BILL MURPHY JR.
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 13, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Army will issue a discharge certificate to a former soldier who was arrested and held in Florida jails for 12 days last month because the military considered him absent without leave nine years after he was chaptered out.

Louie Castro, 28, who was to have been given an other-than-honorable discharge in December 2002 and who says he had thought his military service was long behind him, was arrested Jan. 2 as he re-entered the United States after a trip to France. Army officials had demanded that he fly to Fort Carson, Colo. — a base where he had never served, but where the 4th Infantry Division moved in 2009 — as a condition of being let out of jail.

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9 years after leaving Army, veteran mistakenly declared AWOL is arrested, jailed
By BILL MURPHY JR.
Stars and Stripes
Published: February 10, 2012

WASHINGTON — Louie Castro is a 28-year-old religion major at Florida State University who should have started the final semester of his senior year last month. Instead, he spent 12 days in jail after being arrested at Miami International Airport because of an administrative error the Army apparently made when he left the service more than nine years ago.

The Army considered him absent without leave.

Castro was told he must fly to Fort Carson, Colo. — a base where he never served, but where his old Fort Hood unit, the 4th Infantry Division, relocated in 2009 — to resume his old life as an Army private long enough for military personnel officers to fix his paperwork. In the meantime, he missed the start of classes and was forced to withdraw, costing him his financial aid. He will not graduate on schedule.
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