Mobile Register April 11, 2005
Brothers are punished for deserting Marines
By Brendan Kirby
By the time Mobile native John Hoffman joined the Marines last summer, his older brother, Joshua Hoffman, already had been absent without leave from his Marine post for about three months.
Within weeks, John Hoffman was gone, too.
Military authorities say unauthorized absence is unusual; two brothers going AWOL from the same branch is rarer, still.
"I have never heard of that, but that's not to say it has never happened before," said Sgt. G.S. Thomas, a spokesman for Camp Lejeune, N.C., where Josh Hoffman served as a Marine private.
In recent months, the two brothers have been arrested and convicted of criminal wrongdoing in military court. They have also found themselves estranged from some family members, even as they complained about what they regard as unfair treatment by the Marine Corps that they had pledged to serve.
Michelle Hoffman, the aunt who turned Josh Hoffman in to the authorities in February, minces no words when talking about her 20-year-old nephew.
"I did this because Josh was wrong. He's a disgrace to the country and my family," said Hoffman, the wife of a career Army soldier. "Somebody who went AWOL is off the street. This is about honor."
Josh Hoffman's girlfriend, Mobile resident Candice Loyd, said the story is much more complicated. The military, she said, refused to give her boyfriend leave to witness the birth of his first child.
"They actually provoked Josh to leave the military," she said. "They're such family people, but why wouldn't they let him see his son?"
The Marines charged Josh Hoffman and John Hoffman, 18, with unauthorized absence and court-martialed both. The younger Hoffman already has served his sentence and lives in the Orlando area. His older brother was scheduled to finish his term Sunday.
Second Lt. Rob Dolan, a Marine Corps spokesman in Quantico, Va., said desertion charges -- generally filed when a Marine has been absent longer than 30 days -- are rare. He cited 31 convictions from fiscal years 2000 through 2004. At the end of fiscal year 2004, the Marines had 1,297 deserters, but Dolan said that figure includes every previous year. If a Marine is listed as a deserter, he said, his name is not removed unless he returns or is captured.
In 2004, the Marine Corps had 177,779 active-duty Marines, Dolan said.
Less serious charges of unauthorized absence are more common, but the Marines could not provide a figure last week. Dolan said a Marine who is five minutes late for a drill can be charged with unauthorized absence. Individual units usually mete out nonjudicial punishments for such infractions.
Military experts said the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained all branches of the military. John Pike, director of the Alexandria, Va.-based think tank GlobalSecurity.org, said the armed services -- particularly the Army -- attract volunteers looking for education and job skills.
All of a sudden, he added, these types of enlistees found themselves in a war.
"That's not what they signed up for," he said. "I think it's a little less of a problem for the Marines because they have a different recruiting strategy. ... But you would have to think that some people would think, 'I just can't do this.'"
Lifelong dream
Mobile police on Feb. 7 descended on a residence in the 2800 block of Cottage Glenn Drive to arrest a man they thought was John Hoffman on charges of unauthorized absence from the Marine Corps.
Police said they later discovered that they had nabbed John Anthony Hoffman's older brother, Joshua Emmanuel Hoffman. John Hoffman already was in the brig after having stolen a truck and fled the Marine Corps' boot camp on Parris Island, S.C.
Maj. Ken White, a Marine spokesman at Parris Island, said John Hoffman stole a truck on July 20, left the base and was taken into custody the following morning at a bus stop. He said the AWOL charge was dropped, but Hoffman was found guilty of larceny at a court-martial and ordered jailed at a military prison for 90 days. He also received a bad-conduct discharge, a less-than-honorable dismissal that is not as severe as a dishonorable discharge.
John Hoffman contended in a recent interview that he left the base a couple of days after his drill instructor punched him in the face. Hoffman said the assault was a response to his refusal to follow an order; the drill instructor kept knocking a cleaning implement on the ground and commanding Hoffman to pick it up. After several times, Hoffman said, he simply refused.
The wallop was hard enough to cause bleeding, Hoffman said. But he added that his superiors would not allow him to seek medical treatment, prohibited him from filing a written complaint to higher-ups and refused to take action against the drill instructor.
"Nobody would listen to me when I tried to narc on him," he said. "I'm not going to stay here and be abused by someone I don't even know."
Although tough treatment of recruits is the stuff of military lore, the Pentagon in recent years has taken steps to crack down on abuse and hazing. Just last month, for instance, the military brought criminal charges against the commander of a company of Army recruits at Fort Knox, Ky., and four drill instructors accused of mistreating soldiers.
In John Hoffman's case, White said, nothing in the former Marine's file indicates an assault by the drill instructor.
"Had there been any substantiated claims, it would have been handled," he said.
The Hoffmans were born in Mobile and moved to the Orlando, Fla., area when they were young. They returned as teenagers, though, to live with their maternal grandmother.
John Hoffman said he and his brother both attended B.C. Rain High School, but Josh Hoffman finished his studies as a home-schooled student through Stanford Christian Academy on Moffett Road, according to school administrator Kenneth Stanford.
John Hoffman said he dropped out of school but got his GED, then joined the Marines in July. It was the fulfillment of a desire dating back to middle school, when Marine recruiters visited his school, he said. He recalled their sharp uniforms and forceful demeanors.
"They just had that arrogance. But it was a confident arrogance. And I wanted that," he said. "I've been wanting to join the Marines since I was in sixth grade. That was my life's dream. ... I got screwed out of that dream by one guy."
When Hoffman signed up for the Marines, his older brother already had deserted his unit at Camp Lejeune. John Hoffman said his brother's experience didn't affect his decision and his recruiter assured him it would not be a problem. He said, however, that he had to endure acrimonious questioning from superiors and military investigators who were trying to locate his brother.
Encouraged to join
Loyd said one of her boyfriend's uncles encouraged Josh Hoffman to join the Marines. Coming from a military family, Hoffman relished the idea, she said. He signed up on Oct. 27, 2001, a little more than a month after the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
"They've been talking about the military since they were young," she said. "I know I was crying my eyes out. 'Please don't go. Please don't go.' I was scared for him."
Loyd said Josh Hoffman's unit went to Iraq. He never made it, though.
The military gave Hoffman permission to attend his grandmother's funeral, Loyd said. But when they denied a similar request to attend the birth of his son, Joshua Kayde Hoffman, he left in April 2004.
"He just couldn't go back, because he didn't want to leave his baby," Loyd said.
Loyd said her boyfriend spent the next 10 months living with relatives in the Mobile area. For about two months, after the couple had temporarily broken up, he lived with a friend in Daphne.
Family friction
If Josh Hoffman received sympathy from some relatives, though, he drew scorn from Michelle Hoffman. The aunt said plenty of military personnel miss milestones like births and anniversaries.
"That's normal. That's part of military life," she said. "He apparently thought he should be able to" do differently.
Hoffman said she knows all about the sacrifice associated with a military life. She said her husband, an Army medic and sergeant first class, put in two tours of duty in South Korea.
"We take this very, very serious," she said.
John Hoffman, meanwhile, lasted about a month. After the run-in with the drill instructor, he said, he told the Marine on night "fire watch," that he needed to use the rest room.
"Instead of going to the head, I just walked the other way," he said.
Hoffman said he took a privately owned truck -- the first unlocked vehicle he came to -- to get off the base. Then, he said, he left the truck at a gas station and hitchhiked a ride to the bus station.
It is there that military officers located him. White, the Marine spokesman, said officials began searching as soon as they found Hoffman missing during a bed check.
Hoffman was placed in a recruit separation platoon, a unit made up of recruits unable to complete basic training for one reason or another. He spent more than four months there, then was court-martialed on Nov. 30 shortly after turning 18, White said.
The military sent Hoffman to a brig in Charleston, S.C., for another three months before he was given a bad-conduct discharge in February.
Hoffman said the judge offered to let him return to service but that he refused when authorities would not guarantee that he could serve in another unit.
Michelle Hoffman said tensions flared at a family reunion in Mobile over the summer when both brothers showed up. John Hoffman recently had joined the Marine Corps; Josh Hoffman had abandoned it.
She said her husband confronted the brothers, telling John he was welcome to stay but making it clear Joshua was not.
"My husband was thoroughly disgusted, and I was disgusted," she said.
Michelle Hoffman said that when she found out earlier this year where Josh Hoffman was staying, she picked up the phone and called the Pentagon. Military authorities relayed the information to the Mobile Police Department.
John Hoffman said he no longer is on speaking terms with his father's side of the family but does not consider it a big loss because he had never been that close to those relatives. He said his father adopted him and his brother after marrying their mother.
Court-martial
First Lt. Clark D. Carpenter said Josh Hoffman was court-martialed on March 9 and received a five-month sentence in the Camp Lejeune brig. Loyd said that because her boyfriend got credit for time he spent before his case was resolved, he would get out Sunday -- just in time for his son's first birthday on Tuesday. Like his brother, he will have a bad-conduct discharge.
Loyd said Hoffman feels remorse.
"He regrets it a lot. He really wishes he could take it all back," she said.
She said her father has lined up a job for him as a welder. He hopes to go to college, she said.
"He wants to be a lawyer. He's really, really smart," she said.
John Hoffman said he has landed on his feet, too. After his release from military prison, he said, he returned to the Orlando area and got a job selling fire sprinkler systems. He said he, also, would like to go to college.
John Hoffman said he bears no hostility toward the Marines -- except for the unit in which he served. In fact, he added, he still keeps in touch with Marines from other units.
Loyd said Josh Hoffman also enjoyed aspects of the Marines but chaffed at what he regarded as overly rigid, sometimes nonsensical rules. She said he accumulated a number of "write-ups" from superiors.
"The military just wasn't a good thing for him," she said.
(Staff Reporter George Werneth contributed to this report.)
© Copyright 2005, Mobile Register
