Watada discharged

First Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq because he believed it was an illegal war, has won his three-year legal battle with the Army. With little fanfare the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., accepted the resignation of the 1996 Kalani High School graduate, and he will be discharged the first week in October. Rather than seek a second court-martial against the artillery officer, the Army will grant Watada a discharge under "other than honorable conditions." Joseph J. Piek, Fort Lewis spokesman, said, "This is an administrative discharge, and the characterization of Lt. Watada's discharge is not releasable under the privacy act." Watada, 31, told the Star-Bulletin in a phone interview yesterday that he was "glad to finally bring this chapter to a close and to move on." "The actual outcome is different from the outcome that I envisioned in the first place, but I am grateful of the outcome."