Local US Marine Reservist Robert Zabala granted CO (Conscientious Objectors) status.

UC Santa Cruz alumni Robert Zabala of San Jose, CA made national news headlines all across the US in both mainstream and independent media recently. Zabala, joined the US Marine Corp and based on experiences he had at boot camp and basic training developed beliefs and opinions that led him to file for conscientious objector status. Through assistance from the GI Rights Counseling team, a project of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (http://www.rcnv.org , site remodel coming soon!) he learned more about the actual process and received guidance and referrals to legal assistance to actually file a CO application. He was denied initially by the military but was ordered discharged from the corp by federal US District Court Judge James Ware in a decision handed down Friday. Reposted below are links to several sources of information, both mainstream and indypendent. The Aaron Glantz interview on Kats Korner blog is particularly good and surprisingly the KGO story does a good job of explaining the legal decision and what it means. For background the SF Chronicle does a decent job of filling in the back story and a bit of his reasons.