(CNN) — Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin is a poster soldier for the so-called birther movement, but for 17 years prior to his court-martial proceedings, the flight surgeon served around the globe, racking up a chest full of medals.
Military prosecutors allege that the Colorado native intentionally missed a plane in April after disobeying four lawful orders from superiors. Lakin has said he refused to deploy to Afghanistan until he sees proof that President Obama was born in the U.S.
In a YouTube explanation posted before he was charged, Lakin said he had no choice but the “distasteful one of inviting my own court-martial.”
“If [Obama] is ineligible, then indeed, all orders are illegal because all orders have the origin with the commander in chief,” he said.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice says the maximum punishment for both offenses — missing his plane and disobeying lawful orders — is a dishonorable discharge and up to two years in confinement. A guilty verdict could also result in forfeiture of his pay, which totals $7,959 a month, according to a charge sheet provided by a group sponsoring his defense.
Lakin is among 27 percent of Americans who doubt or deny that Obama is American-born, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll. They compose the birther movement, which demands that Obama present a birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him in 1961.
Obama has made public an unsigned “certification of live birth,” which birthers claim is not the same as a birth certificate. However, two Honolulu, Hawaii, newspapers have presented birth announcements for Obama, and the state’s Republican governor has confirmed that the president was born in the Aloha State.
In December, Col. Robin Swope, chief of the Army’s administrative law division, told Lakin in a letter that his Article 138 complaint, the avenue by which troops report perceived wrongs by their commanding officers, was “deficient.”
The complaint incorrectly targeted Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, Swope wrote. Not only was Casey not Lakin’s commanding officer, Swope wrote, but “the wrongs you complain of relate to matters of law and not the discretionary acts or omissions of a commanding officer.”
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Lakin wrote Obama in March, saying presidential contender Sen. John McCain willingly provided his own birth certificate and accusing the president of failing to do the same. Lakin alleges in the letter that Kenyan citizens claim Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya’s second-largest city.
He further wrote that the birth certification provided by Obama is merely a 2007 computer-generated testament that the original birth certificate is on file.
“An original birth certificate is the underlying document that presumably includes a hospital and attending physician’s or midwife’s name that should lay to rest the ‘natural born’ dispute,” Lakin wrote.
Until such a document is provided, the letter said, “I cannot in good conscience obey ANY military orders.”
In his YouTube statement, Lakin called the privacy invasion inherent in producing the birth certificate “minimal.”
Addressing Obama directly in the video, he said that providing such a document is the only means by which “I and all other servicemembers may then continue to serve our country at risk of injury or the ultimate sacrifice, knowing we do so for our country, the Constitution and a legitimate leader of the greatest free republic ever.”
On the campaign trail this year, politicians have used the issue of Obama’s birth when it resonates with their constituents. It has backfired regularly, as many of their opponents have used it against them.
One group that has not wavered in its insistence that Obama was born abroad is the American Patriot Foundation, which is collecting donations for Lakin’s legal defense.
The group has devoted significant space on its “Safeguard our Constitution” website to Lakin’s case. Under a banner proclaiming, “The Truth Matters,” the group says Lakin is being targeted unfairly for making a legitimate request.
Lakin, according to the foundation, was a model soldier before he began questioning Obama’s birthplace in October 2008.
He served in Afghanistan (under President George W. Bush), Korea, Bosnia, Germany, Honduras and El Salvador before taking up an occupational and environmental medicine residency in Maryland, according to a service record provided by the Army and a r
