FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) -- A soldier from Arkansas has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to desertion.
Spc. Cliff Cornell fled to Canada in 2005 to avoid deploying to Iraq. Besides the prison sentence Tuesday, he was reduced in rank to private and given a bad conduct discharge.
The 28-year-old from Mountain Home, Ark., returned to Georgia's Fort Stewart in February after the Canadian government denied him asylum as a war objector.
He had faced up to five years in prison on the desertion charge.
