A Collision of Faith and Duty : Marines: Orthodox Jew is discharged and fined for missing troop ship because he didn’t want to defend Arabs in Gulf.

SAN DIEGO —  A Jewish Marine who fled his Gulf-bound ship in Hawaii last December to avoid defending Arabs will be dismissed from the Marine Corps with the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge and a $3,000 fine, a military judge ruled Saturday.

Lt. Tony Homayoun Moradian, 26, the highest-ranking Marine to avoid service in Operation Desert Storm, was found guilty of missing a Dec. 10 troop movement when the rest of his light attack helicopter squadron sailed from Pearl Harbor to the Persian Gulf.

When asked if the decision, which kept Moradian out of the brig, was a victory, defense attorney Capt. David Ingold said: “It’s never a victory if you got separated. He wanted to shoot for retention. He wanted to stay.”

“I’m not happy,” Moradian said. “I’m happy I’m not going to jail, but I wanted to be a Marine.”

During his court-martial at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, the Iranian-born pilot said “being brought up as an Orthodox Jew, being aware of the animosity of the Arab-Israeli conflict and considering myself a Zionist, (I couldn’t see) going and defending an Arab nation that doesn’t believe in my right to exist. But I wanted to be a Marine.”

Defense witnesses described Moradian as an outstanding and dedicated Marine. His loyalty to the corps was only equalled, one witness testified, by his deeply rooted religious convictions.

“All his life, he wanted to be a pilot--that’s what he dreamed and lived for,” said his brother, Ibrahim Moradian of Los Angeles. “On one side, he was a Jew. On the other, he loved the Marine Corps.”

Those two sides never were in conflict, the defendant testified, until the Gulf buildup began. Even then, he said, he thought he could put his religious convictions aside to do his duty.

“I’m not a coward, nor am I afraid to take part in any battle,” said Moradian, who became a U.S. citizen in 1985. “I knew I had a duty to this country and I thought I had come at peace with myself. But once I got aboard the ship, I found those duties overwhelming.”

When he returned to California after catching a commercial jet from Honolulu, he immediately presented himself at Camp Pendleton. He knew he would be punished for what he called a desperate decision, but he hoped to be able to resume his military career.

“I always wanted to be one of you,” Moradian said, reading from a prepared statement. “I never wanted to give anyone any reason to treat me differently. I’m proud to be an American. . . . I salute all my fellow Marines.”

The government prosecutor, Maj. Carlos M. Baldwin, countered that Moradian had let down the Marine Corps, taking what it had to give and then refusing to keep his side of the bargain.

“His tour in the Marine Corps is only remarkable for its selfishness. All he wanted to do was fly--under his terms and conditions,” Baldwin said, adding that when Moradian enlisted and pledged to serve in combat “it didn’t read ‘except in the Middle East.’ ”

The prosecutor noted that many female Marines had served in the Gulf to defend a region where women do not enjoy equality.

Moradian, he said, should have done the same.

“It was not an issue of race or gender. It was not an Arab-Israeli conflict. It was countries united together to stop aggression,” the prosecutor said as he called for Moradian to be discharged.

Maj. George Trautman, the executive officer of Moradian’s squad, testified that the unit was weakened by Moradian’s unauthorized absence. All of the squad’s 43 helicopter pilots saw combat in Kuwait, he said.

“He tarnished the reputation of the unit and hurt morale. And what really hurts is he never approached anybody--his peers or up the chain of command,” Trautman said outside court.

The judge, Col. Edwin Welch, declined to impose prison time, he said, in part because Moradian had promptly turned himself in at Camp Pendleton.