should they have locked this guy up?
 

BBC News - Anti-Afghan War Awol soldier Joe Glenton jailed

I'm thinking not.

I thought our armed forces were slightly better than this, maybe that was naive of me.

Thoughts?

I think that there's nothing wrong with jailing a deserter. It's just normally what's done.
But the way that he was treated by his commanding officers, especially because he had PTSD, is inexcusable.

I would of thought they'd of had an inquiry into his commanding officers and maybe let off, seeing as he had PTS and clearly wasn't well, on top of them asking him to go back 9 months before the recommended time.

I don't know much about the British army, but from what I could glean from the news article, it sounds like things run about parallel to the US army. Not sure of the British army's justice system, but the US uses UCMJ and it's stipulated that missing movement, desertion, AWOL, etc... is most definitely punishable by jail time.

Regardless of how the higher-ups in command treated the soldier, his actions (PTSD or not) will still be punished. If there's an investigation launched against the people who bullied him, that's all well and good but I don't see it affecting the soldier's sentence at all. It wouldn't affect a soldier's sentence in the US army, and it seems as though the British army have a similar operating procedure, so I'd expect there to be the same general outcome.

Whether the guy's PTSD was causation enough for his AWOL decision is debatable at best. First, was he previously diagnosed by a military therapist? If not, the military is going to use that against him. If so, he probably shouldn't have been deployable in the first place... but command decisions regarding that kind of thing usually involve job placement consideration to keep the soldier doing a duty that won't be detrimental to his/her recovery, which he should be actively involved in, with therapy, if he wants anyone to take his PTSD claim seriously.
Any developed military provides physical and mental health help and they make their soldiers aware of this constantly, so for a soldier to try and justify a crime with an illness without ever previously trying to get help is overwhelmingly a military win in this situation.

I feel sorry for the kid because he was treated poorly, but I do consider his punishment to be a fair fit to the crime. I know in th US, desertion during a war time is punishable by death by execution. They will even break out the noose for some cases.

I feel like his PTSD should have been dealt with more professionally, but there are better ways around deploying than deserting.

Yeah, deployments are not a choice. You can't decide to go or not based on how you feel about it, or no one would go. He voluntarily joined the military, that was his choice. He didn't have to do that. He shouldn't have thought he'd be signing a years long contract and serve it all in England.
With that said, the military does not always treat it's members well with its justice system. I'm going through some pretty serious **** right now for some b.s. I hope all turns out well for the guy.