The State - News from April 12, 1985

A Vietnam War-era soldier from Half Moon Bay who was court-martialed for deserting his unit and recently jailed again after spending 16 years as a fugitive, has been released from the Ft. Riley, Kan., stockade after being granted clemency by Army Secretary John O. March Jr. The former soldier, Keith A. Mather, who deserted his Vietnam-bound unit in 1967 and was later arrested at an anti-Vietnam War protest, was sentenced to four years of hard labor at the Presidio in San Francisco. He escaped from the facility after leading 27 soldiers in a mutiny and fled to Canada, where he remained until 1980. Last December, he was arrested in San Francisco. After his release from the Ft. Riley stockade, Mather, 38, returned to San Francisco and expressed bitterness for having been jailed a second time. Nevertheless, he said that he still believes that he did the “honorable” thing by refusing to fight in Vietnam.