Mission Statement

Urban communities in the United States and Native American reservations are plagued with misguided youth raised by over-burdened matriarchs with very few older males serving as positive role-models in the void of absentee fathers. These youth, mostly racial minorities, are either at risk of criminal lifestyles or already confined to youth detention facilities.

This socioeconomic crisis, often referred to as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline,” which festers at the root of the ‘mass incarceration’ crisis, is a clarion call to serious and determined rescue action that is long overdue. All Americans have shared the cost personally or vicariously to some significant extent.

This longstanding problem is so grave that nothing short of military veterans working full-time as a civilian domestic Peace Corps in delinquent-ridden communities as mentors has any hope of rescuing misguided youth and restoring the communities in which they live. Such a task force, under the umbrella of a nonprofit organization, has an excellent chance of success in persuading errant youth to pursue a better life path where no other viable full-time hands-on effort exists.

Such a uniformed task force spearheaded at first by formerly incarcerated veterans, to be joined later by homeless and/or jobless veterans, will be motivated by a sense of pride, duty and obligation.

With the help of local and national leaders, the Biden/Harris Administration and Almighty God, we will not fail to divert at-risk youth away from the U.S. criminal justice system.

************

[This Mission Statement is downloadable by clicking: HERE.]

U.S. Navy Veteran Auburn Calloway’s Pro Se Motion for Sentence Modification

Letter to Carlton Shier, U.S. Attorney

“The best way to help Auburn financially is via Western Union’s Quick Collect Program. Funds sent via Western Union can be done online. Go to www.westernunion.com and select “Quick Collect” and the funds will reach his prison account within hours. You also want to choose the PAY INMATE program. The following must then be provided: Inmate number with no spaces or dashes: 14601076 followed immediately by last name: Calloway. His full name entered on the Attention Line: Auburn Calloway Code City: FBOP, DC (which is the Federal Bureau of Prisons headquarters, not where he actually is imprisoned) This is a special service for prison inmates. Be sure you have his name and number correct or it may go to the wrong place.

February 1, 2023

Dear President Biden:

I am a 71-year-old African-American veteran of the U.S. Navy, honorably discharged in 1982. I held a top secret security clearance for nuclear weapons training. I am now the founder of Veteran Community Mentors and author of its Mission Statement (enclosed). I cannot accomplish the mission unless I receive a sentence commutation from you.

I hope that you are concerned that after serving my country from 1976 until 1982, I was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole possibility having no prior criminal history except for a few traffic violations. No one was killed in the incident for which I was incarcerated where I brought four hammers, cartons of nails, $700 in cash, an uncharged pneumatic speargun which could not have been fired, along with other personal paraphernalia on board a FedEx cargo flight that I had been scheduled to fly the previous and subsequent days. Although I incurred the most serious injuries in the fracas, I took full responsibility and apologized to my fellow crew members in a letter that was published in the local newspaper. I derived no possible benefit from my conduct, which makes what I did a self-victimizing “crime” with no criminal intent. The trial judge, a conservative Republican who removed my case from a rotating docket which would have sent it to the late District Court Judge Jerome Turner (a liberal), instructed the jury with a “general intent” instead of the legally required “specific intent” mens rea element. That was enough to get a guilty verdict instead of a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict, which would have allowed me to receive treatment and be released long ago. While on the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy repeatedly said "Judges are corrupt." His message resonates well with my criminal conviction and draconian sentence.

The most important question now remaining is whether (A) justice and (B) the public welfare is better served by your exercising your power of clemency in my particular case. The answer to (A) is provided by Pro Se Motion. The answer to (B) is given by my Mission Statement at VeteranCommunityMentors.org and by my good conduct record for almost three decades of imprisonment. Clemency is yours to grant or deny.

President Ford defended his pardon of Richard Nixon by advising the American people to consider how much Nixon had already suffered as a result of his crimes. Ford said “I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together.” (see “Someone Must Write, the End.” Newsweek, Sept. 16, 1974, 22). This is where you can direct any naysayers and clemency critics.

I hope you agree that it's time for reciprocity for your clemency, which you will get from me and other incarcerated veteran clemency recipients who, like me, dedicate themselves to pursuing a rescue effort in economically and socially beleaguered communities across the United States.

I go beyond my request that you grant my clemency with immediate release, and commutations for honorably discharged veterans, by asking that you also stand beside us, shoulder to shoulder, in places like Chicago, when we make our presence known. With you standing there with us, no one will doubt our legitimacy nor oppose our mission!

What matters most is that there are good people who have served our country honorably and sacrificially in every branch of the U.S. military, but have also suffered misfortunes under the criminal justice system. From the highest general to the lowest private, we have all served and suffered in one way or another.

I believe that incarcerated U.S. veterans deserve clemency despite having no assistance from a “Clemency Project” like that which has helped nonviolent drug offenders.

I will close by reminding you that we all love you and your family out here in common-class America. I hope you will reciprocate our love for you with love and mercy toward incarcerated veterans and our families.

Thank you in anticipation for your personal consideration of this clemency request.

Respectfully,

  [Photos may be viewed full-size by clicking on them.]

To contact us, e-mail us at: VeteranCommunityMentors@Yahoo.com