An Air Force staff sergeant from Omaha is rapidly becoming a cause célèbre in the so-called birther movement because he's gone AWOL and repeatedly claimed that President Barack Obama isn't an American.
Staff Sgt. Daryn Moran, stationed at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, stopped reporting for work Thursday. Since then, he's appeared on fringe websites and radio programs affiliated with the birthers, saying Obama "must be removed" and calling for a citizen's arrest of the commander-in-chief.
"I regard Barack Obama as an enemy," Moran said on an Internet radio program. "And that's why I didn't go to work."
Moran was born and raised near Offutt Air Force Base, where his father, retired Master Sgt. Howard Moran, was stationed for much of his military career.
Howard Moran, who lives with his wife in Omaha, defended his son's words and actions in an interview with The World-Herald on Monday.
"I think he thinks he's right, and so I'm behind him," Howard Moran said. "I am concerned they are going to put him in jail, though."
Moran appears intent on joining a small number of American military service members who have refused service or deployment under Obama. Many have been expelled from the military and jailed.
The most widely known is Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, a doctor who refused deployment to Afghanistan because he said Obama wasn't born in the United States and therefore is barred by the U.S. Constitution from serving as president. Lakin was dismissed from the Army and sentenced to six months in military prison in December.
Moran's case appears more complicated — in interviews, he's made several references to being in the process of a discharge because of his opposition to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal that will allow openly gay men and women to serve in the military. He also refers to an incident in which he was removed from his normal duties at Ramstein Air Base in Germany after an argument about Islam with co-workers.
Howard Moran said Monday that his son has been waiting to be discharged for months but decided he couldn't serve under Obama any longer.
Staff Sgt. Moran appears to expect jail time.
"Now it's plain and simple," he tweeted Monday. "Arrest B. Obama or arrest me. I'm waiting in my house."
The conspiracy theory that the president was born on foreign soil — not in a Hawaiian hospital — on Aug. 4, 1961, flies in the face of a mountain of evidence.
Obama's birth certificate has been verified by a nonpartisan group that examined it in person in 2008 and declared that it met all U.S. State Department criteria for citizenship.
The director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, a Republican appointee, twice inspected the birth certificate and declared it real.
Hawaiian officials pointed to two Hawaii newspapers that carried an announcement of Barack Obama's birth as additional evidence.
"Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday," said a statement from Factcheck.org, the nonpartisan group allowed to inspect the birth certificate. "Those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat."
On April 27, Obama released his long-form birth certificate, a document that the leaders of the birther movement had been demanding for years.
The long-form certificate, posted on the White House website, lists the hospital where Obama was born and includes the signatures of his mother, state officials and the attending physician.
"I know that there's going to be a segment of people for which, no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest," Obama said after releasing the long-form certificate. "But I'm speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness."
The long-form certificate's release appeared to take the steam out of the conspiracy movement, though some birther leaders have continued the fight by claiming that it is a forgery.
Moran didn't get involved in the birther movement until this year, his father said Monday, after originally being angered by the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
When Moran toyed with the idea of going AWOL, his father, a Vietnam veteran, tried to talk him out of it, reminding him of the oath he'd taken when he enlisted in late 2001.
But Howard Moran now says he's come around to his son's way of thinking. He's done his own Internet research and now agrees that Barack Obama isn't legally president and therefore his son shouldn't have to serve him in the military.
"Quite frankly, my son is right," Howard Moran said.
He said his son has often drifted through life without a clear purpose. He attended an Indiana college but quit before graduation. He joined the U.S. Marines and was "a good Marine" according to his father, but left the service after several years. He moved back to Omaha and took various jobs but nothing that fulfilled him, his father said.
Daryn Moran rejoined the military — this time the Air Force — in late 2001 but has grown disenchanted with the armed forces.
The Air Force staff sergeant described the military as "unprepared" and "falling apart" in an Internet radio interview on Monday.
But now, maybe Daryn Moran has found his calling, his father said Monday. Maybe his calling is to educate others about Barack Obama's allegedly forged birth certificate and allegedly illegitimate presidency.
"A purpose in life is the greatest thing you can ever have," Howard Moran said. "Maybe this is his."
Contact the writer: 402-444-1064, matthew.hansen@owh.com
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