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Army 'Birther' Lakin Released From Leavenworth

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- An Army doctor from Greeley who disobeyed deployment orders because he doubted President Obama's birth records is free from military confinement at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

A Fort Leavenworth spokesman says Terry Lakin was released Friday after serving five months of a six-month sentence for refusing to go to Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Lakin of Greeley, Colo., pleaded guilty in December to disobeying orders and was convicted of missing a flight that would have gotten him to his eventual deployment Lakin was tried at Fort Meade.

The doctor had aligned himself in YouTube videos with the so-called "birther" movement that questioned whether Obama is a natural-born citizen, as the Constitution requires for presidents.

The White House put the controversy largely to rest last month by releasing the president's detailed Hawaii birth certificate.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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