FALLS CHURCH, VA - When Army Specialist Michael New goes before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals at 10 a.m. on May 28^th, at 5611 Columbia Pike, he'll do so knowing there are those in high places who think like he does.

One is Sen. Rod Grams (R.-Minn), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations, who says Congress, "should be very concerned," about the UN's real motives when it continues pushing to establish "a standing system" with 100,000 troops from 70 countries.

The US Information Agency confirmed a report by The Washington Times on April 23^rd, stating the United Nations was working with Clinton administration backing to create a global standing army that could operate like a U.S. Reserve.

"They keep saying there will be no U.N. standing army," says Sen. Grams, "but this is proof there's a lot of planning going on to make this reality. This is incrementalism at its worst. We are strongly opposed to it."

So is Specialist Michael New, who goes before his first military appellate court seeking to reverse his 1996 court martial for refusing to don the uniform of the United Nations. He stood in formation with his Army battalion based in Schweinfurt, Germany, refusing to put away his American ID and helmet under orders to wear a blue helmet and ID issued by the United Nations.

"I am an American soldier," New told his Finnish Commander, "not a mercenary for the UN." The Army took 20 minutes to court martial the volunteer-soldier for disobeying an order. Not during his recruitment, nor when being sworn in, not even while serving in Kuwait, was there ever any mention by military officials that Spc. New might one day have to serve in United Nations uniform. From the beginning his position has been the same: "The UN is just like a foreign government, but without a land mass. It has a ruler, a secretary-general, a governing body, a security council, a treasury, a banking system, courts, a legal system, an array of bureaucracies, a flag, a charter, and an oath of allegiance that supersedes all other oaths. It has no tax yet, but it's about to conceive a global tax to support its operations. The only thing the UN is missing is its own military. That's what they're trying to make me," said New. He's determined not to let it happen. "I fight only under command of the United States of America."

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Defense Counsel, Henry Hamilton, retired JAG officer, previews the case in Washington at the National Press Club at 0900, May 27.