March 15, 2004

U.S. Soldiers Go AWOL

GI TO TEST MORALITY OF WAR

Michael Martinez, Chicago Tribune, 3/15/04

NEW YORK -- In Iraq last April, freshly promoted Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia
led squads of Florida National Guard soldiers in the fight against
insurgents in the deadly Sunni triangle.

But Mejia became increasingly pained by his war experiences, and when he
went on leave in the autumn, he decided not to come back. The staff
sergeant--one of about 600 soldiers counted as AWOL by the Army during home
leaves from Iraq--eventually was labeled a deserter.

Now, after five months in hiding, Mejia plans to surrender Monday in Boston
on the eve of the war's first anniversary, and he aims to become the first
Iraq war veteran to publicly challenge the morality and conduct of the
conflict. At a time when polls indicate that Americans' support for the war
is slipping, Mejia intends to seek conscientious-objector status to avoid a
court-martial.

In an interview with the Tribune, Mejia, 28, of Miami, said he found the
war and many of his combat orders morally questionable and ultimately
unacceptable. He has been living in New York and other Eastern cities,
traveling by bus instead of by plane or car to escape the attention of the
police and military. He has avoided using his credit cards and cell phone.

Mejia accuses commanders of using GIs as "bait" to lure out Iraqi fighters
so that U.S. soldiers could win combat decorations. He also says operations
were conducted in ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. He has
accused his battalion and company commanders of incompetence and has
reiterated other guardsmen's complaints about being poorly equipped.

Those commanders, however, defended their conduct. His immediate commander
described Mejia as a poorly performing soldier who "lost his nerve" as
bloodshed intensified in one of Iraq's more violent cities, Ramadi.

Perhaps the turning point for Mejia was the day in Iraq when he was ordered
to shoot at Iraqis protesting and hurling grenades toward his position from
about 75 yards away, which he considered too far of a distance to be a real
threat. Mejia and his men opened fire on one, and he fell, his blood
pooling around him.

"It was the first time I had fired at a human being," Mejia recalled. "I
guess you could say it was my initiation at killing a human being. . . .
One thing I ask myself a lot, `Did I hit him?...'

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Posted by shereen at March 15, 2004 04:57 PM
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