Dan Felushko
Dan Felushko is a 23 year old resister who is also seeking asylum in Canada. Felushko has duel citizenship in the U.S. and Canada, so will be able to stay in Canada without problem, but faces arrest if he ever returns to the United States.
From a 2006 edition of "60 Minutes":
60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters who left the
Army or Marine Corps rather than go to Iraq. Like a generation of
deserters before them, they fled to Canada.
What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to say for
themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that conscience, not
cowardice, made them American deserters. "I was a warrior. You know? I
always have been. I've always felt that way -- that if there are people
who can't defend themselves, it's my responsibility to do that," says
Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24.
It was Felushko's responsibility to ship out with the Marines to Kuwait
in Jan. 2003 to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Instead, he slipped
out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., and deployed himself to Canada.
"I didn't want, you know, 'Died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone,"
says Felushko. "If I'd gone, personally, because of the things that I
believed, it would have felt wrong. Because I saw it as wrong, if I died
there or killed somebody there, that would have been more wrong."
He told Pelley it wasn't fighting that bothered him. In fact, he says he
started basic training just weeks after al Qaeda attacked New York and
Washington –- and he was prepared to get even for Sept. 11 in
Afghanistan.
But Felushko says he didn't see a connection between the attack on
America and Saddam Hussein.
"(What) it basically comes down to, is it my right to choose between
what I think is right and what I think is wrong?" asks Felushko. "And
nobody should make me sign away my ability to choose between right and
wrong."
But Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S. Marine Corps.
"It's a devil's contract if you look at it that way," he says.
How does he feel about being in Toronto while other Marines are dying in
Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi?
"It makes me struggle with doubt, you know, about my decision," says
Felushko.
What does he say to the families of the American troops who have died in
Iraq?
"I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence dishonors their
dead. But they made a choice the same as I made a choice," says
Felushko. "My big problem is that, if they made that choice for anything
other than they believed in it, then that's wrong. Right? And the
government has to be held responsible for those deaths, because they
didn't give them an option." Felushko's father is Canadian, so he has
dual citizenship, and he can legally stay in Canada. But it's not that
easy for other American deserters.
Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back then, an estimated
55,000 Americans deserted to Canada or dodged the draft. And in those
days, Canada simply welcomed them.
But today's American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey, will need to
convince a Canadian immigration board that they are refugees.
Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for college. He graduated
from high school in San Angelo, Texas, just two months after the
president declared war in Iraq.
What did he think about the case for going to war? "I felt it was
necessary if they did have these weapons, and they could end up in our
cities and threaten our safety," says Hughey. "I was supportive. At
first, I didn't think to question it."
He says at first, he was willing to die "to make America safe." And
while Hughey was in basic training, he didn't get much news. But when he
left basic training, he started following the latest information from
Iraq.
"I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass destruction.
They were beginning to come out and say it's not likely that we will
find any -- and the claim that they made about ties to al Qaeda was
coming up short, to say the least," says Hughey. "It made me angry,
because I felt our lives were being thrown away as soldiers, basically."
When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the Internet and found
Vietnam era war resisters willing to show him the way north. In fact,
they were willing to drive him there, and a Canadian television news
camera went along.
Hughey had an invitation to stay with a Quaker couple that helped
Americans avoid the draft during Vietnam. From Fort Hood, Texas, to St.
Catherine's in Ontario, Canada, Hughey crossed the border, duty free.
Pelley read letters about Hughey's desertion that were sent to the
editor of a San Antonio newspaper.
"It makes me sad to know that there's that much hate in the country,"
says Hughey. "Before I joined the Army, I would have thought the same
way. Anyone who said no to a war, I would have thought them a traitor
and a coward. So, in that essence, I'm thankful for this experience,
because it has opened my eyes and it has taught me not to take things on
the surface."
However, he adds: "I have to say that my image of my country always
being the good guy, and always fighting for just causes, has been
shattered."
Hughey, and other deserters, will be represented before the Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board by Toronto lawyer Jeffry House.
His clients will have to prove that, if they are returned to the United
States, they wouldn't just be prosecuted for what they did -– they would
be also be persecuted. How will House make that claim?
"People should have a right to say, 'I'm not fighting in that war.
That's an illegal war. There's illegal stuff going on the ground. I'm
not going,'" says House. "And anyone who says soldiers should go to jail
if they don't fight in an illegal war is persecuting them."
And it's something House has experience with. In 1969, he graduated from
the University of Wisconsin, got drafted, and spent the rest of his life
in Canada.
House's legal strategy will focus on his contention that President Bush
is not complying with international law. But how will he defend
volunteers who signed a contract?
"The United States is supposed to comply with treaty obligations like
the U.N. charter, but they don't," says House. "When the president isn't
complying with the Geneva Accords or with the U.N. charter, are we
saying, 'Only the soldier who signed up when he was 17 -- that guy has
to strictly comply with contract? The president, he doesn't have to?' I
don't think so. I don't think that is fair." The first deserter to face
the Canadian refugee board is likely to be Spc. Jeremy Hinzman of Rapid
City, S.D. He joined the military in Jan. 2001, and was a paratrooper in
the 82nd Airborne.
He wanted a career in the military, but over time, he decided he
couldn't take a life. "I was walking to chow hall with my unit, and we
were yelling, 'Train to kill, kill we will,' over and over again,"
recalls Hinzman. "I kind of snuck a peek around me and saw all my
colleagues getting red in the face and hoarse yelling -- and at that
point a light went off in my head and I said, 'You know, I made the
wrong career decision.'"
But Hinzman said he didn't want to get out of the Army: "I had signed a
contract for four years. I was totally willing to fulfill it. Just not
in combat arms jobs."
While at Fort Bragg, Hinzman says he filled out the forms for
conscientious objector status, which would let him stay in the Army in a
non-combat job.
While he waited for a decision, he went to Afghanistan and worked in a
kitchen. But later, the Army told him he didn't qualify as a
conscientious objector, and he was ordered to fight in Iraq.
Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he's been living off
savings accumulated while he was in the military.
Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in basic training that,
if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it,"
says Hinzman. "And I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal
and immoral thing to do."
"But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says Pelley. "You
wouldn't have an Army."
"No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when militaries or countries
act in a collectively wrong way," says Hinzman. "I mean, the obvious
example was during World War II. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a really bad
guy. I mean, he ranks up there with the bad ones. But was he a threat to
the United States?
Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of Iraq? "Whether a
country lives under freedom or tyranny or whatever else, that's the
collective responsibility of the people of that country," says Hinzman.
Hinzman and the other American deserters have become celebrities of
sorts in the Canadian anti-war movement.
Only a few of the reported 5,500 deserters are in Canada, but House says
he's getting more calls from nervous soldiers all the time.
Wouldn't the right and honorable thing for deserters to do be to go back
to the United States, and turn themselves in to the Army?
"Why would that be honorable?" asks House. "(Deserters signed a
contract) to defend the Constitution of the United States, not take part
in offensive, pre-emptive wars. I don't think you should be punished for
doing the right thing. What benefit is there to being a martyr? I don't
see any."
Hinzman began his hearing before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee
board last Monday. But there's no telling when he'll find out if he'll
be allowed to stay in Canada -- or be sent back to the United States to
face the consequences.
The maximum penalty for deserting in wartime is death. But it's more
typical for a soldier to draw a sentence of five years or less for
deserting in wartime.
Copyright 2004 CBS. All rights reserved.
Rebecca Leung