U.S. War Heroes of the Iraq War

War Resisters from within the Military

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No Bravery, only Sadness in your face.

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PFC Charles Richard Davis Jr., 55th Military Police Company

All war is, is a never-ending cycle of violence, and that we have the ability as a nation to stop it.  What did these wars solve?   Who did it help when we invaded Iraq?  The thousands upon thousands of innocent dead people?  No.  It did not help anyone except the war profiters --  the defense contractors, weapons makers, politicians like Bush. 

 Chas Davis joined the military because he believed the recruiter.  He joined because he believed that if he became a MP, that MP's "did not deploy" (he learned this was an outright lie, many MP's are getting killed and maimed and killing & torturing others in Iraq).  He believed that he would earn college money.  He also believed that he would get a sign-up bonus.  He got no sign-up bonus. 

After basic training, Chas was shipped to Korea.  He was a good soldier.  There was a problem though.  He was a thoughtful, questioning person as well.  And so he began to educate himself.  He read everything from works by Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Howard Zinn.  He learned about the real motives behind U.S. policy.  He was also learning about what the military was doing by using experimental drugs (without informed consent) that caused debilitating effects on soldiers and their children, in the first Gulf War and the current one.  

Chas was also lucky enough to meet a special woman, Steph Rocque, a Canadian English teacher working in Korea.  Listening to her and her colleagues from around the world broadened his perspective. 

All this led to his decision to seek conscientious objector status.   After months of waiting, he was finally successful.  He plans to marry Steph Rocque. 

Read more of his story on his website here. 

Back to Full List of Resisters

Private Cliff Cornell, U.S. Army

Cliff Cornell is an Arkansas resident who was stationed in Georgia.  He had joined the Army with the promise from the military recruiter that he would receive $9,000 sign up bonus and job training.  He found out that “Ninety per cent of what the recruiters tell you is a pack of lies,” he said. “They know you’re from a poor family.”  Army recruitment techniques amount to entrapment, targeting young men from poor families, said Cornell. His unit was to be deployed to Iraq just after Christmas.  On January 8th Cliff Cornell went to Toronto, Canada as a refugee seeking asylum.

He said being able to meet Darrell Anderson has helped him immeasurably.

"He wanted to know if it was really as bad as he's heard," Anderson said. "It is. Others ask me that. They want to know if they made the right decision. I tell them how you take your crappy Humvees out in the morning and ride them around Baghdad, hoping not to get blown up."

Cornell said that going to war "just didn't feel right." In tears, he told a crowd of supporters that his unit is currently in Iraq.

"I feel most of them won't make it back," he said. "And those that will, will face depression, post-traumatic stress from shooting and killing innocent people. No one signs up to kill innocent people." Cornell left his family, who disapproved of his move to Canada to start a new life. But Cornell is adamant he made the right decision.

"I don't want to be killing innocent people. I think this is the right choice."

Cliff faces charges of desertion if he returns the United States.  His status in Canada is not certain.   In March, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada handed down a decision that declined refugee status to fellow resister Hinzman. 

Cliff Cornell's story can be seen here and here.

Back to Full List of Resisters 

Private First Class, Joshua Key

When Private First Class Joshua Key was shipped to Iraq, the American combat engineer believed he was doing the right thing.

"I left for Iraq with a purpose, thinking this was another Hitler deal," he said in an interview last weekend. "But there were no weapons of mass destruction. They had no military whatsoever. And I started to wonder."

He served eight months in Iraq before going AWOL. Key arrived in Toronto a little more than two weeks ago, with his wife and four young children.

Asked what led him to desert, he says: "The atrocities that were happening to the innocent people of Iraq. I didn't want to be part of it no more. I came home and I deserted."

U.S. soldiers like Key, who fled to Canada rather than serve in Iraq, are about to learn whether they've found refuge here.

The Immigration and Refugee Board is set to release a decision on whether former paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman can claim asylum in Canada. The ruling will affect dozens of American soldiers thought to have left for Canada. [This initial Ruling denied asylum, see this. ]

Key, 26, says he served in Iraq with the 43rd Combat Engineering Company, which was deployed in April 2003 to what would become some of the fiercest areas of conflict. Over eight months, Key's unit served in Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad.

Despite being trained as a welder, he says, he spent most of his time patrolling the streets and blowing the doors off homes before rushing in on raids. [These are usually homes of Iraqi families.  How would American's react to an occupation army doing that here?]

"I was in combat the entire time I was there," said Key, who is from suburban Oklahoma City.

Back at the 43rd's base in Fort Carson, Colo. for leave in December 2003 the Keys — Joshua and wife Brandi — decided he wasn't going back. They moved with their three children to Philadelphia, where they thought they could hide. Key also got in touch with Toronto lawyer Jeffrey House, who represents Hinzman and a handful of other deserters.

They kept a low profile there for a little more than a year. Two months ago, daughter Anna was born. And on March 8, the family got into a minivan and drove across the border at Niagara Falls. Key said the crossing was "nerve-wracking," as they told border officials they were visiting friends.

On a sunny afternoon last Saturday, the Key family resurfaced at an anti-war rally at Nathan Phillips Square. At one point, the whole family, including sons Zackary, 6; Adam, 5; and Phillip, 2; were brought on stage with several other AWOL soldiers, to the cheers of a crowd of about 1,500. Ex-soldier Darrell Anderson, 22, of Kentucky, lifted Zackary up as the crowd roared.

"The boys don't know what's going on," their mother said later. "All they know is they're in a new place with a lot of snow."

The Keys are being supported here by the War Resisters — a coalition of anti-war groups — and lawyer House.

A Wisconsin native who came to Canada in 1970 as a Vietnam War draft dodger, House says he is representing eight U.S. military deserters in Canada. He believes the total, counting those who aren't taking the legal route, may be 100.

The decision today on Hinzman's case will hinge on two arguments: To remain here as a refugee, Hinzman must show he has a "well-founded fear of persecution" because of his political beliefs, or that he risks cruel or unusual punishment if returned to the U.S.

As a military deserter, Hinzman believes he would be court-martialed and imprisoned for years if he returns to the U.S.

From the Toronto Star 

Update:

US war resister Joshua Key denied refugee status
A U.S. military deserter who allegedly saw an Iraqi soldier's severed head get kicked around by his comrades has been denied refugee status in Canada.
Joshua Key, 27, a father of four, is the third high-profile deserter to be refused asylum by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
"I am sure he will be terribly disappointed," Jeffrey House, Key's lawyer, said yesterday. "I thought we had an invincible case."
Key was shipped to Iraq in April 2003 and left 240 days later, disillusioned by the war and shaken by the actions of fellow soldiers.

From Common Ills Blog spot

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U.S. Army specialist Blake LeMoine

DARMSTADT, Germany (Reuters) - A U.S. military court convicted a 23-year-old Army mechanic of willfully disobeying orders for refusing to perform duties after a year-long tour of Iraq, an army spokesman said Monday.

Specialist Blake LeMoine, who returned to Germany in May 2004, said he wanted to quit the army due to religious beliefs.

The special military court sentenced Lemoine to seven months confinement, reduction in rank to private and gave him a bad conduct discharge, said Bruce Anderson, deputy public affairs spokesman for the 3rd Corps support command.

LeMoine, who had condemned the invasion of Iraq, was charged for repeatedly refusing to obey orders from commanders between Jan. 10 and Feb. 15 at a base in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt.

Like all U.S. soldiers currently in military service, LeMoine volunteered.  He joined the Army shortly after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.  He signed a contract for three years of active duty and has served one year in Iraq, where he was decorated with an Army Commendation for dangerous service as a gunner on trucks transporting mail there.  In Iraq, LeMoine became deeply disillusioned with the conduct of the U.S. military, which is not in accordance with his religious beliefs. 

 In June, 2004, LeMoine sought counselling with a military chaplain regarding whether he could apply for a discharge from the Army based on “Conscientious Objection” (CO).  According to LeMoine, the chaplain advised him that he would have virtually no success with a CO application because, even though the U.S. invasion of Iraq is against his religious beliefs, he is not a pacifist and would fight to defend the U.S.  The chaplain did not advise him that he would have the right to appeal the military’s decision in U.S. Federal Court.

 In the ensuing months in Darmstadt, LeMoine came to feel increasingly that he was being “hypocritical” by continuing to serve in the U.S. military under its present policies, which are against his beliefs. On January 10, 2005, LeMoine announced in Darmstadt that he was “resigning from the Army,” and on January 17, he began a hunger strike.  Also, since February 1, 2005, he has not only refused food from the Army, but also the wages and benefits which are due to him under his contract.

 On January 24, LeMoine filed an application with the military authorities for release from the Army as a conscientious objector after he learned, through a consultation with Military Counselling Network in Heidelberg, that he would have the right to appeal in Federal Court if his application is rejected by the U.S. military.  On February 17, LeMoine ended his first hunger strike after being told that the Army was considering releasing him.  However, on March 4, the Army charged him with disobeying a lawful order of an officer and set March 28 as the date for his Special Court Martial.  On March 4, LeMoine also began a second hunger strike, which he continues to this day.  He has lost a total of 28 pounds so far.  LeMoine says that many soldiers in his unit sympathize with him.  He states: 

“The enlistment contract is a slave contract and unfortunately I found this out far too late.  The thirteenth amendment guarantees that no citizen of the United States will have to endure slavery or enforced servitude… If I am a volunteer, why do they need to hold a gun in my face to make me work?”  

More information:  Stop the War Brigade, Germany

In March of 2005, LeMoine was convicted  of willfully disobeying orders for refusing to perform duties after a year-long tour of Iraq. Lemoine was sentenced to seven months in prison and a dishonorable discharge. He was then flown in the middle of the night to the regional military prison at Ft. Sill (in Lawton, Oklahoma). He was released from prison on September 14, 2005.

Back to Full List of Resisters

First Lt. Eric Riley, US Army Reserve

Eric Riley is being denied Conscientious Objector status despite the fact that it was recommend for approval by all that read his application.  He is currently stationed in Fort Bliss, and is from Portland, Oregon. 

For your dining and resisting pleasure, Tom Joad heartily recommends Alice's Restaurant.  You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.