Why I fled George Bush's war

What happened to make a patriotic, gung-ho soldier desert the U.S. army, and turn against the war in Iraq. EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

JOSHUA KEY | Feb 7, 2007 | 11:40 am EST

Joshua Key, 28, was a poor, uneducated Oklahoma country boy who saw the U.S. army and its promised benefits -- from free health care to career training -- as the ticket to a better life. In 2002, not yet 24 but already married and the father of two , Key enlisted. He says his recruiting officer promised he'd never be deployed abroad, but a year later he was in Iraq. Only 24 hours after arriving, as Key recounts in The Deserter's Tale (Anansi), he experienced his first doubts about what he and his fellow soldiers were doing there:

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I was scared out of my wits that first day in Ramadi. Our own air force had just finished bombing these people, but as soon as we got out of our vehicles we began patrolling their streets, on foot. With nearly 100 lb. of weaponry, equipment and clothing on my back, I was about as mobile as a cow. It was just my platoon, 20 guys, walking single file through streets full of Iraqis. I could not stop thinking that anywhere, at any time, some half-starved sniper on a roof could have taken me out in no time flat. Iraqi kids surrounded me in swarms, hands out, asking for water and food. I kept hearing the last words [my wife] Brandi said to me before I flew out: "Don't you let those terrorists near you, Josh. Even if they are kids. Get them before they get you."

I was awakened at 3 a.m. that first night and told to get my ass up quickly because in one hour we were going to raid a house full of terrorists. Capt. Conde and some sergeants showed me and my squad mates a satellite photo of a house and a drawing of the layout of the inside. Our assignment was to blow off the door, burst into the house, raid it fast and raid it good -- looking for contraband, caches of weapons, signs of terrorists or terrorist activity, then rounding up the men and getting out damn fast. The longer we stayed in any one location, the longer somebody would have to put us in the sights of a rocket-propelled grenade or lob mortars at us.

I had no idea what to expect. Would I charge through the door, only to be blown to bits by a grenade? Would somebody with an AK-47 knock my Oklahoman ass right back out that door? Would some six-year-old terrorist with two days of gun training be waiting to put me in his crosshairs? The minutes ticked on, and I wanted the hour to speed forward so we could get on with it. One or two guys did push-ups to pump themselves up. I borrowed Mason's portable CD player and bombed out my eardrums to the beat of Ozzy Osbourne. It got me going. High and ready for action. I checked my watch, wished it would accelerate, and stuck some dip -- Copenhagen, bourbon flavor -- behind my lip. You can't manage a cigarette when you've got an M-249 automatic weapon on your arm. So dip was best. Makes your mouth black as sin, and rots the roots right out of your gums, but dip was my nicotine hit of choice going into that raid.

I committed our instructions to memory. I knew the angles of the house, what door I would help blow down, how many floors were in the house, and who would do what when we busted inside. I would be third in the door, which means I was the second most likely to get shot if anybody had a mind to take us down, and I'd head to the left. Always, for every raid, I would be third in, heading left. I gripped my M-249. Yes, it could belt out 2,000 rounds a minute but only in theory. You couldn't really hold your finger down that long. When you were blazing away like that, the bullets turned the barrel as hot as Hades. And if you held your finger down too long, it would warp the barrel.

It took thirty seconds for Jones and me to put the charge of C-4 plastic explosive on the door. Then we dashed around to the side of the house so we wouldn't blow ourselves up. You'd be fried meat if you were anywhere near the explosion. I set off the blast, and then the six of us charged in. Jones went first -- that skinny, red-haired Ohio boy was always hot to trot. With Jones leading the way we burst into the house, armed to the hilt. Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, machine guns, combat boots, the whole nine yards.

I'd never been inside an Iraqi's house before. We charged through a kitchen. I had been told by squad leader Padilla to check everything, so I even opened the fridge. Perhaps, I thought, I would find guns or grenades hidden inside. No such luck. In the fridge, all I saw was a bit of food. In the freezer I found big slabs of meat, uncovered. No wrapping. No plastic. Frozen, just like that. We ran into a living room with long couches, one along each wall. In this room with the couches we found two children, a teenager, and a woman. We also found two young men in the house. One looked like a teenager and the other was perhaps in his early 20s -- brothers.

We hollered and cussed. I spat dip on the floor and screamed along with the other soldiers at the top of my lungs. I knew they didn't understand, but I hollered anyway.

"Get down," I shouted. "Get the f--k down. Shut the f--k up."

They didn't know what "get down" meant, so we knocked the two brothers to the floor, face down. We put our knees on their backs, pulled their hands behind them, and faster than you can bat an eye we zipcuffed them. Zipcuffs are plastic handcuffs that lock on tight. They must have bit something fierce into those young men's skin. There was no key, nothing -- the only way to get them off was to slice them with cutters.

We pushed the brothers outside, where 12 other soldiers from our platoon were waiting. The Iraqi brothers were taken away to an American detention facility for interrogation. I don't know what it was called, and I don't know where it was. All I know is that we sent away every man -- pretty well every male over five feet tall -- that we found in our house raids, and I never saw one of them return to the neighbourhoods we patrolled regularly.

Inside, we kept on ransacking the house. The more obvious it became that we would find no weapons or contraband, the more we kicked the stuffing out of the house. We knocked over dressers, sliced into mattresses with knives, kicked our way through doors, raiding the three bedrooms on the second floor, then raced up to the third floor. We turned over everything we could and broke furniture at random, searching for contraband, weapons, proof of terrorist activity, or signs of weapons of mass destruction. We found nothing but a CD. Soldiers initially said it showed proof of terrorist activity, but it turned out to have nothing on it but a bunch of speeches by Saddam Hussein.

Once we had everybody outside the house and had done our initial job of ransacking, another squad took over inside. They kept raising hell in there, breaking and turning over more furniture, looking for weapons that we might have missed. Outside, under a carport, I was assigned to watch the women and children. We weren't arresting them, but we weren't allowing them to go anywhere either. The family members couldn't go back inside, and they couldn't wander off into the neighbourhood. They had to stay right there while we tore the hell out of their house.

A girl in the family -- a teenager -- started staring at me. I tried to ignore her. Then she began speaking to me. Inside, when we had been screaming at her and the others, I'd assumed that nobody understood a word of English. But this young girl spoke to me in English, and her eyes bored holes right through me. She was skin and bones, not even 100 lb., not yet a full-grown woman, but something about her seemed powerful and disturbing. I feared that girl, and I wanted to get away from her as fast as I could, but it was my job to stay right there and make sure she didn't move. I had my weapon ready. She was wearing a blue nightgown and had a white scarf covering her hair. She had no veil, so I could see her face perfectly. Her eyes were coal black and full of hatred.

In English, she asked me, "Where are you taking my brothers?"

"I don't know, Miss," I said.

"Why are you taking them away?"

"I'm afraid I can't say."

"When are you bringing them back?"

"Couldn't tell you that either."

"Why are you doing this to us?"

I couldn't answer that.

I hoped she would not raise a fuss. I didn't want her to start screaming, which could attract the attention of my squad mates. One or two, I feared, would be more than happy to use a rifle butt to knock out her teeth.

I hadn't been in Iraq more than 24 hours and already I was having strange feelings. First, I was vulnerable, and I didn't like it. Even with all these soldiers and all this equipment, I knew that anywhere, at any time, any Iraqi with a gun, a wall to hide behind, and one decent eye could pick me off faster than a hawk nabs a mouse. Second, with hardly one foot into the war, I was also uneasy about what we were doing there. Something was amiss. We hadn't found anything in this girl's house, but we had busted it up pretty well in 30 minutes and had taken away her brothers. Inside, another squad was still ransacking the house. I didn't enjoy being stuck guarding this girl under the carport, in the cool April air before dawn in Ramadi. Her questions haunted me, and I didn't like not being able to answer them -- even to myself.

Busting into and ransacking homes remained one of my most common duties in Iraq. Before my time was up, I took part in about 200 raids. We never found weapons or indications of terrorism. I never found a thing that seemed to justify the terror we inflicted every time we blasted through the door of a civilian home, broke everything in sight, punched and zipcuffed the men, and sent them away. One raid was far worse.

It was a handsome two-storey house and quite isolated. As usual, I put the charge of C-4 explosives on the door and we blew it in. As we rushed into the house, women were staggering out of their rooms. Three teenage girls screamed when they saw us. Some of my squad mates grabbed them and held them at gunpoint, and the rest of us ran through the house. We found no men at all, just six more women in their 20s and 30s. The guys in my squad couldn't find a thing, not even any guns -- and it seemed that the more incapable they were of locating contraband, the more destructive they became. They smashed dressers, ripped mattresses, broke cabinets, and threw shelves to the floor.

Outside I found Pte. 1st Class Hayes with a woman under an empty carport. He pointed his M-16 at her head but she would not stop screaming.

"What are you doing this for?" she said.

Hayes told her to shut up.

"We have done nothing to you," she went on.

Hayes was starting to lose it. I told her that we were there on orders and that we couldn't speak to her, but on and on and on she bawled at Hayes and me.

"You Americans are disgusting! Who do you think you are, to do this to us?"

Hayes slammed her in the face with the stock of his M-16. She fell face down into the dirt, bleeding and silent. The woman lay still on the ground. I pushed Hayes away.

"What are you doing, man?" I said to him. "You have a wife and two kids! Don't be hitting her like that."

He looked at me with eyes full of hatred, as if he was ready to kill me for saying those words, but he did not touch the woman again. I found this incident with Hayes particularly disturbing because during other times I had seen him in action in Iraq, he had showed himself to be one of the most level-headed and calm soldiers in my company. I had the sense that if he could lose it and hit a woman the way he had, any of us could lose it too.

Then something happened that haunts my dreams to this day. All the women were led back inside the house and our entire platoon was ordered to stand guard outside it. Four U.S. military men entered the house with the women. They closed the doors. We couldn't see anything through the windows. I don't know who the military men were, or what unit they were from, but I can only conclude that they outranked us and were at least at the level of first lieutenant or above. That's because our own second lieutenant Joyce was there, and his presence did not deter them.

Normally, when we conducted a raid, we were in and out in 30 minutes or less. You never wanted to stay in one place for too long for fear of exposing yourself to mortar attacks. But our platoon was made to stand guard outside that house for about an hour. The women started shouting and screaming. The men stayed in there with them, behind closed doors. It went on and on and on.

Finally, the men came out and told us to get the hell out of there.

It struck me then that we, the American soldiers, were the terrorists. We were terrorizing Iraqis. Intimidating them. Beating them. Destroying their homes. Probably raping them. The ones we didn't kill had all the reasons in the world to become terrorists themselves. Given what we were doing to them, who could blame them for wanting to kill us, and all Americans? A sick realization lodged like a cancer in my gut. It grew and festered, and troubled me more with every passing day. We, the Americans, had become the terrorists in Iraq.

In December 2003, Key went home on a two-week leave. He never returned to Iraq. Instead, Key went into hiding. The following March, he and his family crossed the Canadian border at Niagara Falls.

Published by House of Anansi. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

This time around the Canadians are shipping deserters back.

Hope he likes Club Fed and a felony record.

That's a lot of insight from a poor, uneducated Oklahoma country boy!

m-m-m-m Steve... do I pick up the scent of cynicism?

And yeah, Marine, you're right. We haven't agreed on much the last few weeks, but once you sign that dotted line, your life is not yours any more. Deserters don't desert their unit, their company, or their command. They desert their brothers in arms, their friends, and that it unforgivable. Even a lowly airman knows that.

Well a couple of things don't make any sense in this fellows story. I don't think they'd put a medic on guard duty so I really can't see him refusing to load a gun he's not suspose to be carrying.

I honestly believe these fellows don't realize when they run away like this one did they are screwing the Soldiers who stayed and did their duty. Might make it sink in if they exercised the maximum punishment and shot one of them

WUERZBURG, Germany, March 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. army medic who fled his base and refused to return to Iraq with his unit was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months in prison for desertion.

Mexican-born combat medic Agustin Aguayo, who describes himself as a conscientious objector, is one of the first U.S. military personnel to be convicted of desertion in relation to the Iraq conflict.

The ruling comes as support in the United States wanes for the war.

Aguayo, 35, pleaded guilty to going absent without leave and missing his deployment, but denied charges of full desertion.

But Colonel Peter Masterton, the judge at the court-martial in southern Germany, said the court had found Aguayo guilty as charged and sentenced him to eight months in prison.

Aguayo has been fighting for three years to be recognised by the army as a conscientious objector. He served one term as a medic in Iraq in 2004, during which he said he refused to load his gun while on guard duty.

"I believe I am an objector to war," said Aguayo, with tears in his eyes, in court.

"When I hear privates say they want to kill someone or slash peoples throats ... stuff like that hurt me."

He escaped through a window and left his base in Schweinfurt, Germany, in September 2006, shortly after missing his unit's redeployment, and went missing for several weeks before turning himself over in California.

"I tried to do everything right, obey all the rules, but I couldn't continue. I couldn't bear weapons," said Aguayo.

The father of two has already spent 161 days behind bars and could have been sentenced to up to seven years.

"We are both very grateful that the military judge gave a relatively light sentence," civil defence attorney David Court told reporters after the trial.

The military court also ruled Aguayo should forfeit his paid allowances, be given a bad conduct discharge and have his rank reduced to the lowest grade.

HAZARDOUS DUTY

The case follows the high-profile trial in February of First Lieutenant Ehren Watada -- the first known court-martial of a U.S. Army officer for publicly refusing to serve in Iraq. Watada's court-martial ended in a mistrial.

A key issue in court was whether Aguayo quit his unit with the intent to avoid hazardous duty and shirk important service.

"His service was going to be important as a medic regardless of whether he was carrying a weapon or not," said prosecution lawyer Captain Derrick Grace. "But instead the accused decided to jump out of his window and run away."

A deserter is defined by the U.S. Department of Defense as a member of the armed forces who is absent from their unit or post without authorisation, quits their unit to avoid duty or enlists improperly in another service.

Hey!...Watch that lowly airman stuff.

Too bad the soldier didn't get a signed declaration from the recruiting officer promising no deployment to Iraq, maybe he'd have a premise to rely on. As it is, he apparently decided that his own integrity and personal values take precedence over the lies that resulted in his participation in terrorism.

Ain't no such thing as a promise not to get sent someplace the military needs to send you, even if he got something in writing.

Go and try to buy a house or a car based on a personal statement from anyone and see how far you get trying to claim you were told something different than what the signed contract says.

He didn't have nothing in writing because the recruiter would a known any such promise was not something the recruiter could legitamatly make.

Some one didn't like my original post so I'll attempt to use the authors words to get my point accross.

You ain't alone kid.

Okay try a little PT.

Part of the J_O_B.


No sympathy for this young man....

On second thought, I guess I won't comment.

Red Bird.. I completely understand. I had not had my coffee yet and was typing without thinking... Part of my Anger management <<sigh>>

Thanks for providing Overwatch.

The story probably makes a good read for some... but it chooses a very narrow lense to look through... obviously to reinforce a point

and

maybe even make some money.

If I type before my morning coffee even I can't figure out what I was trying to say!

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours reading opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Military Services. Well yeah, to most folks something like that would be boring as hell but I'm the kind of guy who get's a thrill about how to read a map and find where you want to go with a lensatic compass.

Good number of cases dealt with UA and desertions. Someone needs to clue these jokers in when they flee to Canada the Canadians are shipping their hineys back to the USA. And the military courts ain't looking kindly upon UA, desertion, or missing a movement.

Without exception they are drawing reduction in rank to E-1, forfeiture of pay, hardtime in prison, and a dishonorable discharge. That leaves some young fellow a mighty tough road to hoe for the rest of their life and ten years from now no one will give a damn what kind of political statement they were trying to make. They will be lumped in with everybody else dishonorbly discharged like dope dealers, murderers, and rapist.

Dealing with non-combatants during war is the
crucible for soldiers. Deciding what is worth dying
for...not just country...but your faith...is a central
part. Fact is, you're gonna have to live or die with
what you did or didn't do.

When they put that weapon in your hands, I figure
it forces you to decide whom are enemies and how
you must use the death-dealing MOS. Rank and
affiliation aside.

I don't question the man's decision, neither do I
question mistakes made under fire, and that's
why I do question the basis for going to war when
the drums are being beaten to start the dance.

We must be vigilent to assure that we only go when
we must, where we must, because this sh*t happens...
and Hell opens wide...

I didn't see your original post 1SGT so I can't comment. I was going to post something analogous to the article but it seemed out of place after I reread it. Just one of the 1000 or so other posts I've self-censored. Not very noble but I have this internal mechanism that triggers the censor and I'm quite okay with it. It's kept me out of trouble. Of course I learned this lesson the hard way by not self-censoring many, many years ago but that's another time and another place.

I read about guys like what's his name and then I compare him to my nephews. Unfortunately, they don't have the benefit of participating in a forum and responding and they certainly don't have time to write any books cause they are pretty busy just trying to stay alive and keep their buddies alive and missing their families. I don't think they go around terrorizing people but I guess the world "terrorizing" means different things to different people. That's cool but it sure plays havoc with any chance for meaningful dialog.

Good luck with the anger management program - mine is pretty simple and I use two different highly successful methods depending on the range of anger. Mild irritation - scribble down a note on a sheet a paper, crumple it up, and throw it in a box until I'm ready to deal with it. Extreme irritation - scribble down name on small sheet of paper and flush it - their is no retrieval method if you utilize the second method. I should also add, I don't get angry very often because it keeps me from doing something productive - another lesson learned many, many years ago.

“Precisely”