Desserter or Objector?

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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?'

 

"It was part of a general feeling that we had no right to be there, and every killing, whether provoked or not provoked, was unjustified because we had no right to be there."

 

His commanders, however, said the orders to shoot were justified to protect American personnel.

 

The 457 soldiers of the Florida National Guard's 1st Battalion of the 124th Infantry Regiment, activated in January 2003, entered Iraq late in April expecting to do security detail, as they had done in two prior months in Jordan at Patriot anti-missile batteries.

 

But facing an insurgency armed with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, the battalion became primary combat troops trying to stabilize a hot spot along the Euphrates River, 70 miles west of Baghdad.

 

The battalion was led by Lt. Col. Hector Mirabile, 46, who was being deployed for the first time in his 24 years in the National Guard and whose civilian job the past 23 years was in the Miami Police Department, where he had risen through the ranks to become chief financial officer.

 

After 200 missions between last April and February, mostly in Ramadi, the battalion received 39 Purple Hearts, a combat decoration for wounded soldiers, Mirabile said. Eleven more are expected, he said. No one was killed.

 

More than half of those Purple Hearts were awarded to Charlie Company, where Mejia was a squad leader of seven to nine soldiers.

 

Of the 127 men in C Company, 98 participated in welcome-home ceremonies at Ft. Stewart, Ga., earlier this month. The remainder were "28 casualties and one deserter," said its commander, Capt. Tad Warfel, 39, a full-time Florida Guardsman.

 

In seeking conscientious-objector status, Mejia is taking a route used frequently during the Vietnam era by draft resisters and one that's still offered to today's all-volunteer soldiers. A handful of soldiers left the Army with that status last year.

 

Mejia wants an honorable discharge, with full benefits. Warfel, a former aide to the Florida National Guard's top commander, wants Mejia court-martialed and punished severely, including a dishonorable discharge.

 

Mirabile said he is investigating Mejia's case and hasn't made a decision on court-martial.

 

"I'm sorry that he felt that way," Mirabile said of Mejia's accusations. "That's his ability [to exercise free speech] for his living in the United States."

 

Punishment uncertain

 

Desertion during wartime can be punishable by death, but that is unlikely, said Mejia's attorney, Louis Font, noting that there was never an official act of war declared by Congress, though the use of force was authorized in a resolution. Since the Civil War, only one American soldier has been executed for desertion: Pvt. Eddie Slovik, who was shot by a firing squad in 1945.

 

Mejia, a soft-spoken young man with Jesuit schooling who comes from upper-middle-class households in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, arrived in the United States in the 1990s to attend college. He joined the Army for three years and then the National Guard for five more.

 

He recounted several experiences in Iraq that he said rendered him a prisoner of his own conscience.

 

One week, his commanders ordered overnight blocking positions on major roads leading into Ramadi because insurgents were believed to be transporting weapons under cover of darkness.

 

Mejia said the checkpoints were stationed in the same place on the same schedule during a five-day period. Troops even used the same movement techniques each day, he said.

 

On the third or fourth day, a checkpoint platoon of 30 soldiers in Humvees was ambushed by Iraqi fighters, he said.

 

Four soldiers, including a friend of Mejia, were severely injured--the worst single incident of casualties incurred by Charlie Company during its yearlong tour.

 

Iraqi motorist killed

 

In the aftermath of the attack, a passing Iraqi motorist, who apparently was confused and didn't heed orders to halt, was decapitated by U.S. machine gun fire, Mejia said.

 

"You make yourself incredibly and stupidly vulnerable by doing [the same maneuver] over and over four, five times," Mejia said. "We were basically being used as bait.

 

"All this could have been avoided by doing what we were simply taught to do and follow the procedures, but it wasn't done that way so soldiers could win combat badges ... Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts. It was a problem of ambition," he said.

 

Warfel described the action, Operation Shutdown, as a "sound" mission.

 

"It was just a bad situation when they got ambushed," Warfel said in an interview at Ft. Stewart

 

"I had three roads to shut down, and the only way to do it is to go to the same point. We didn't have a choice where we could go and when we could go. The platoons did the same spot three or four nights in a row so they could become familiar with the intersection" and set up defensive positions, he said.

 

Surviving ambush

 

On another occasion, Mejia and his squad in two Humvees narrowly survived an ambush by a half-dozen Iraqi riflemen atop buildings on both sides of the street. Mejia earlier was ordered to maintain a roadblock for 2 1/2 hours, which was two hours too long, he said, giving insurgents a chance to prepare the ambush.

 

What especially disturbed him, he said, was that after his squad celebrated its survival back at a post, a platoon sergeant relayed a message from a commander stating the squad should have stayed in the firefight and called for reinforcements.

 

"They were doing everything to put soldiers in harm's way and against military doctrine and practice in order to instigate a fight," he said.

 

Warfel disagreed and said an infantryman's job is to "look for contact."

 

"So, if he thought it was not a good order, that's too bad. As a commander, I don't question orders ... and I don't expect anybody below me to question my orders.

 

"It's not the infantryman's job to hightail it out of the area. I would berate anyone who didn't close in and kill the enemy," he said.

 

Mejia went AWOL on Oct. 16 after he was allowed to return to the U.S. to renew his permanent resident card, he said.

 

Born in Nicaragua, Mejia arrived in the United States with his mother, now a U.S. citizen.

 

While home, he called the Army several times seeking a discharge based on a regulation limiting non-citizens' service in the U.S. military to eight years--a period that Mejia reached last May while in Iraq, he said.

 

His calls were ignored, cementing his dismay and his decision not to return to Iraq, he said.

 

Mirabile said such time limits have been suspended during the Iraq campaign.

 

`I expect you to be back'

 

When Mejia told Warfel he had to return home, Warfel suspected Mejia of planning to go AWOL. Infantrymen complained of Mejia's reluctance to conduct patrols, which damaged morale, Warfel said.

 

"I looked him dead in the eye. I said, `Staff Sgt. Mejia, I expect you to be back,' and he said, `I'll be back.'

 

"But I told him I knew he wasn't coming back," Warfel said. "I think he's a mommy's boy and his mom greatly influences him."

 

Warfel said Mejia told him that his mother opposed the war and wouldn't assist with his paperwork and financial issues for renewing his permanent resident status.

 

"So there were indications that he wasn't in the fight. He just basically pressed out. He just lost his nerve," Warfel said.

 

Though obtaining conscientious-objector status has been problematic for soldiers, the Army recently approved all five applications received between September and January, all relating to the Iraq war, Army spokesmen said. In February, at least six more applications were received and are under review, spokesmen said.

 

Last year, the Army approved five of 11 applications from objectors and rejected two, officials said. The others are pending.

 

In 2002, the service approved 17 of 23 applications; the others were rejected, officials said.

 

Andrea Takash, an Army spokeswoman in the Pentagon, explained why conscientious objection is sometimes allowed even for those who have volunteered. "We understand that after soldiers join, they may have a change of mind or transformation," she said.

 

AWOL rate low

 

At most, 600 soldiers in the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard have gone AWOL or deserted since two-week leaves began for 60,000 GIs in Iraq last year--a 1 percent rate, the Army said.

 

Being AWOL more than 30 days classifies a soldier as a deserter, but by surrendering, Mejia will show a willingness to return, disputing desertion, his attorney argued.

 

The Army says its desertions have declined in recent years: 2,731 in the fiscal year ended last Sept. 30; 4,013 desertions in the 2002 fiscal year; 4,598 in 2001; and 3,949 in 2000, officials said.

 

With several GI advocates and peace activists planning to support his surrender, Mejia seeks to become the first test case weighing the moral impact of the Iraq conflict as tens of thousands of guardsmen, reservists and Army regulars are returning to the U.S. after yearlong tours and as their replacements are being rotated into Iraq, said Tod Ensign, director of Citizen Soldier, a GI advocacy rights group working with Mejia.

 

One soldier recently convicted of deserting just before the Iraq deployment was Pfc. Kenneth Carter, 20, court-martialed at Ft. Benning, Ga. He received a six-month sentence in a Ft. Knox prison, his mother said.

 

Mejia's lawyer, Font, is a civilian who has practiced military law for 26 years. Based in Brookline, Mass., Font is a 1968 West Point graduate who became a conscientious objector and did not go to Vietnam. He received an honorable discharge in 1971, he said.

 

Font plans to compare the Iraq conflict to Vietnam and even refer to political accusations about President Bush's military service during the Vietnam War.

 

"We are asking the military to treat [Mejia] the same way that the military treated President George Bush when he was in the Texas National Guard. That is, his alleged AWOL or desertion and failure to report to Alabama was treated through administrative channels rather than acted upon judicially," he said.

 

The White House has disputed such characterizations of Bush's service, insisting that he fulfilled his military duties when the Texas Air National Guard allowed him to transfer to Alabama so he could help with a political campaign.

 

Not much support for him

 

Mejia's resistance has divided Charlie Company. A few comrades support him. Many don't.

 

Sgt. Richard Ritz, 38, of Titusville, Fla., a team leader in Iraq and a 1991 gulf war veteran, said he, too, found some of his battlefield commanders' orders and conduct disturbing but didn't say anything.

 

Ritz backed Mejia's complaints about soldiers being used as bait. Ritz said Mirabile "made too many errors in judgment and put a lot of people at risk." Mirabile has denied those accusations.

 

"We were put in awkward positions in which you felt you were a target of opportunity," said Ritz, who was being treated this month for depression at Ft. Stewart because his wife left him in January.

 

Sgt. Joshua Madsen, 25, of Indian Harbor Beach, Fla., said he was upset to see Mejia, a friend, abandon his post.

 

"To claim to be a conscientious objector would neglect what your [military] oath is about," Madsen said. "For him, if he wants to do that, that's why I fought the war--so that people could have that freedom."