On March 15, 2004, having failed to return to his unit in Iraq, Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía (b. 1975) publicly surrendered to military authorities and filed an application as a conscientious objector—among the first soldiers during the Iraq War to protest as he did. He would serve nine months in prison for desertion and receive a bad conduct discharge in the wake of his actions, and went on to oppose the war in every way he could, joining Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War and telling his story in Road from ar Ramadi (2007), a memoir of combat, doubt, and resistance.
Mejía had enlisted in the Army at nineteen against the wishes of his parents, his mother Maritza Castillo a recent immigrant from Nicaragua, and his father, who remained there, the famous Sandinista folk musician Carlos Mejía Godoy. At the time, the Army seemed to him to offer not only his best chance at higher education but a “place in the world.” Eight years later, his contractual commitments to the National Guard extended by a wartime “stop-loss” order, he was called to active duty in Iraq. Though he had private doubts about the invasion from the beginning, he “didn’t want to be labeled a coward,” held his tongue, and served on the war’s front lines for five months.
In the excerpt from his memoir that follows, Mejía begins to realize—in front of a roomful of angry Iraqi civilians—that he has the power to refuse his orders. He now lives in Coconut Grove, Florida, and works as a community organizer.
THE friendliness of Iraqis brought me close to one man in particular, the manager of a propane station just west of our base, which the different company squads took turns guarding twenty-four hours a day. Guarding the station was a desired task for many soldiers of my unit because the employees there could help us get food, drinks, and ice from the city stores. Our squad even bought a TV set there. We could also use a satellite phone to call the States for two dollars a minute.
It was there that I became addicted to tepsi, an Iraqi stew made with eggplant and tomatoes, which was exquisite with rice or bread and perfect for a vegetarian like me. Other favorites among the troops were the shish kebabs and the baked chicken, eaten with flat bread and washed down with soda, or even beer—all of which could be bought from the station’s employees.
But what I enjoyed most at the station was the companionship of its manager, whose name was Mohammed. A tall bearded man with light-colored skin, Mohammed had learned English at the university, where he had studied geology; we talked regularly and at length. Once we discussed the Holy Koran, a book of which I was completely ignorant. Mohammed explained to me that reading the sacred scripture was open to non-Muslims as long as they were clean when they read it.
“You really should take a shower before touching the Holy Koran,” he told me. “But just wash your hands, and that should be enough for now, given the circumstances.”
“Is it not haram for you to share the Koran with a Christian?” I asked him, using the Arabic word for sin.
“It would be haram if I didn’t share it with you,” he answered with a kind and honest smile. “You see, we as Muslims have a duty to spread the Holy Scripture. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, a good Muslim should always share the word; otherwise he is not doing his duty as a Muslim. As long as the people are willing to listen, a Muslim should always be willing to speak.”
With that dialogue started a relationship I cherish to this day, although I have now lost touch with Mohammed. Many things that I learned from our conversations at the propane station have stayed with me. It was there that I discovered that Muslims have a deep respect for Jesus, not as the Messiah, but certainly as a valued prophet. The Virgin Mary is not only esteemed but also considered a good example of behavior and of devotion to God for Muslim women to emulate.
Mohammed was a Sunni Muslim who had worked for the Ba’ath party during Saddam’s regime.
“I never much agreed with Saddam,” he explained one day while we were drinking tea in his office. “But I didn’t have much of a choice, especially as a geologist; I had to work for the government.”
Although much of the food in ar Ramadi was cooked using wood, gas stoves were also commonplace. That meant many Ramadis had to go to Mohammed’s station to get their propane. One day an elderly Shiite Muslim and his son showed up at the station to buy their gas. They were old friends of Mohammed, who did not miss the opportunity to introduce us.
“He wants to know why Americans treat Iraqis like dogs,” asked Mohammed, translating for the old man.
“We don’t mean to treat Iraqis like dogs,” I responded. “But sometimes, when we’re attacked, we have to respond, and that’s when things happen.”
I wasn’t sure I believed my own words. Deep inside I probably didn’t, but for some reason I felt like I had to defend the purpose of our presence there. The old man wasn’t buying it, and he seemed pretty upset. His son, a man in his late thirties or early forties, stood with his arms crossed behind the couch where his father sat, staring at me with a serious look on his face. I glanced around the room and saw that everyone there was staring at me. Though I had taken off my helmet, I was still wearing all my gear, and I had a cup of tea in one hand and my rifle in the other. The grenades on my vest and belt made it hard for me to get comfortable. I felt as if I was being interrogated by a citizens’ tribunal. Yet at no time during the whole conversation did I feel unsafe or threatened, only ashamed.
“He wants to tell you something that happened to him just last week,” said Mohammed, as he and I both watched the old man lift up his robe to uncover a huge bruise he had on his left knee.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He says a group of men dropped into his property from helicopters,” Mohammed translated. “They held everyone in the house at gunpoint until they left, taking him away to some U.S. Army base. He injured his knee when they threw him into the helicopter.”
I noticed that there was a cane leaning up against the couch the man was sitting on. Every one else present remained silent as the old man spoke in Arabic, now and then pointing at his knee, and at his son, who still stood behind him but who let his father do all the talking.
“They interrogated him for a few days, until they finally let him go. The soldiers were from the U.S. Special Forces. They thought he was some insurgent leader,” Mohammed continued. I wondered how they knew the soldiers were from the Special Forces. “They finally admitted their mistake and took him back to his home, but they never paid for any of the damage they did to the house.”
The old man seemed really upset, and with reason, but part of me couldn’t help thinking there must have been some justification for the soldiers’ actions. And they had apologized and even taken the old man back to his family. As things looked to me then, it didn’t seem unreasonable.
“Now it hurts when he walks,” said Mohammed, looking at the cane.
“I’m really sorry that happened,” I said, switching my attention between Mohammed and his Shiite friend. “We don’t really want to be here.”
“Oh, I know, I know,” said Mohammed. “He is not upset with you, but he wants the American army to leave Iraq.”
The conversation continued in that fashion, with complaints about U.S. brutality following rapidly, one after the next, in a way that made the argument that it was all an “unfortunate and isolated mistake” not only hard for them to accept but for me to use. These were educated men, especially the old man with the banged knee, who seemed to command respect even among the Sunnis, a majority of those present. It occurred to me that the deference shown to him stemmed not just from his wisdom and advanced years but also because he was perhaps some kind of religious eminence.
I felt as though I was present at a tribunal judging the American occupation, with me cast in the dual role of defense counsel and accused, and the elderly Shiite speaking on behalf of the entire Iraqi people. I didn’t feel qualified to match my formidable opponent.
In spite of his anger about the occupation, the old Shiite did not descend to personal attacks on me, engaging instead in a dignified and elegant dialogue about Iraq’s right to self-determination. Though he still seemed upset, he was very cordial to me as he left. Mohammed and I continued talking about Iraq and the U.S. occupation. At one point, pressed by Mohammed’s searching questions and having run out of other answers, I suggested to Mohammed that we were in Iraq to bring freedom to the country and its people.
“Freedom?” Mohammed looked at me, incredulous.
“Yes,” I insisted with a straight face, not even believing my own words.
“But you said that you don’t want to be here,” pressed Mohammed, also with a straight face.
“I don’t,” I continued.
“And you said that your contract with the army was over,” continued my friend, reminding me of something I had told him in the past.
“Yes, I said that,” I admitted.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because the army can keep you in after the end of your contract,” I explained, sensing where he was going with his questions. “At least if there is a war they can.”
“Against your will?” he asked with his eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” I said, quietly.
“So how can you bring freedom to us, when you don’t have freedom for yourselves?”
I was unable to answer that question, but I remember thinking that Mohammed just didn’t know how armies worked, even though I was aware he had been conscripted into the Iraqi army in his youth. Besides, neither freedom nor its absence had anything to do with my participation in a war that I had opposed from the outset. My misfortune was tied to a decision I had made at age nineteen when I signed a military contract and forfeited most of my rights. From that point on I had to push aside all other considerations—political, moral, and spiritual—in pursuit of whatever mission I was ordered to undertake. No, I kept telling myself, freedom had nothing to do with it.
But deep inside I felt differently. I knew that, in the end, no one could force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. I knew I could say no to keeping prisoners on sleep deprivation, and to blocking ambulances on their way to the hospital. I could say no to senseless missions that put the lives of both soldiers and innocent civilians in unnecessary danger. I could assert my freedom and say no. The problem was that everyone else was doing what they were told, and the easiest thing was to keep my mouth shut and think that Mohammed just didn’t understand. I hadn’t just lost the freedom to think for myself as an individual with moral and spiritual values, independent from the military; I had also lost the freedom to accept the fact that I wasn’t free.