NOTE: Camilo Mejia spent more than 7 years in the military and 8 months fighting in Iraq.
On a furlough from the war, he applied for Conscientious Objector status, and was
declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. He was convicted of desertion
by the U.S. military for refusing to return to the war in Iraq and was imprisoned. Mejia
was released from prison on February 15th.

LENTEN REFECTION II: REGAINING MY HUMANITY
By Camilo Mejia, 2/17/05

I was deployed to Iraq in April 2003 and returned home for a two-week leave in October.
Going home gave me the opportunity to put my thoughts in order and to listen to what my
conscience had to say. People would ask me about my war experiences and answering them
took me back to all the horrors-the firefights, the ambushes, the time I saw a young
Iraqi dragged by his shoulders through a pool of his own blood or an innocent man was
decapitated by our machine gun fire. The time I saw a soldier broken down inside because
he killed a child, or an old man on his knees, crying with his arms raised to the sky,
perhaps asking God why we had taken the lifeless body of his son.

I thought of the suffering of a people whose country was in ruins and who were further
humiliated by the raids, patrols and curfews of an occupying army.

And I realized that none of the reasons we were told about why we were in Iraq turned out
to be true. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no link between Saddam
Hussein and al Qaeda. We weren't helping the Iraqi people and the Iraqi people didn't
want us there. We weren't preventing terrorism or making Americans safer. I couldn't find
a single good reason for having been there, for having shot at people and been shot at.

Coming home gave me the clarity to see the line between military duty and moral
obligation. I realized that I was part of a war that I believed was immoral and criminal,
a war of aggression, a war of imperial domination. I realized that acting upon my
principles became incompatible with my role in the military, and I decided that I could
not return to Iraq.

By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being. I have not
deserted the military or been disloyal to the men and women of the military. I have not
been disloyal to a country. I have only been loyal to my principles.

When I turned myself in, with all my fears and doubts, it did it not only for myself. I
did it for the people of Iraq, even for those who fired upon me--they were just on the
other side of a battleground where war itself was the only enemy. I did it for the Iraqi
children, who are victims of mines and depleted uranium. I did it for the thousands of
unknown civilians killed in war. My time in prison is a small price compared to the price
Iraqis and Americans have paid with their lives. Mine is a small price compared to the
price Humanity has paid for war.

Many have called me a coward, others have called me a hero. I believe I can be found
somewhere in the middle. To those who have called me a hero, I say that I don't believe
in heroes, but I believe that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

To those who have called me a coward I say that they are wrong, and that without knowing
it, they are also right. They are wrong when they think that I left the war for fear of
being killed. I admit that fear was there, but there was also the fear of killing
innocent people, the fear of putting myself in a position where to survive means to kill,
there was the fear of losing my soul in the process of saving my body, the fear of losing
myself to my daughter, to the people who love me, to the man I used to be, the man I
wanted to be. I was afraid of waking up one morning to realize my humanity had abandoned
me.

I say without any pride that I did my job as a soldier. I commanded an infantry squad in
combat and we never failed to accomplish our mission. But those who called me a coward,
without knowing it, are also right. I was a coward not for leaving the war, but for
having been a part of it in the first place. Refusing and resisting this war was my moral
duty, a moral duty that called me to take a principled action. I failed to fulfill my
moral duty as a human being and instead I chose to fulfill my duty as a soldier. All
because I was afraid. I was terrified, I did not want to stand up to the government and
the army, I was afraid of punishment and humiliation. I went to war because at the moment
I was a coward, and for that I apologize to my soldiers for not being the type of leader
I should have been.

I also apologize to the Iraqi people. To them I say I am sorry for the curfews, for the
raids, for the killings. May they find it in their hearts to forgive me.

One of the reasons I did not refuse the war from the beginning was that I was afraid of
losing my freedom. Today, as I sit behind bars I realize that there are many types of
freedom, and that in spite of my confinement I remain free in many important ways. What
good is freedom if we are afraid to follow our conscience? What good is freedom if we are
not able to live with our own actions? I am confined to a prison but I feel, today more
than ever, connected to all humanity. Behind these bars I sit a free man because I
listened to a higher power, the voice of my conscience.

While I was confined in total segregation, I came across a poem written by a man who
refused and resisted the government of Nazi Germany. For doing so he was executed. His
name is Albrecht Hanshofer, and he wrote this poem as he awaited execution.

GUILT
The burden of my guilt before the law
weighs light upon my shoulders; to plot
and to conspire was my duty to the people;
I would have been a criminal had I not.

I am guilty, though not the way you think,
I should have done my duty sooner, I was wrong,
I should have called evil more clearly by its name
I hesitated to condemn it for far too long.
I now accuse myself within my heart:
I have betrayed my conscience far too long
I have deceived myself and fellow man.

I knew the course of evil from the start
My warning was not loud nor clear enough!
Today I know what I was guilty of...

To those who are still quiet, to those who continue to betray their conscience, to those
who are not calling evil more clearly by its name, to those of us who are still not doing
enough to refuse and resist, I say "come forward." I say "free your minds." Let us,
collectively, free our minds, soften our hearts, comfort the wounded, put down our
weapons, and reassert ourselves as human beings by putting an end to war.

ACTIONS

1. Send a letter of support to Carmilo

The Free Camilo Committee
c /o Maritza Castillo
201 178 Drive # 323
Miami, FL 33160

2. For more info visit his web site http://www.freecamilo.org/contact.htm
3. Send this article to your local newspaper and ask them to print it.
4. Ask your church, synagogue or mosque to distribute it.
5. Share this leaflet with friends, family and coworkers.