Review: The Deserter's Tale

Review: The Deserter’s Tale

Photo: An Iraqi woman weeps as she and her baby sit amid the mess left behind at her house following a raid by US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad's al-Orfali Shiite district, June 2007. Envoys of the United States and Iran will hold a second round of talks in Baghdad on Tuesday on the security situation in Iraq, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.(AFP/File/Wissam al-Okaili)

Photo: US soldiers question a man at his house during a search in west Baghdad, 20 July 2007. Al-Qaeda in Iraq already has its hands full, but US intelligence officials say the militant group's mentors in Pakistan now want to use its formidable resources for attacks on the United States.(AFP/File/Olivier Laban-Mattei)

“The Deserter’s Tale” is a book by Joshua Key, as told to Lawrence Hill. It is “the story of an ordinary soldier who walked away from the war in Iraq” and became a refugee in Canada. He claims he did not lose his country – rather his country lost him. It is overall, a very disquieting story about the actions of our country in Iraq, some hint of which is found in the photos cited above. And it is a hopeful story of how one American regained his morals and decency, and left the United States behind.

Joshua talks about how the demeaning and brutal treatment of other people starts in the USA, right on the military bases. In Iraq, Joshua talks of the raids, of the random killings of Iraqi children, of the demonizing of Iraqis, of the disrespect shown on a regular basis. He goes into quite a lot of detail about this, and it is a huge stain and shame upon our country that we allowed this violence and this degradation to be visited on another people who never hurt or threatened us. I am not going to go into detail on what happened there – you can find it all inside the book.

Joshua got a two week vacation from the war, on which he returned to his home and his family. On his return to duty in Iraq, his felt he was out of his mind to have gotten on the plane. When he reached the Dallas, his connecting flight to Kuwait was cancelled. His stepfather and brother went to a restaurant and this is Joshua’s recollections:

“Funny: in Iraq, I had talked constantly with Connor about the Oklahoma Sooners, but now that I had returned from war I had completely lost interest in football and other sports. Once I had been a fanatic, but it spoke to me no longer. It would have been nice to be able to knock back a beer and lose myself in a few hours of televised sports, but three other things teemed in my brain: I wanted to hold my wife and children; I had the blood of men, women, and children on my hands; and I couldn’t live with myself if I had to fight again in Iraq.”

Joshua did not return. He fled with his wife and children and a family friend to live on the run in the USA, and then fled with his family to Canada. He intends to stay in Canada. On reflecting on his experiences, Joshua had this to say: “A lot of ingenuity goes into killing, and it seems to me now a sad waste of money and intelligence.”

And he had this reflection on the aftereffects of participating in a war:

“If you have beaten or killed an innocent person, and if there remains a shred of conscience in your heart, you will not likely avoid anguish by saying you were only following orders. We each have to find what we believe to be the right way to live. When we prosecute an unjust war, or commit immoral acts in any war at all, the first victims are the people who were unfortunate enough to fall into our hands. The second victims are ourselves. We damage ourselves each time we violate our own true beliefs, and the wrongs we commit weigh on our shoulders to the grave.”

I wrote up this short review to let you know about this book, and to let you know that we, the citizens of the United States, also carry this wrong on our shoulders to the grave. Our veterans do not carry it alone. The guiltiest among us (the ones who started this war of aggression, this war crime) do not feel this weight because they do not have the morals or conscience to know the wrongs that they have done. They are blind to what the Iraqi people have suffered and what our veterans have suffered.

It is our job to make them aware of what they have done, but any non-violent means available. Protest, write letters, hold signs, lobby, go to DC, rally, protest some more, get in their faces – whatever it takes. We are the only ones who can peacefully stop this aggression. It is our job and our duty to stop it.

These are the final words in The Deserter’s Tale:

“I will never apologize for deserting the American army. I deserted an injustice and leaving was the right thing to do. I owe one apology and one apology only, and that is to the people of Iraq.”

And, to the people of Iraq, I would also like to say that I am sorry. I am very, very sorry that this war happened and I could not stop it.