| going with YOUR conscience |
| Written by Maria Elena Salinas |
| Tuesday, April 06 2004 |
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| Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia says he can no longer reconcile his responsibilities in the U.S. Army with his principles. That is why, on March 15, he declared himself a conscientious objector. He is not the first soldier to oppose the war in Iraq, but he is the first Iraqi War veteran to make his decision public.
His case has stood out among those who are familiar with his background and wonder why he joined the U.S. military in the first place. You see, his father, Carlos Mejia Godoy, is a famous Nicaraguan folk singer and composer, known for his political activism during the Sandinista Revolution. Among his most controversial work is this phrase in the lyrics of the Sandinista Hymn: "We fight against the Yankee, enemy of humanity."
So, did his father's ideology have any influence on Mejia's decision to resist the war in Iraq? I posed the question to both him and his father.
"I have a lot of respect for my son's right to think for himself," Carlos Mejia Godoy told me from his home in Managua, Nicaragua. "I did not like the idea of him joining the Army, but understood that it was what he wanted to do and gave him my support."
Sgt. Mejia confirmed his father's assertion: "My parents have always been supportive of what I do, whether they agree with me or not," he told me during a telephone conversation while at his military post in Fort Stewart, Ga. "As a young boy growing up, I saw my father as a cultural symbol. I was too young to have political views," he said.
The 28-year-old sergeant knew exactly what he was getting into when he signed up for the Army at age 18. That was shortly after he moved to the United States with his mother, also a former militant of the Sandinista National Front (and now a naturalized U.S. citizen). He was a confused teenager who had been uprooted twice and felt a compelling need to fit in. The Army represented a way to assimilate himself into the society of what had become his new home.
For the most part, it worked. He spent nine years in the Army and National Guard. He trained for combat. He knew he could one day go to war. But when the United States began its attacks on Iraq, he said he was in "shock and awe."
"I thought our deployment to the Middle East was just a show of force," he said. "I did not think the U.S. had made a case for war."
Mejia's father said he is proud of his son. "He fulfilled his duties as a professional -- when he had to fire his weapon, he did," the father told me. But when he was face to face with death -- that of his fellow soldiers and that of innocent Iraqi civilians -- he decided he could no longer be there.
What does Mejia say to those who accuse him of being a coward? "Without realizing it, they're right," he told me. "I was a coward for not openly opposing a war that I consider criminal, immoral and illegal."
As for those who call him a traitor, he asked, "A traitor to what -- companies who benefit financially from the war?" Mejia said if he was a traitor to anything, it was to his own principles.
Military law allows soldiers to apply for conscientious objector status. But it does not automatically approve it. In Mejia's case, the Army will not comment because the matter is still under investigation. Neither will the Army give official numbers of soldiers who have either gone absent without leave or applied for CO status. But according to The Center on Conscience and War, a group that advises objectors to war, the number is in the hundreds.
Camilo Mejia's future is now in the hands of the Army. He has been charged with desertion and will be tried by a special court-martial. He faces a possible sentence of one year in prison and a discharge for bad conduct. But he has no regrets.
"I have nothing against this country. This is my home, and the Army is my family," he said. "But I can no longer reconcile my duties in the Army with my conscience." |
