Back To Iraq? A Eugene soldier fights killing

BACK TO IRAQ?

A Eugene soldier fights killing

http://eugeneweekly.com/2008/05/22/coverstory.html

BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
5/22/08

PFC James Burmeister enlisted in the military because he thought he
would be doing "humanitarian work" in Iraq. But he was manning a
machine gun, using ammunition so large his targets ­ humans ­ would
"literally explode," the day in Baghdad that his Humvee was hit by a
roadside bomb. He was knocked unconscious, and bits of shrapnel were
embedded in his face.

Burmeister went AWOL (absent without leave) and fled to Canada just
months after the incident, no longer able to deal with the
aftereffects of the bomb and his experiences allegedly setting up
"small kill teams" and baiting Iraqis into approaching fake U.S.
military devices like cameras, luring them in to be shot by snipers.

Now the 23-year-old soldier from Eugene waits at Fort Knox, Ky., to
discover whether the Army will prosecute him, release him without
access to medical care for his injuries or try yet again to send him
back to a war he doesn't want to fight. His father fears the Army
wants to keep Burmeister quiet about the "bait-and-kill" teams that
he alleges have been used to kill Iraqi civilians. While James
Burmeister awaits the Army's decision, his father is fighting to
bring him home.

A soldier who deserts faces court martial, imprisonment and
less-than-honorable discharge as a consequence. Many soldiers who
have gone AWOL have chosen to return to Iraq rather than face a long
stint in a military prison. Others, like Burmeister, say they are
simply not psychologically able to return to a war zone.

If he is convicted of desertion and given a dishonorable discharge,
Burmeister faces time in prison. And the soldier, who says he suffers
from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a brain injury as a
result of the roadside bomb, fears he might not have access to
veterans' medical benefits.

The Hippie from Oregon

Burmeister's father Eric, who works in food service at LCC, says his
son James is "just a typical Eugene kid," so typical that other
soldiers in his unit called him the "hippie from Oregon."

Born in Portland and raised in Eugene, the son of a white father and
an African-American mother, James Burmeister found himself working
dead-end jobs after graduating from high school. While on a trip to
Germany to visit an old friend who had enlisted in the military,
Burmeister began to consider the Army as a possible career. "My
friend described the Iraq war as a humanitarian effort, and I
believed him," Burmeister writes in a deposition to Canadian
authorities while seeking asylum.

In June of 2005 he approached a recruiter and he writes he was again
told "about the humanitarian efforts that the military undertook on
behalf of the Iraqi people." He enlisted and was stationed in
Germany, where he married a woman named Angelique, whom he had met on
the earlier trip.

His father was against Burmeister's choice to join the military, "I'm
an old Don Quixote tilting at windmills from way back," Eric
Burmeister says. "But he bought the recruiter's line. He couldn't get
a good job. I had to let him go."

After a year of training in Germany, James Burmeister began to
question why he was only learning how to raid houses and secure
buildings and not how to distribute food or develop "civilian
infrastructure." He says he approached his commander and asked to
become a conscientious objector, but he says the request was ignored.

Burmeister was sent to Iraq in September of 2006 as part of Unit 118
First Infantry Division and immediately deployed in Baghdad. His main
duty was as a gunner. He manned the machine guns that sit on top of
the Humvees used on patrol. "I was largely asked to provide
protection for other soldiers" he writes of his duty.

But soon, he says, he realized his duties were less about protecting
others and more about luring Iraqis to their deaths: "In many cases
our platoon was required to engage in exercises that were designed to
attract fire from insurgents." Army gunners would then return fire
with 762 millimeter rounds that would "literally tear the limbs and
appendages off the intended targets" or .50 caliber explosive rounds
that when used against "human targets" would cause them to "literally
explode or evaporate."

"Our unit's job seemed to be more about targeting a largely innocent
civilian population or deliberately attracting confrontation with
insurgents," he writes.

Small Kill Teams

Burmeister was also disturbed by the "small kill teams" for which he
was asked to provide cover. On Sept. 24, 2007, the Washington Post
investigated the story of the classified program of using "bait and
kill" tactics in which sniper teams would scatter "bait" such as
ammunition and detonation cords to attract Iraqi insurgents who would
then be shot by snipers.

But Burmeister, who had deserted from the Army five months before the
story broke, had been telling that story to the media for months.

In a July 2007 article in The Oregonian, Burmeister said he had
participated in a team that placed fake cameras on poles and labeled
them U.S. property to give the team the right to shoot anyone who to
tried to move or take the equipment.

Burmeister writes in his deposition, "These citizens were almost
always unarmed. In some cases the Iraqi victims looked to me like
they were children, perhaps teenagers."

He told the same story to Canada's CBC news in June 2007, and
allegedly to PBS's NOW, but that statement was not used in the
portions of his interview used on air.

Ray Parrish, a counselor for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW)
says that it's not uncommon for a soldier's story of war atrocities
to go uninvestigated. "It's part of the Winter Soldier phenomenon,"
says Parrish, referring to the January 1971 testimony of veterans
exposing war crimes and atrocities during the Vietnam War. In March
2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War organized a similar gathering in
which veterans and Iraqi and Afghan civilians gave testimony about
their experiences.

"When people hear about that [bait and kill teams] they say 'that
would never happen,'" says Parrish. "The GIs are simply not believed."

PTSD

Burmeister was involved in firefights only a month after arriving in
Iraq. In his deposition he tells of the first time he killed an
Iraqi. "I tried to fire warning shots," he writes, "but the sergeant
in my Humvee began yelling at me to shoot to kill." One of the
insurgents he shot died, and the other was wounded. In the same fight
he says that he remembers watching another gunner use .50 caliber
rounds against two unarmed civilians, "which literally made them explode."

Parrish says such experiences are what are contributing to the PTSD
he sees in the troops. "The most severe part of PTSD has do with a
guilty conscience," he says. "They are repeatedly put in the position
of doing things that they know in their gut are wrong."

Soldiers like Burmeister "are at a loss as to what they can do to
stop their personal slide into hell," says Parrish, who fought in
Vietnam and has been counseling veterans since 1976.

Burmeister's convoy was hit by roadside bombs on three different
occasions, he writes. On the third he was briefly knocked
unconscious, had ringing in his ears and got two pieces of shrapnel
buried in his face. But when the platoon leader asked if everyone was
OK, "I responded that I was OK. I believe I was in shock at this time."

When he later reported the injury to his sergeant, he writes, he was
told it was too late to report, and he would be declared healthy. He
was ordered back to his Humvee.

It was after this that Burmeister began to have nightmares and feel
faint. After passing out in his room, he was sent to Germany for
rest, where it was discovered he was suffering from chronic high
blood pressure. He was also diagnosed with PTSD and a possible
traumatic brain injury, and he was given sleeping pills and
anti-depressants, he writes. By May of 2007 he was told to return to
Baghdad despite his PTSD.

"Mental injury is just so hard to document," says Parrish. "People
who are literally unfit for deployment get deployed anyway. Doesn't
matter if it's a broken pelvis and you're in a body cast because
there is a desk for you to sit at in Iraq."

Eric Burmeister agrees. "They need the bodies."

AWOL

As of May 20, 4,079 American soldiers had died in "Operation Enduring
Freedom," the official title of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Estimates
of Iraqi civilian casualties range to over 90,000, according to
Iraqbodycount.org (EW updates the numbers in our paper each week).
More than 100 of the soldiers who have died are from Oregon,
according to statistics kept by Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office.
Burmeister's father, Eric, chokes up when he talks about his fears
that his son would be one of those statistics, "I knew for sure he
was going to die over there," he says.

But Burmeister is still a statistic: He is one of 4,968 Army soldiers
who deserted in fiscal year 2007, according to Army figures. After a
soldier has been AWOL for 30 days, he or she is considered a
deserter. Like Suzanne Swift, a soldier from Eugene who was "command
raped" in Iraq, and Ehren Watada, an officer who refused to deploy to
Iraq, Burmeister is fighting the military to allow him to leave the war.

Army desertion rates have risen 80 percent since the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, an Associated Press investigation said last November. It used
to be that most deserters listed dissatisfaction with Army life or
family troubles as their reason for going AWOL, but now PTSD has
become a reason to leave the military for soldiers like James Burmeister.

Burmeister went AWOL in May 2007, fleeing from Germany to Canada in
hopes of getting refugee status. He remained there for almost a year
with his pregnant wife and son, who have since gone back to Germany.
But in November 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the
case of two American deserters, opening the way for the deportation
of American AWOL troops. On March 4 of this year, homesick and
struggling with PTSD, James Burmeister turned himself in to the Army.

Bring Him Home

Burmeister is now at Fort Knox waiting for the military to decide
what to do with him. One of his original cellmates, who had also gone
AWOL, has already been sent back to Iraq.

The Army has prescribed what Eric Burmeister calls a "drug-induced
lobotomy" for his son. According to an emailed evaluation from Jon
Bjornson, a retired psychiatrist and former major in the Army Medical
Corps consulted by the VVAW, the drugs prescribed for James
Burmeister are not for PTSD but for "bipolar disorder, mixed, type 1."

The combination of the prescribed medications, which include Desyrel,
"a sedating antidepressant," as well as Seroquel, Celexa and a drug
for hypertension, "will restrict an individual from driving, working
with machinery, performing any activities requiring hand-eye
coordination," writes Bjornson.

"Any physician clearing this individual taking the pharmaceutical
regimen above, for military duty, much less combat, should be liable
for malpractice," says the email.

But Parrish of the VVAW says drug prescriptions for troubled soldiers
are not uncommon. "They are given a pill to go to sleep, speed to
wake them up." Other troops and veterans, he says, are
self-medicating with alcohol to try to sleep. The inability to sleep,
he says, is common to veterans with PTSD.

Politicians don't want to talk about PTSD, says Parrish, or about
suicide. "There's never been a situation where just as many veterans
are committing suicide as are dying [in combat] in Iraq and
Afghanistan," he says. "The numbers have hit 4,000," he alleges.

All Eric and Helen Burmeister want is for their son to come home. The
Burmeisters asked Congressman Peter DeFazio's office to launch a
congressional inquiry into James Burmeister's case, but so far they
have heard nothing from the military. They hope their son will simply
be discharged "in lieu of court martial."

Burmeister still faces possible redeployment to Iraq. If court
martialed and given a less-than-honorable discharge, Burmeister will
not be able to access to medical care for his injuries unless the
Veterans Administration grants him an exception.

For now, Burmeister is "unable to heal," says his father. His wife
has returned to Germany, and Burmeister has not seen his newborn
child. And because Fort Knox is an armor training school with
soldiers firing from tanks day and night, he can hear the sounds of
gunfire from his room as he awaits his fate, worsening his PTSD, says
his father.

It's not just about his own son, says Eric Burmeister. It's about all
of the young soldiers in Iraq, "I can never be quiet until they all
come home. It seems like they are all my children now."

.

Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted [by Ron Kovic]

Stopping the War Machine:
Military Recruiters Must Be Confronted

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080526_ron_kovic_on_berkeley_recruitment_resistance/

May 28, 2008
By Ron Kovic

As a former United States Marine Corps sergeant who was shot and
paralyzed from my mid-chest down during my second tour of duty in
Vietnam on Jan. 20, 1968, I am sending my complete support and
admiration to all those now involved in the courageous struggle to
stop military recruitment in Berkeley and across the country.

Not since the Vietnam War protests of the late 1960s has there been a
cause more just than the one you are now engaged in. Who knows better
the deep immorality and deception of military recruiters than those
of us who, decades ago, entered those same recruiting offices with
our fathers, believing in our hearts that we were being told the
truth­only to discover later we had been deceived and terribly
betrayed? Many of us paid for that deceit with our lives, years of
suffering and bodies and minds that were never the same again. If
only someone had warned us, if only someone had had the courage to
speak out against the madness that we were being led into, if only
someone could have protected us from the recruiters whose only wish
was to make their quota, send us to boot camp and hide from us the
dark secret of the nightmare which awaited us all.

Over the past five years, I have watched in horror the mirror image
of another Vietnam unfolding in Iraq. So many similarities, so many
things said that remind me of that war 30 years ago which left me
paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for life. Refusing to learn
from the lessons of Vietnam, our government continues to pursue a
policy of deception, distortion, manipulation and denial, doing
everything it can to hide from the American people their true
intentions and agenda in Iraq. As we pass the fifth anniversary of
the start of this tragic and senseless war, I cannot help but think
of the young men and women who have been wounded, nearly 30,000,
flooding Walter Reed, Bethesda, Brooke Army Medical Center and
veterans hospitals all across our country. Paraplegics, amputees,
burn victims, the blinded, shocked and stunned, brain-damaged and
psychologically stressed, a whole new generation of severely maimed
men and women who were not even born when I came home wounded to the
Bronx Veterans Hospital in New York in 1968.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted so many of us
after Vietnam, is just now beginning to appear among soldiers
recently returned from the current war. For some the agony and
suffering, the sleepless nights, anxiety attacks and awful bouts of
insomnia, alienation, anger and rage will last for decades­if not
their whole lives. They will be trapped in a permanent nightmare of
that war, of killing another man, a child, watching a friend die ...
fighting against an enemy that can never be seen, while at any moment
someone, a child, a woman, an old man­anyone­might kill them.

These traumas return home with us and we carry them, sometimes
hidden, for agonizing decades. They deeply impact our daily lives,
and the lives closest to us. To kill another human being, to take
another life out of this world with one pull of a trigger, is
something that never leaves you. It is as if a part of you dies with
that person. If you choose to keep on living, there may be a healing,
and even hope and happiness again, but that scar and memory and
sorrow will be with you forever. Why did the recruiters never mention
these things? This was never in the slick pamphlets they gave us.

Some of these veterans are showing up at homeless shelters around our
country, while others have begun to courageously speak out against
the senselessness and insanity of this war and to demand answers from
the leaders who sent them there. During the 2004 Democratic National
Convention, returning soldiers formed a group called Iraq Veterans
Against the War, just as we had marched in Miami in August of 1972 as
Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Still others have refused
deployment to Iraq, gone to Canada and begun resisting this immoral
and illegal war. Like many other Americans, I have seen them on
television or at the local veterans hospitals, but for the most part,
they remain hidden like the flag-draped caskets of our dead returned
to Dover Air Force Base in the dark of night, as this administration
continues to pursue a policy of censorship, tightly controlling the
images coming out of that war and rarely allowing the human cost of
its policy to be seen.

Many of us promised ourselves long ago that we would never allow what
happened to us in Vietnam to happen again. We had an obligation, a
responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, as human beings, to raise
our voices in protest. We could never forget the hospitals, the
intensive-care wards, the wounded all around us fighting for their
lives, those long and painful years after we came home, those lonely
nights. There were lives to save on both sides, young men and women
who would be disfigured and maimed, mothers and fathers who would
lose their sons and daughters, wives and other loved ones who would
suffer for decades to come if we did not do everything we could to
stop the momentum of this madness.

Mario Savio once said, "There's a time when the operation of the
machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't
take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put
your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon
all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to
indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all."

It is time to stop the war machine. It is time for bold and daring
action on the part of us all. Precious lives are at stake, both
American and Iraqi, and military recruiters must be confronted at
every turn, in every high school, every campus, every recruiting
office, on every street corner, in every town and city across
America. In no uncertain terms we must make it clear to them that by
their actions they represent a threat to our community, to our
children and all that we cherish. We must explain to them that
condemning our young men and women to their death, setting them up to
be horribly maimed, and psychologically damaged in a senseless and
immoral war, is wrong and unpatriotic and will not be tolerated by
Berkeley­or, for that matter, any town or city in the United States.

The days of deceiving, manipulating and victimizing our young people
are over. We have had enough, and I strongly encourage all of you to
use every means of creative, nonviolent civil disobedience to stop
military recruitment all across our country. I stand with you in this
important and courageous fight, and I am confident your actions in
the days ahead will inspire countless others across our country to do
everything they can to end this deeply immoral and illegal war.
--

(Note: This statement represents portions of several essays and
writings I have done over the past five years.­R.K.)

.

People must reclaim power

People must reclaim power

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080528/OPINION03/805280317/1039/OPINION03

May 28, 2008
By JOSEPH GAINZA

Inspired by Thomas Paine's dismissal of "sunshine patriots," and
following the example of Vietnam War vets 37 years earlier, veterans
of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations came together for three days,
March 13-16, 2008, under the banner of Winter Soldier.

At the George Meany National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., the
vets related their eyewitness accounts of the occupations, described
their sense of betrayal and shame, and the transformations, personal
and political, which still occupy them.

Iraq Veterans Against the War, event organizers, described the
purpose of the testimonies: Once again, we are fighting for the soul
of our country. We will demonstrate our patriotism by speaking out
with honor and integrity instead of blindly following failed policy.
Winter Soldier is a difficult but essential service to our country.

The vets described what they did and what they witnessed which made
them first question and then oppose the occupations. They talked
about how their initial exhilaration turned into resentment, anger,
fear and a sense of betrayal as they realized that rather than
freeing Iraq they were occupiers making up rules of engagement to
maintain control of the population.

The young men and women who went to Iraq with high ideals of
liberation and service to the Iraqi people described how their
humanity was diminished by the realities of military occupation and a
repressive U.S. government agenda.

These veterans are heroes who love their country. Many are proud to
have served in the military even as they now realize that the war
they were sent to, and the policies which led to it are criminally
wrong and immoral. They have done the excruciatingly hard work of
facing themselves and seeking the truth about their experience and behavior.

What are we to make of these testimonies? As the people who pay the
taxes for, and in whose name the U.S. government prosecutes war, what
is our responsibility? Now that we know that the reasons given for
invading Iraq were lies, how must we respond?

The Winter Soldier testifiers provide us with at least a partial
answer. Just as they had to come to grips with what they did in Iraq
and returned to try and save the soul of our country, we citizens
must come to grips with our own complicity in the policies and
behavior of the leaders of our democratic republic; we must become
Winter Citizens. We who love this country must face up to the reality
of its behavior in the world. We must learn that Iraq and Afghanistan
are not "mistakes" of the Bush administration but rather part of an
overarching policy framework that precedes by decades the current
presidency, including both Democratic and Republican administrations.

As Winter Citizens we must resolve never again naively to accept
government propaganda that plays on our fears and too easily
prescribes military violence to address complex international issues.
We must expand and deepen our historical memory and prevent
duplicitous leaders from taking our country into more unjust wars. We
must be critical of those who divide the world into good and evil, of
policies which serve the wealthy to the detriment of the common good,
which send the children of the poor to wars which benefit the hyper-wealthy.

While the Constitution says "We, the People," formed our union, it
was written and adopted by white, male landowners; everyone else was
excluded. The proud history of this nation is the nonviolent struggle
and immense effort of ordinary men and women to make "the people"
include landless men, African-Americans, women, and all people of
color. Enormous efforts are still being made to consolidate those
gains and to bring into our national embrace people with
disabilities, with differing sexual orientations and genders.

This history, unfinished as it is, demonstrates that we can take
collective action to force change and grow toward our best ideals and
values, that we are one people who, across the political spectrum,
value fairness, kindness, generosity, compassion, responsibility,
equality, integrity, honesty and freedom.

The final lesson of Winter Soldier is that as Winter Citizens we can
reclaim our power and save the soul of our country.
--

Joseph Gainza is the Vermont program coordinator of the American
Friends Service Committee.

.

Support for anti-war stance encourages soldier who won’t go

Support for anti-war stance encourages soldier who won't go

http://www.dothaneagle.com/dea/news/local/article/-DEA_2008_05_19_support_for_anti_war_stance_encourages_/17867/

May 19, 2008
BRITTANY WHITLEY
OA News

Auburn-native Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, 24, said response to his public
refusal to report to active duty and deploy to Iraq in June has been
mostly positive.

Chiroux made the announcement Tuesday in Washington D.C.

"I'm receiving overwhelming support," Chiroux said in a telephone
interview Saturday.

Chiroux said he has received more than 300 e-mails supporting his decision.

But not all of the reaction has been good.

There have been some messages posted on Web sites that have
threatened bodily harm against the soldier.

"(We are) still plagued by a minority on the far right that is
completely okay with engaging in tactics to threaten and frighten
us," he said.

Chiroux will leave from the nation's capital this week and return to
Brooklyn, N.Y., where he is currently a freshman studying political
science at Brooklyn College.

Chiroux will then return to Washington D.C. in an attempt to win an
audience with a committee in Congress.

He said the goal is to talk to Congress and build support for war
resisters in the legislative branches of the government.

The war in Iraq is unlawful, in Chiroux's opinion, because it is
based on falsifications and lies.

"Originally, we were told we were invading Iraq to find weapons of
mass destruction (WMD)," he said. "(And) that (the existence of WMDs)
was based on solid evidence."

He also said the Iraq War is over oil and not about defending America
from terrorists.

"He who controls the oil controls the rules," Chiroux said.

Chiroux said that because the United Nations did not authorize the
invasion, it is
illegal.

Chiroux said he is not opposed to all war, just the Iraq War.
Therefore, he said, he cannot be classified as a conscientious
objector, or someone who refuses to be deployed into a war zone
because he or she believes war all is immoral.

"Had the Army told me to go to Afghanistan, I would go to
Afghanistan," he said.

As a solider, Chiroux said he felt he had a duty to defend his
country, but morally, the Iraq War was just not an option.

Chiroux said he has been against the Iraq War since it began.
Civilian protestors like Cindy Sheehan gave him hope, he said, but
they failed to bring about change or stop the conflict.
He said he felt the same after a Democratic congress was elected in
2006, but that also failed to bring an end to the war.

"The only people who have any power left to move against this illegal
occupation is the soldiers themselves," he said.

As a solider, Chiroux said he tried not to get involved in the Iraq
War controversy.

"I was completely against the occupation from the very, very
beginning, but as a solider I thought it was my responsibility to
keep my mouth shut," he said.

He said as a veteran, he was wary of being labeled as a soldier
trying to play politics.

"We much more consider ourselves as witnesses to a crime," Chiroux
said, referring to himself and others like him who believe the Iraq
Conflict is illegal.

It is the responsibility of soldiers to report crimes to superiors,
Chiroux said.

Chiroux has put in more than four years of active service in Germany,
Japan, Afghanistan and the Philippines since his enlistment in the
Army in June 2002.

He said he understood that he could be deployed again after returning home.

A soldier is enlisted in the Army for eight years, typically with
four years on active duty.

"They are not safe until the eighth year," Nathan Banks, a Pentagon
spokesperson, said.

The Army decides the need for a particular person or a person's
specialty, Banks said.
"(It is a process) that can happen or may not happen," he said,
referring to soldiers being re-deployed after they return home.

"They have every right to call me up," Chiroux said. "(But the
policy) puts the burden of war on veterans who have already served."
--

bwhitley@oanow.com
737-2525

.

War resisters speaking out

War resisters speaking out

http://www.theobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1027915

Posted By JESSE McLEAN
5/14/08

Richard Droste is relying on the average Sarnian to protect him from
being deported to the United States.

Droste, along with fellow U.S. war resister Josh Randall, spoke to a
small crowd at the River City Vineyard on Tuesday night to raise
awareness on an upcoming Parliamentary motion that will decide
whether conscientious objectors can find refuge in Canada.

"It's not looking good. I'm worried that the government in Canada
right now is too bought into the American way of life," said Droste,
22, who is currently living in London under a refugee status claim.
"(If the motion fails), you're going to see hundreds of objectors
shipped back stateside, where a lot of them would probably get
imprisoned," he said.

The event, which was organized by the Bluewater Peace Initiative and
the War Resisters Support Campaign, encouraged local citizens to
write letters to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to gain support for the motion.

The federal Liberals have yet to take a stance on allowing war
resisters to apply for permanent residence, a motion which is
supported by the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party.

"I don't think most people are even aware this debate is going on.
But I think most of them support these guys staying here, and (this
event) helps raise awareness," said organizer Zak Nicholls, adding
during the Vietnam War, Canada admitted upwards of 50,000 resisters.
Randall, who is married to a Canadian and seeking permanent status,
left his position as a medic in Iraq after "there weren't any answers
to all the questions of what we were doing."

"I was a stupid one and didn't see what we were really doing there
until I was already there for four months," the 20-year-old Texan said.

When asked whether they were afraid of being punished for deserting
the army, Droste said his message is worth the risk. "I didn't come
here to hide. I came here to change minds, and if I go to jail, more
power to me."

.

U.S. war resisters' plea for compassion

U.S. war resisters' plea for compassion

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/News/Annex/article/48365

Area residents gather at U of T to hear 10 young Americans' plea for amnesty

BY LIAM LAHEY
May 22, 2008

U.S. Iraq war resister Corey Glass was told by Citizenship and
Immigration Canada recently that his application to stay here has
been rejected and he now faces deportation in three weeks.

If deported, the Parkdale resident would be the first American war
resister to be sent back to the U.S. since the late 1960s when
Canadian border officials physically carried a man attempting to
dodge the Vietnam draft back over the Peace Bridge and deposited him
at the feet of U.S. officials. That event caused an uproar in Canada,
and led to then prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau declaring
immigration officials would no longer ask any American about their
military status.

Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq. He
made his move after the U.S. implemented its "stop-loss" policy - the
involuntary extension of a member's active duty under the enlistment
contract in order to retain them beyond their initial term of service.

"I came here because Canada did not join the Iraq War ... I knew
Canada had welcomed many Americans during the Vietnam War," he said.

Dressed in a black suit and looking emotionally spent, he joined nine
other American war resisters discussing their plight to remain in
Canada at a community forum on May 21 at the Innis Town Hall at the
University of Toronto.

After serving eight months in Iraq before going absent without leave,
Joshua Key, author of A Deserter's Tale, arrived in Toronto in 2005
seeking refuge after being repeatedly lied to by the military, he said.

"I joined (the U.S. Army) in 2002 primarily for health care and
steady pay," Key said. "I was raising my family (Key has three young
sons) in Oklahoma City at the time and I couldn't cut the bills. ...
I was told I wouldn't be sent overseas ... I should have gotten a
magnifying glass and read the fine print (of his enlistment contract)
and told them to 'Hold on'."

Kimberley Rivera, the first female American war deserter in history
and a mother of two, was shipped to Baghdad in August 2006 where she
served as a guard searching civilians and vehicles. Upon being
notified she would be sent back to Iraq for a second tour of duty,
she and her family packed up and left their home in Mesquite, Texas,
in February 2007 and drove to Toronto.

"I wasn't truly sorry for joining (the army) until witnessing some of
the things I did in Iraq," she said. "The way families were destroyed
... and what it did to children there impacted me. ... I felt
helpless. ... I'm a mom and that's your basic instinct: to protect children."

It is estimated that several hundred Iraq War resisters are currently
hiding in Canada. Beyond the shame of being regarded as criminals at
home, some also face being ostracized by their own families.

"My dad thinks I'm a coward and a traitor and my mother simply
doesn't understand," said army deserter Steve Yoczick, whose father
served in the U.S. Marine Corp. in Vietnam.

Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow told the audience if the Liberal party
would do as the Bloc Quebecois has and supported her motion to
prevent American war resisters from being sent stateside the issue
could be formally introduced into the House of Commons and debated publicly.

"If (Liberal leader) Stephane Dion were to say tomorrow that he
supports this motion ... we will then debate it," she said. "So we
need people to call Mr. Dion ... 'whose side you on Mr. Dion'?"

Etobicoke Centre MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was also in attendance. He
suggested it would take more from the public than placing a phone
call or sending an e-mail.

"A motion does not compel the government to act ... a resolution
does," he said. "If you have a majority of Parliamentarians
supporting a resolution it would (move the issue forward) ... it's
something we wouldn't want to do until the time is right; when the
public sends us a strong signal."

As the forum wound down, one young man stood up and identified
himself as a U.S. war deserter from Illinois who's been hiding in
Toronto for the last two weeks. He, too, appeared to be emotionally
exhausted. But he also looked genuinely relieved to be surrounded by
supporters and friends from home facing a similar, uncertain future.
--

Visit the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign at

www.resisters.ca for details.

.

Soldiers say they fled on principle

Soldiers say they fled on principle

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1042493&auth=Scott+Dunn

American servicemen came to Canada rather than fight a war in which
they don't believe

By Scott Dunn
05/25/08

Two United States Army soldiers who have deserted and fled to Canada
say they did so as conscientious objectors, not to save their own skins.

They brought the plight of other war resisters to First United Church
in Owen Sound Saturday night.

They don't want to fight in the five-year-old U.S.-led war in Iraq,
which was initially justified with the now-discredited threat that
the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction.

Rich Droste, a 22-year-old who rose quickly through the ranks to
become a trainer of soldiers and was last stationed in Korea, and
Josh Randall, a 21-one-year-old medic last stationed in Iraq, came to
Owen Sound courtesy of the War Resister Support Group of London, Ont.

Ask Droste if he fled because he was afraid to die and he grows
restless. "I hate that question," he said in an interview before
Saturday's presentation, vigorously objecting to the idea that he
won't fight because he's afraid.

"I joined when I believed the war was necessary. I was great at my
job. I loved it.

"There's something very primal about it, something that you dream
about since you were a little boy. You know, shooting and blowing stuff up."

Droste, who came to Canada in March, hasn't become an overnight
pacifist though. Sometimes war is still necessary, he said.

"If it wasn't a war for oil. If it wasn't political and about one
man's agenda, then I would have considered fighting."

The non-commissioned officer had completed almost all of a four-year
commitment when his service was extended another four years under the
U.S. "stop-loss" policy. He had been told about the possibility, but
it was only supposed to happen if the Third World War broke out, he said.

Unlike the soldiers drafted during the Vietnam War, these ones signed
up voluntarily while the war in Iraq raged on. Skeptics question how
young men could sign up to fight, then be allowed to change their
minds when faced with the bloodshed in the seemingly unwinnable Iraq war.

Advertisement

The Canadian Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration
recommended on Dec. 6 that the government let conscientious objectors
and their immediate families stay in Canada, with certain provisos.
The government's dissenting view was that the refugee application
process is sufficient.

Randall fled to Canada on leave in January. The Texan says he signed
up out of patriotism, stoked by images on Fox News, the right-wing
television giant. "Follow the flag, don't look to the left or to the
right. Just follow blindly and don't question your government."

He admits he was scared in Iraq, but he said he has rejected the war
on higher principles. Once enlisted, he learned of human rights
abuses, including torture of prisoners.

During four months service in Kirkuk, Iraq, Randall ­ who had little
medical training ­ was allowed to perform medical procedures such as
inserting a tube to create an emergency airway on wounded Iraqis.
Only a doctor would be allowed to do that on American soldiers. "They
were our practice dummies," he said.

Visits to concrete detention centres gradually pricked his conscience
to the point he decided to desert, he said. It gets cold at night and
Iraqis slept on the floor with a blanket. Rules said prisoners may
only urinate on scheduled breaks every eight hours.

"So if they had to go between there, they had to hold it, whether
they had bladder problems or not," Randall said.

Prisoners were yelled at, separated from the others and put in cells
outside if they peed in bottles. They weren't allowed to talk,
Randall said. "Basic human rights were definitely neglected."

On leave with his wife in London, Ont., and filled with doubts, he
started researching the war. "Canada decided to stay out of the war.
The UN decided it was an illegal war. It's illegal by how many
counts, from mistreatment of civilians to profiteering."

Droste blames himself, his youth and sense of adventure and
compelling recruitment campaigns aimed at his demographic for helping
him jump into army life. He knew Iraq service was a possibility but
he was "young and naive."

"We're sending our poor to die," by promising to pay for their
education, he said. "You don't meet a rich soldier in the United
States Army. It just doesn't happen."

He said it bothered him when he'd hear the U.S. Army moved into a new
Iraqi city and find one or two terrorists among 300 who were wounded
or killed. He also objects to U.S. defence industry friends getting
rich off the war on the backs of dead soldiers and innocent people, he said.

"I also feel that America, in a sense, had it coming to itself. We
spread like a cancer. We want to spread our idealism to every country
we make contact with. And if they don't do what we say then we're
going to force them to do what we say."

But he's not a terrorist sympathizer, he added. Born and raised
mostly in Detroit but for a few years in Indiana, he now thinks the
U.S. is "very socialist . . . working itself towards communism." He
cited Naomi Wolfe's "The End of America," which he read in the
service, which argues civil rights and democracy in the U.S are under attack.

Having volunteered for service, he thinks he has earned the right to
withdraw. "What about the 99 per cent of the United States' people
that will never volunteer a day in their life for the army? But
they're going to be the first to criticize you."

Droste said if his application for refugee status, to be heard Sept.
17, is turned down, he could face jail or even the death penalty upon
deportation. Randall hasn't applied for refugee status yet but he may
to get a work permit faster. He won't be deported because of his
Canadian wife, he believes.

Their visit was also supported by the Grey Bruce Coalition for Peace
and Justice and the Peace and Justice Committee of Grey Presbytery.

.

Memories of Iraq Haunted Soldier Until Suicide

Memories of Iraq Haunted Soldier Until Suicide

http://www.truthout.org/article/memories-iraq-haunted-soldier-until-suicide

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/38275.html

Sunday 25 May 2008
by: Halimah Abdullah

Washington - Until the day he died, Sgt. Brian Rand believed he was
being haunted by the ghost of the Iraqi man he killed.

The ghost choked Rand while he slept in his bunk, forcing him to
wake up gasping for air and clawing at his throat.

He whispered that Rand was a vampire and looked on as the
soldier stabbed another member of Fort Campbell's 96th Aviation
Support Battalion in the neck with a fork in the mess hall.

Eventually, the ghost told Rand he needed to kill himself.

According to family members and police reports, on Feb. 20,
2007, just a few months after being discharged from his second tour
of duty in Iraq, Rand smoked half of a cigarette as he wrote a
suicide note, grabbed a gun and went to the Cumberland River Center
Pavilion in Clarksville, Tenn. As the predawn dark pressed in, he
breathed in the wintry air and stared out at the park where he and
his wife, Dena, had married.

Then he placed the gun to his head and silenced his inner ghosts.

"My brother was afraid to ask for help," said April Somdahl.
"And when he finally did ask for help the military let him down."

Since the start of the Iraq war, Fort Campbell, a sprawling
installation on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, has seen a spike in
the number of suicides and soldiers suffering from severe post
traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

In 2007, nine soldiers from Fort Campbell committed suicide -
three during the first few weeks of October, according to a letter to
base personnel by the 101st Airborne Division's commander, Maj. Gen.
Jeffrey Schloesser.

"As our soldiers fight terrorism, the sacrifices asked of them
and their families have increased significantly," Schloesser said in
the letter. "... Regrettably, under such circumstances, it is natural
for our people to feel the stress of these demands and to be
overwhelmed at times. Tragically, these pressures too often end in suicide."

Fort Campbell spokeswoman Cathy Gramling said post officials
were unable to track the suicides referred to in the letter and
declined to give additional suicide figures. The Pentagon said it
does not track suicides by military installation.

Fort Campbell's suicide record tracks with a national upsurge -
99 active-duty troops committed suicide in 2006, the highest rate in
nearly three decades, according to the Pentagon.

According to the Army, more than 2,000 active-duty soldiers
attempted suicide or suffered serious self-inflicted injuries in
2007, compared to fewer than 500 such cases in 2002, the year before
the United States invaded Iraq.

A recent study by the nonprofit Rand Corp. found that 300,000 of
the nearly 1.7 million soldiers who've served in Iraq or Afghanistan
suffer from PTSD or a major mental illness, conditions that are
worsened by lengthy deployments and, if left untreated, can lead to suicide.

Soldiers deployed from Fort Campbell have served up to 15-month
stints and have fought in such heavy combat zones as Basra, Mosul and
Al Anbar province. Some soldiers, like Brian Rand, have been deployed
multiple times since the war began.

The Pentagon and the Department of Veteran Affairs have added
mental health workers and staff to help families and troops cope with
the effects of prolonged combat and to encourage deployed troops to
support each other through a buddy system.

But sometimes soldiers fall through the cracks.

Rand's family says a culture that often attaches a stigma to
troops who seek help and a stop-loss policy designed to keep soldiers
on the battlefield ultimately led to his death.

"Truthfully I don't think Brian had a grip on why things were
happening the way they were," said his mother, Janice Minnella.

For a while Sgt. Brian Rand enjoyed being assigned to Fort
Campbell and working as a helicopter mechanic.

But that was before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the War on Terror.

Before Iraq.

As the war dragged on and Rand was sent first to Kuwait, then
Iraq, he told family members that he felt torn about the things he saw.

Once while wounded soldiers were being evacuated by helicopter
in the Green Zone in central Baghdad, Rand waved at a man he knew.
The man turned and Brian saw that half of the man's face was ripped off.

Brian later told his sister he was shocked by how white the
bones looked under the flesh.

Then one day, while standing guard near the Green Zone, Rand
killed an Iraqi man.

"The spirit of the man that he killed didn't leave him, it kept
harassing him," Somdahl said of her brother. "He said this guy is
following me around in the mess hall, he's trying to kill me. I told
him to leave me alone but he says he wants to take me with him.'"

To help ease his nightly terrors, April would log onto her
computer and talk to her brother over the Internet until he fell asleep.

She ended every conversation the same way.

"Sleep well, baby boy. Tomorrow is a new day."

But when he returned from Iraq in 2005, Brian Rand was a different man.

His voice was distant. His jokes were morbid. He moved as if
trapped in a nightmare.

At his family's behest, he finally sought counseling at a
hospital near Fort Campbell. He later told his sister the waiting
room was full of soldiers who went in for 10-minute visits with a
psychiatrist and came out with prescriptions for pills.

The psychiatrist spent nearly two hours with him and wrote an
evaluation that suggested he not return to battle, Somdahl said. But
that paperwork never made it to his commanding officer. That Sunday,
Rand was told his unit was deploying back to Iraq.

His widow, Dena, said the military told her it has no record of
the psychiatrist's recommendation that he not redeploy to a combat
zone or any record of requests during his first tour of duty for a
mental evaluation.

Months after he returned to Iraq in November 2005, Rand picked
up a fork, stabbed a fellow soldier in the neck in the mess hall,
then crawled into the fetal position and sobbed. The soldiers in
Rand's unit picked him up and carried him over to a phone, dialed his
sister and placed the phone to his ear.

"I asked why did you do that?" Somdahl said. "He said I thought
I was a vampire. I said, you're going to get a punishment, but maybe
they'll let you come home."

They didn't, at least not right away.

When he did return in August 2006, he answered "yes" to
questions on a post-deployment health assessment form that asked if
he was having nightmares, mood swings and felt hopeless, according to
his wife, who has copies of his medical paperwork.

But his demons followed him home.

"He wanted to hibernate with me, he started to be more clingy,"
Dena Rand said. "One day he got upset and he started punching himself
and gave himself a black eye. He went to formation with that black eye."

Eventually Rand's thoughts turned to death.

"He had a rifle that his wife bought for him," his mother said.
"He had been rehearsing (the suicide) by putting it to his mouth and
threatening his wife that he would do it. I asked him if he was
serious, he said no."

He also became increasingly violent toward his pregnant wife,
and his stepdaughter once had to call the police.

"He was very remorseful about that," Dena Rand said.

Weeks later, his body was found steps from the place where he
and his wife married.

.

A victim of the war within

A SOLDIER'S TRAGIC TALE

A victim of the war within

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5788103.html

Suicides of Houston Army recruiter and his wife leave questions of
struggle that endured after Iraq

By LINDSAY WISE
May 18, 2008

Army recruiter Nils Aron Andersson sat behind the wheel of his
brand-new Ford F-150, firing round after round into the truck's CD
player and radio with a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Spent
cartridges littered the seats and floorboards, along with a paper
pharmacy bag holding a prescription for the antidepressant Lexapro.

Andersson's wife, Cassy Walton, had been trying to reach the
25-year-old sergeant on his cell phone for hours. He finally picked
up about 2 a.m. and told her he wanted to kill himself.

Walton begged him to keep talking to her. Andersson told her he was
on the top floor of a downtown Houston parking garage and ended the
call. Then he put the pistol to his head, just above his right ear.

Minutes later, Walton raced up the stairs of the garage to find her
husband of less than 24 hours slumped on the driver's side of his
truck, bleeding from a single bullet wound to his right temple.

Sobbing, she unlocked the truck with her own key, climbed onto his
lap, and started CPR.

"Why did you do this?" she screamed.

When Andersson killed himself on March 6, 2007, he became one of at
least 16 Army recruiters to commit suicide nationwide since 2000.
Five of those suicides occurred in Texas, including three at the
Houston Recruiting Battalion, where Andersson worked after serving
two tours of duty in Iraq.

Roughly one in five U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan
reports symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major
depression, but only slightly more than half have sought treatment,
according to a recently published Rand Corp. study. Of those who did
seek care, only about half received minimally adequate treatment, the
study found.

Amid increasing concerns about failure to screen, diagnose and treat
soldiers with mental health problems adequately, Andersson's story
raises questions about the pressures faced by the growing number of
veterans who return from multiple combat deployments to high-stress
recruiting assignments back home.

Leaving for Iraq

A quiet, skinny kid who loved to fish, hunt and ride ATVs along the
Oregon coast, where he was born, Andersson ­ who preferred his middle
name Aron ­ joined the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in 2002, three
years after graduating high school.

In 2003, he left to fight in the initial U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
It was the first time he'd been abroad in his life.

"I probably prayed more in the first six months than I had in a long
while," said his father, Bob Andersson, 53, who works for the city
parks department in Eugene, Ore. "Every time the phone rings, you
panic. I'm not kidding you there; for months, I'd come home and I'd
stop at the end of the street and go, 'God, I hope there's not a car
with military plates in front of my house.' "

Andersson earned a Bronze Star with valor for saving the lives of two
other soldiers during a firefight. But when he came home, the soldier
avoided his family's questions about the war.

Relieved to have him back, they didn't press him.

"When I asked him how he'd earned his Bronze Star, he just said,
'Doing my job, Dad,' " Bob Andersson said.

The father remembers looking at photographs taken during his son's
service in Iraq and feeling helpless to understand what the young man
had been through.

"You can't imagine what was going on," he said. "You can see the
pictures, but you still weren't there to smell it, or feel the heat,
or see the cars burning or what was left of someone after a bomb went off."

The only thing the father knew for sure was that his son had changed.
He was more frustrated, less patient and harder to talk to.

"Did he come back different? Yeah," Bob Andersson said. "I don't
think there's anybody who goes over there and fights on the front
lines who ever comes back the same."

The soldier once told his father about working a barricade in Iraq
when a white van barreled toward U.S. troops, ignoring warning shots
and orders to stop.

"It was definitely a suicide mission, and he said this van full of
people came in and they had to, quote, 'light it up,' " Bob Andersson
said. "And he said there were children in there and everything. I
could tell that really, really, bothered him."

Life as a recruiter

When Andersson transferred to the Houston Recruiting Battalion, his
father hoped that he would be able to put the past behind him.
Instead, he became more depressed.

"He had a heart of gold and that, I think, is what killed him.
Because he got into something so outrageously different than his
basic makeup, and he just couldn't get over it."

As a recruiter stationed in River Oaks and Rosenberg, Andersson often
worked six days a week, routinely got home after 11 p.m., and would
sometimes weep from despair and exhaustion, said his ex-girlfriend
Marsha Maxey, a mortgage banker who dated the soldier before he met
Cassy Walton.

Maxey met Andersson in August 2005 at an Irish pub in Columbia, S.C.,
where he was attending recruiter school at Fort Jackson.

"He was a good-looking man ­ tall, blue eyes, blond hair, smart,
funny and kind. A sensitive guy and a man in uniform, that whole
thing," Maxey said. "He swept me off my feet."

Their 14-year age difference was never a problem, said Maxey, who is
40. "It worked out very well because he was an old soul," she said.
"He'd seen a lot of things for his young age."

Two months into a whirlwind romance, she moved to Texas to be with
him when Andersson began his new job with the Houston Recruiting Battalion.

"It was instantly an incredibly stressful job," Maxey said. "From the
beginning since I met him, he cried very easily and I thought, 'Oh,
he's just sensitive,' but then it got worse."

Occasionally, Andersson talked to Maxey about his time in Iraq. The
details slipped out in bits and pieces ­ like a story about surviving
a deadly helicopter crash, or carrying a wounded buddy to safety
after his unit was ambushed.

"He told me he kicked down over 1,000 doors," Maxey said. "He was the
lead guy, the first one to go in, and most of the time it was the
wrong place. There would be terrified old people and little kids
sitting there."

Andersson suffered from dramatic mood swings. He got nervous in big
crowds and would wake up in the middle of the night "just screaming,"
Maxey said.

Andersson also developed a low self-esteem and an extreme fear of
abandonment, she said. A few months before he committed suicide, he
sent Maxey a text message saying he was "going to get rid of himself
because he was a monster like Saddam," she recalled.

"He would just get so distraught over his job and the things he'd
seen," Maxey said. "It was more than he could take."

Mounting pressure

Making matters worse, Andersson felt uncomfortable in the role of
salesman for the Army. He was painfully honest with prospective
recruits, even if his candor turned them off, she said.

"He was morally opposed to putting more young men into that
situation, where they could be injured or killed or see the things
he'd seen," Maxey said.

His superiors repeatedly criticized him for failing to meet his goal
of signing two new recruits a month and assigned him five-page essays
or extra duty as punishment, she said. In February 2006, he was
passed up for promotion to staff sergeant.

"It wasn't that he was lazy or not working. It's just that he was not
getting recruits and being punished for it, constantly," she said.
"It was just not the job for him."

Andersson was proud to be a soldier, but he wasn't cut out for
recruiting, said his friend Chris Rodriguez.

Long hours, few days off and mounting pressure to deliver fresh
volunteers made life "truly awful," Rodriguez said in a series of
e-mails and a telephone interview with the Houston Chronicle from
Anbar Province in Iraq, where he was serving a tour of duty at the
time of Andersson's death.

''In the recruiting station I was at, a good third of the people went
on antidepressants while working there," said Rodriguez, who met
Andersson in Texas while assigned to the Houston Recruiting
Battalion. "You could come to work as motivated as you wanted, but as
soon as you passed the threshold of the doorway, it'd suck the life
away from you. Looking around, you'd see miserable people."

If recruiters failed to sign up enough prospects, their commanders
told them they were failures, Rodriguez said. "They tell you, 'That's
why your buddy in Iraq doesn't have a full battalion, because you're
letting him down,' "he said.

The stress took its toll. Back in Iraq, Rodriguez had nightmares
about his time recruiting in Houston.

"The pressure recruiting puts on you wears you down so badly," he
said. "We often said that we'd rather be in Iraq than recruiting. It's true."

Threats of suicide

By October 2006, Andersson's problems had become too serious to ignore.

When he put a gun in his mouth during an argument with Maxey, she
called Andersson's father, who contacted the Army.

When he heard what his father had done, Andersson was furious.

"He said, 'Thanks for ruining my career, Dad,' " his father said.
"And I said, 'Well, I'm sorry about that, Aron.' And he goes, 'Why
did you do it?' I just told him, 'You know, if something happened to
you and I could've done anything at all to prevent it and I didn't, I
could never live with myself. Because the only thing I'm sure of in
this world is the father's supposed to die before the children.' "

The next day, an officer took Andersson to Brooke Army Medical Center
at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where he underwent three days of
tests and counseling. A psychiatrist determined he was "clinically
depressed but no immediate danger to himself," Army records show.

"The psychiatrist told him he had depression and PTSD (post-traumatic
stress disorder) and said he would send him a referral for a
psychiatrist and therapist in Houston, but he never did," Maxey said.
"Aron never received any follow-up."

Medical records from Brooke Army Medical Center show that Andersson
was prescribed medication for depression and anxiety after doctors
evaluated him for potential self-harm on Oct. 23, 2006. Records also
show at least two subsequent appointments were canceled by the
facility and one by Andersson.

Meanwhile, Andersson's commanders at the Houston Recruiting Battalion
directed his station in Rosenberg to keep an eye on him and ordered
his weapons to be taken away.

But Andersson managed to keep the .22-caliber pistol he'd used to
threaten suicide.

His parents say their son's commanders and doctors should have
monitored him more closely to ensure he was getting the help he needed.

"Obviously, they did not take it seriously enough," said Andersson's
mother, Charlotte Porter. "He needed to have a break period. He
needed to be removed from his position and get treatment."

As a soldier who served his country honorably, Andersson deserved the
best possible care, regardless of whether his wounds were physical or
mental, his father said.

"I don't think Aron let the Army down, I think the Army let him
down," he said. "I think that the care wasn't there that he really needed."

A new relationship

By December 2006, Andersson still hadn't started regular therapy.

As his relationship with Maxey fell apart, he met Cassy Walton, a
vivacious investment banker who also struggled with severe
depression. He eventually would leave the Texas Avenue apartment he
shared with Maxey at Lofts at the Ballpark to move into Walton's loft
in the old Rice Hotel building, a dozen blocks away.

The day before New Year's Eve, Andersson threatened suicide again,
this time in front of Walton.

In January, Walton sent an e-mail addressed to Andersson and a
handful of other people, announcing she planned to kill herself.

Neither went through with their threats, but their deadly
brinksmanship worried those around them.

"It's amazing that two people so volatile could get together like
that," Maxey said. "I don't know if they were trying to rescue each
other, to keep each other from committing suicide, but it turned out
to be the worst combination. They both needed help so badly."

Walton had bipolar disorder, commonly known as manic depression, said
her sister, Cindy Walton.

It was a condition she shared with their mother, who killed herself
in October 2003 by setting her car on fire.

"Cassy was never the same after that," her sister said. "She was a
real mama's girl."

A short, tragic marriage

It wasn't until the day the couple married, March 5, 2007, that
Andersson finally had an appointment with a psychiatrist in Houston.

Afterward, Andersson sent his friend Chris Rodriguez an online
message: "I went to the wizard today, she told me that I need to get
out of the army and my job sucks. I could have told her that ... but
anyhow. I will be alright."

He told Rodriguez he'd replaced his old Jeep Wrangler with a Ford
F-150, but he never mentioned he'd married Cassy Walton in a brief
civil ceremony at 8:30 that morning. Andersson didn't tell his
parents or younger brother, John, either.

The newlyweds had agreed to meet up after work, but Andersson came
home around 8:45 p.m. to an empty apartment. His bride was
celebrating their marriage with friends at Shay McElroy's Irish Pub
downtown on Main.

Walton later told police Andersson "seemed to be upset because she
was not paying as much attention to him as he thought she should be."

The couple argued. Andersson stormed out and drove to Maxey's
apartment, where the recruiter told his ex-girlfriend he feared he'd
made a big mistake.

Then Walton arrived.

"She was beating on the door like she was going to knock it down,"
Maxey said. "I just thought, 'This is crazy. I can't put up with this
kind of stuff.' "

Maxey told Andersson she'd had enough.

"As much as I loved him, I knew I shouldn't be in that relationship,"
she said. He left about 1:30 a.m. but called her again on his cell
phone. "He said, 'I don't know what to do, I don't know what I'm
going to do.' " Andersson finally agreed to go spend the night with a friend.

Instead, he locked himself inside his new Ford pickup on the top
floor of Maxey's parking garage with the same .22-caliber pistol he'd
put in his mouth in October.

Less than an hour later, he was dead.

The phone call

A phone ringing at 3 a.m. jarred Bob Andersson from sleep to the news
that his son had killed himself.

He wasn't surprised.

"It was really surreal," he said. "I'd been hoping and praying, of
course, that it would never happen, and then when it did, there
wasn't any shock. I mean, it wasn't shock, it was just your worst nightmare."

He called his son's commanders at the recruiting battalion to tell
them Aron had committed suicide. A sergeant answered the phone.

"He said, 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' Then he called up a major and said,
'I've got Sgt. Andersson's dad on the phone, and he says Aron shot
himself,' " Bob Andersson recalled. "And that's when I overheard the
major ask him, 'How in the hell could he shoot himself? We
confiscated all his guns.' "

New threats of suicide

Three hours after Houston police called Andersson's mother to report
her son's suicide, the phone rang again. On the other end of the
line, a woman named Cassy Walton identified herself as Andersson's wife.

Charlotte Porter, who is divorced from Andersson's father, knew
Walton had been dating her son for about three months. She had no
idea the couple had married less than 24 hours before her son's death.

"I knew about her and that he had moved in with her," said Porter,
51, a staffing representative with a temp agency in Eugene. "I had
never met her. And I'd never talked to her before, either."

Police had found Walton sobbing and screaming as she tried to perform
CPR on Andersson's body.

Now, on the phone with her mother-in-law, Walton told Porter she
wanted to join him.

"I said, 'Cassy, are you alone? You can't be alone,' " Porter said.

Walton gave her a friend's phone number to call in Houston.

Porter hung up and immediately dialed the number. "You need to go to
Cassy right now," she said.

Walton's friends took her to nearby St. Joseph Medical Center for
psychiatric care. She still wore clothes drenched in her husband's
blood when she voluntarily committed herself.

Her younger sister, Cindy Walton, was relieved to hear her sibling
had been hospitalized. She worried her sister might try to hurt
herself now that she'd lost both her mother and her husband to suicide.

"I understood the hospital was going to hold her for 24 hours because
she had mentioned suicide," she said. About 8:30 p.m., however, Cassy
Walton checked herself out and asked one of Andersson's commanders,
Maj. Bruce Finklea, to drive her home.

Finklea dropped Walton off at her apartment with a friend, Amanda
Powell. Later, Powell called Finklea back and asked him to return
Walton to the hospital.

But Walton refused to go. Finklea called 911.

When police arrived, Walton told them she was not suicidal, just
tired. Police said they saw nothing wrong with her and left.

The next morning, the Houston Recruiting Battalion's commander, Lt.
Col. Troy Reeves, visited Walton at her apartment, where she also met
with a casualty assistance officer. At some point, however, Walton
was left alone again.

She went to a sporting goods store and bought a 9 mm handgun. Then
she started drinking.

A few hours later, Walton called Andersson's younger brother, John,
in Oregon. Walton said she had a gun and did not want to live. The
Anderssons alerted Houston police, but as officers tried to talk to
her through the door of her apartment at Post Rice Lofts, Walton
pulled the trigger.

Police found her sprawled on her bed wearing Andersson's fatigue
jacket and dog tags. She was pronounced dead at 7:45 p.m. March 7,
2007 ­ one day after Andersson killed himself, and two days after
their wedding.

Mourning a soldier

During a yearlong review of the couple's suicides by the Chronicle,
Army officials declined to answer questions about the circumstances
of their deaths, instead referring the newspaper to documents
obtained by family members and a reporter through the Freedom of
Information Act.

In a written statement, Lt. Col. Reeves praised Andersson as "an
outstanding fallen comrade."

Although he said privacy laws prevented him from discussing
Andersson's diagnoses, treatment or death, Reeves stressed that the
well-being of the battalion's soldiers is "a priority."

Whenever commanders become aware of the need for a recruiter or his
family to obtain mental health treatment, they "seek recommendations
from medical professionals and work diligently to implement these
recommendations," Reeves wrote.

The entire battalion was hit hard by Andersson's death, he added.
Fellow recruiters held a memorial in Houston, and some traveled to
Oregon for his funeral. "We still feel and grieve the loss of Sgt.
Andersson, a brother in arms, whose tragic death still causes us ...
to ask questions to which we may never know or fully understand the answers."

Two families in grief

For Bob Andersson and others left to mourn the young couple, grief is
sharpened by regret.

Months after his son's suicide, the father found himself sorting
through photographs at his dining room table in Springfield, Ore.,
peering at the features of his older child as though he might read
some message in his face ­ a warning, a plea for help, an explanation.

"This is the first thing I think of every morning when I wake up," he
said recently. "I've cried more since Aron died than I have the 52
years behind me."

It took Walton's sister months to get over her anger toward
Andersson. She had met him only once or twice before her sister
suddenly announced they were getting married. She thought the soldier
seemed "cold" and emotionally disconnected.

"I blamed him for a long time. I actually told his dad I wanted to
burn his stuff because I thought my sister just didn't need to meet
somebody with such mental problems," said Cindy Walton, who lives
with her 7-year-old son, Randy, in Humble. "Now, learning about his
sickness, I don't blame him. I feel bad for his family because his
family's in pain."

Two months ago, the 28-year-old Realtor received a surprise care
package from Andersson's mother, Charlotte Porter. The box held a
snow globe inscribed in memory of her sister.

A few days later, the two women spoke on the phone for the first time
and wept, Porter said. "I suffer, too, every day, and there's a bond
there," she said.

Porter recently joined a support group for parents with soldiers in Iraq.

Sometimes a parent worried about a son or daughter suffering from
post-traumatic stress disorder or depression will ask Porter what
they should do. She's not sure what to tell them.

Whenever she had asked her son how he was doing, he'd told her he was
fine, that she worried too much, that he was trying to get help.
She'd wanted to believe him. He was proud, and she didn't want to
pry. Now she wishes she had.

"I feel bad I didn't get to know sooner what was going on," Porter
said. "I just wish I had walked right into that recruiting office,
grabbed him by the collar and said, 'You're not getting him back
until he's straightened out.' "
--

lindsay.wise@chron.com

.

GIs, vet resisters take lead in anti-war actions

GIs, vet resisters take lead in anti-war actions

http://www.workers.org/2008/us/anti-war_0529/

By John Catalinotto
Published May 24, 2008

Veterans groups and individual GI resisters and their supporters have
taken the lead in the U.S. anti-war movement. In mid-May there were
multiple reports of war refusals and one mass protest at a major
military training base for troops headed for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Near Fort Drum in upstate New York, the Watertown-based Different
Drummer Café joined with the Iraq Veterans Against the War and peace
activists who had marched from the upstate cities of Rochester,
Ithaca and Utica to hold a festival on May 17, Armed Forces Day.

Drummer organizer Tod Ensign told Workers World that as the official
Armed Forces Day Parade ended outside the Dulles Federal Building,
Col. Kenneth Riddle, Fort Drum's garrison commander, found himself
surrounded by IVAW members in their black T-shirts.

When asked about the failure of the command to address Iraq veterans'
problems with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), all Col. Riddle
could say was, "I just got here two weeks ago." Though the vets
requested a meeting, Riddle begged it off.

The festival, scheduled for a campsite and including five popular
musical performances, moved inside to the Different Drummer when rain
started. One observer described the scene: "Veterans and
anti-warriors from at least four U.S. wars mingled happily together.
The Drummer was bursting at the seams, as festival participants
spilled on to the mall walkway outside while over 50 danced and
celebrated inside."

An African-American veteran read a poem dedicated to his wife, a
soldier who has been called up for a second tour of duty in Iraq. She
was in the audience holding their 7-month-old son. The couple
received a tremendous outpouring of sympathy, including assurances of
legal, moral and practical support, whatever choice they make.

Ensign noted the atmosphere of mutual understanding between the
upstate peace movement and the soldiers just now beginning to
question the war. Another good point was the marchers' reception in a
traditionally conservative area­a local American Legion chapter
hosted the marchers for dinner and let them stay in their hall for
the night. Plus the marchers got relatively good publicity in both
local upstate press and in the New York Times. (May 15)

Ensign told how Gen. Michael Oates, commander of Fort Drum's 10th
Mountain Division, had released a conciliatory statement during the
week that he "welcomed" the peace marchers, saw "no problem" with
their demonstrating on base if they didn't block traffic, and said
active-duty GIs could join in if they didn't wear uniforms.
Support for resisters

Other signs of the disenchantment with the wars were the growing
number of war resisters.

One is Army PFC Ryan Jackson, who was formally charged with multiple
counts of being absent without leave, stemming from his attempt to be
released from the Army prior to Iraq deployment. His special court
martial­with a maximum one-year prison sentence­on these charges is
set for May 30 at Fort Gordon, Ga.

"Since I joined up with Courage to Resist and Iraq Veterans Against
the War, my life has changed. I plan to write a book about all of
this, and to make positive change in my community when I get out,"
said Jackson before turning himself in at Fort Sill, Okla., on April 4.

Dianne Mathiowetz, the Atlanta coordinator for the International
Action Center, told WW, "Support for Ryan Jackson is building with
activists in the Augusta area near Fort Gordon. Also, the Georgia
Peace and Justice Coalition and the IAC are mobilizing to attend the
vigil the night of May 29 and the court martial. All members of the
military who refuse to participate in this illegal war of occupation
deserve our full support."

IVAW member Matthis Chiroux announced on May 15 in Washington, D.C.,
his refusal to report to active duty. Sgt. Chiroux, who is originally
from Auburn, Ala., has done tours in Germany, Afghanistan and the
Philippines since his June 2002 enlistment.

"As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter service
members' stories," Chiroux said, "I heard many stomach-churning
testimonies of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq. For fear
of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes,
but never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I
fail to stand."

Chiroux announced his courageous decision in the Cannon House Office
Building rotunda, after fellow IVAW members testified before the
Congressional Progressive Caucus.

During a court martial May 13 at Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany,
U.S. Army conscientious objector Robert Weiss was sentenced to seven
months confinement. Weiss pled guilty to charges of desertion and
missing movement. Weiss had learned in December 2007 that his
conscientious objector application was denied.

Bryan Currie says he joined the Army in November 2004 because "I
thought it would be a good thing to fight for my country." He was
trained as an Infantry Grenadier and was deployed to Afghanistan in
2006 for 11 months. He describes what he experienced when he got injured:

"We were on a convoy to pick up another soldier. I was the driver. On
the way back my truck got hit by a land mine. ... I got burned, I
lost four teeth, broke my jaw, got shrapnel on my hands, I was jolted
forward so my knees are all swollen and my back's always sore." He
was treated in Afghanistan, was out of combat for three weeks and
then was sent back to drive trucks.

When he returned to the U.S., he saw several military psychiatrists
who treated him for PTSD. "They'd give you a bag of pills and they'd
say, 'Here, try these and if that one doesn't work try another and if
you find one that does, stick to it.'" Ordered to redeploy despite
his injuries, Currie packed his bags and left. He is currently AWOL
and says he is now "100 percent against the military. I've done a
complete U-turn."

For more information on aiding resisters, see couragetoresist.org,
ivaw.org and differentdrummercafe.org.
--

E-mail: jcat@workers.org

.

Why I won't go to Iraq

Why I won't go to Iraq

http://socialistworker.org/2008/05/23/why-i-wont-go-to-iraq

May 23, 2008

Matthis Chiroux is a sergeant in the U.S. Army who served in
Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines as a photojournalist
and was honorably discharged in summer 2007. In February of this
year, he received orders to return to active duty in order to deploy to Iraq.

On May 15, the day that nine members of Iraq Veterans Against the War
(IVAW) testified on Capitol Hill at hearings organized by members of
the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Chiroux publicly announced his
intention to refuse deployment. He spoke with Leia Petty of the
Brooklyn College Antiwar Coalition about his decision.

AT WHAT point did you decide that you disagreed with what the U.S.
government was doing to the people of the Middle East?

I DIDN'T like the war from the start. I always thought it smelled
fishy, but I knew at the time, the Army owned my ass for at least the
next four-and-a-half years. So I got in line like most soldiers, and
prayed night and day that I could trust American civilians to end the
war. I was so disappointed when my prayers went unanswered.

I REMEMBER when we first met in March, you felt the need to honor
your contract with the U.S. military and deploy to Iraq, despite your
disagreements with the war. What changed?

WHEN WE first met, I already despised the illegal occupation of Iraq,
but I still thought I could do some good by going there. I thought,
if not as a journalist, then as a guerrilla IVAW implant.

The more I thought about this, though, and the more what I already
knew to be true was reinforced by my fellow IVAW members'
testimonies, I came to the realization that I could not carry a
weapon or wear a uniform to Iraq and not be a part of the problem.

But I ended up not being comfortable with the idea of leaving the
country. So I settled upon my decision: I would remain here and go
public with my personal resistance.

WHAT MADE you decide to contact IVAW initially?

IT WAS quite by accident, actually. An instructor at Brooklyn
College, Kumru Toktamis, mentioned an antiwar event to me one evening
in class, when I was still significantly fucked up in the heart and
the head as a result of my recall. I was battling to have an
extension granted to me so I could at least finish my semester of
school before being forced to return to war, only this time in Iraq.

It was at this event that I saw veterans and even active-duty
personnel speaking out for truth and justice. I knew I had found my kind.

DID YOUR involvement in IVAW and the Brooklyn College Antiwar
Coalition (BCAW) influence your decision to not deploy?

ABSOLUTELY. BECAUSE of my constant exposure to the truth of this
occupation through being with my fellow antiwar veterans, I came to
understand that it would be to forsake the individual sacrifices of
each of them to ignore their stories and throw myself into what so
clearly is an unlawful expression of American power on a people who
never did a damn thing to any of us!

BCAW gave me hope that civilians were ready to support and receive
peace by the mouths of babes, pleading in Washington for elected
officials to do the right thing.

WHAT HAS the response been since you announced your decision?

VERY POSITIVE. As usual with these types of things, there is a small,
but very loud minority on the right that is calling for my blood,
literally. But I'm content to let barking dogs make all of my best
arguments for me. Many of my loudest critics do so in openly racist
and uninformed ways, and make many of my best arguments for me, which
I'm always a fan of letting people do.

Less work for me, I guess, but with that also come threats of
violence, threats of death or retaliation in one way or another. All
quite illegal, but we will not be silenced by fear. We will speak
regardless of the personal risk. That's at the core of our
constitution, isn't it?

YOUR DECISION to not deploy is incredibly heroic to us in the
civilian antiwar movement. I know you are expecting to face a
court-martial and possible jail time for your decision. What can
people do to help support your defense campaign?

THANK YOU for your gratitude. I do want to be clear though that I did
not make this decision to benefit any movement or serve anyone's
agenda. I made this decision for myself, based on an intense personal
conviction that what I am doing is not only right, but the only
decision possible for me as a person and a veteran.

I swore an oath that basically boils down to, if by my sacrifice my
nation will be protected from decay, I offer myself proudly and
willingly. I'd like to think it is American to find creative ways to
support dissent against injustice. Prove me right, people.

.

U.S. deserter faces deportation from Canada

[9 articles]

Iraq war resister faces deportation from Canada

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2008/21/c2667.html

TORONTO, May 21 /CNW/ - US Iraq war resister Corey Glass was told today
that his application to stay in Canada has been rejected and he now faces
deportation.
Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq as a
Military Intelligence Sergeant.
"What I saw in Iraq convinced me that the war is illegal and immoral. I
could not in good conscience continue to take part in it," said Glass. "I came
here because Canada did not join the Iraq War.
"Also, I knew Canada had welcomed many Americans during the Vietnam War,"
It is estimated that several hundred Iraq War resisters are currently in
Canada, many of them living underground.
"Corey Glass would be the first Iraq War resister to be deported from
Canada. He would face imprisonment and severe penalties in the US," said Lee
Zaslofsky, coordinator of the War Resisters Support Campaign and a Vietnam War
resister. "This goes against Canada's tradition of welcoming Americans who
disagree with policies like slavery and the Vietnam War."
On December 6, 2007, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and
Immigration called on the Canadian Government to "immediately implement a
program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members to
apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and the government
should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions against such
individuals."
"The Government should implement that recommendation immediately," said
author Lawrence Hill. "Corey Glass had the courage to listen to his
conscience. He is working hard to build a new life in this country. He should
be allowed to stay."
"We must not forget that the invasion of Iraq was a war justified only by
lies, greed and stupidity for which permission was not sought nor granted to
the Bush administration by the United Nations," said Alexandre Trudeau, son of
Pierre Elliott Trudeau and director of the documentary film Embedded In
Baghdad.
"This outlaw war has ravaged the Iraqi landscape, destroyed tens of
thousands of lives and sorely sapped the American treasury all while filling
the coffers of profiteers," he said.
"Those Americans who served in Iraq, and have come to Canada to avoid
being pressed into further participation in the indignities of the American
occupation there, are brave men and women of principle who should be given a
chance to become landed in Canada. Like many Vietnam draft dodgers before
them, their heightened sense of morality and truth can only be a benefit to
our nation."

For further information: Lee Zaslofsky, (416) 598-1222; Michelle
Robidoux, (416) 856-5008

---------

Ex-U.S. soldier ordered to leave Canada

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=d91d7275-389a-4d62-b0af-3966198b627f

War resister could be deported by June 12, supporters say

Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, May 21

TORONTO - Corey Glass, a former U.S. National Guardsman who deserted
to Canada in 2006 to avoid serving in Iraq, was told Wednesday that
his application to stay in Canada has been rejected.

A spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration Canada confirmed Glass
has been ordered to leave the country.

At a Toronto news conference, Glass pleaded with the federal
government to support his cause.

"In almost two years I've been here, I've been self-sufficient and
I've got many friends and I've got a life here," he said. "I don't
think it's fair that I should be returned to the United States to
face unjust punishment for doing what I thought I was morally obligated to do."

Michelle Robidoux, a spokesperson for the War Resisters Support
Campaign, said Glass could be deported by June 12.

Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the case of
two other Americans - Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey - who sought
refugee status here after deserting the U.S. army in 2004 to avoid
being deployed to Iraq.

The court's ruling backed previous ones by the Federal Court, the
Federal Court of Appeal and the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Hinzman and Brandon Hughey argued they face persecution in their home
country because of their political opinion.

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled, however, the two men did not
deserve refugee status in Canada because they come from a democratic
country with an accountable and just system for dealing with deserters.

The War Resisters Support Campaign has been assisting U.S. military
personnel who come to Canada since 2004.

The organization's website lists 13 U.S. war resisters who have fled to Canada.

----------

Canada to deport first US deserter of Iraq war

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jFdsgFXBe9csevgyOxUipuylCUiQ

5/21/08

OTTAWA (AFP) ­ Canada is set to deport in June the first of possibly
hundreds of American soldiers who sought asylum to avoid military
duty in Iraq, a group backing the US deserters said Wednesday.

Corey Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq
as a military intelligence sergeant.

Authorities told him on Wednesday that his application to stay in
Canada was rejected and he would be deported in early June, a
spokeswoman for the War Resisters Support Campaign told AFP.

According to the group, several hundred Iraq War resisters are
currently in Canada, many of them living underground. Glass would be
the first of them to be deported, it said.

"This goes against Canada's tradition of welcoming Americans who
disagree with policies like slavery and the Vietnam War," said Lee
Zaslofsky, a War Resisters Support Campaign coordinator.

"Corey Glass would be the first Iraq War resister to be deported from
Canada and he would face imprisonment and severe penalties in the
US," he said. A spokeswoman for the War Resisters said Glass would
face a court-martial and a possible five-year prison term for desertion.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has said in a decision
supported last year by the federal court that US asylum seekers are
not conventional refugees under UN High Commissioner for Refugees
rules, nor in need of protection.

Accordingly, Glass's refugee claim was denied.

A spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency, which is
responsible for enforcing the deportation order, was not immediately
available for comment.

--------

U.S. deserter faces deportation from Canada

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/05/21/guardsman.deserter/?iref=hpmostpop

May 21, 2008
By Emanuella Grinberg

A U.S. soldier who deserted to Canada will not face persecution if he
returns to the United States, Canada's refugee agency ruled Wednesday.

National Guard Sgt. Corey Glass, 25, says he fled to Toronto in 2006
after serving in Iraq because he did not want to fight in a war he
did not support.

"What I saw in Iraq convinced me that the war is illegal and immoral.
I could not in good conscience continue to take part in it," Glass
said Wednesday. "I don't think it's fair that I should be punished
for doing what I felt morally obligated to do."

Glass, who's still on active duty and is considered absent without
leave, applied for refugee status at the Canadian border in August
2006 on the grounds of objection to military service.

But Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board denied his application for
refugee status Wednesday, prompting the Canadian Border Services
Agency to issue a June 12 deportation order.

The agency says it evaluates each case on its own merits to determine
whether the applicant faces a "well-founded fear" of persecution or
cruel and unusual punishment if he returns to his home country.

"All refugee claimants have a right to due process," said Danielle
Norris, a spokeswoman for Customs and Immigrations Canada. "When they
have exhausted all legal avenues, we expect them to respect our laws
and leave the country."

Glass, of Fairmont, Indiana, says he joined the National Guard
believing that he would be deployed only if the United States faced
occupation. After he returned from his first tour of duty, he said,
he tried to leave the Army but was told that desertion was punishable by death.

Penalties for desertion range from a demotion in rank to a maximum
penalty of death, depending on the circumstances, said Maj. Nathan
Banks, an Army spokesman.

"The first thing we try to do is rehabilitate and retrain the soldier
to see if we can keep him," he said. "Remember, we're at war, so
everybody counts. When you decide to desert, you let everybody down."

Banks said that it is up to the deserter's commanding officer to
decide on an appropriate punishment if the soldier refuses to return.

Members of War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, which is
providing transitional support to Glass and at least 13 other
deserters in Canada, are holding out for a political avenue of appeal
through the Canadian House of Commons.

In December, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration
adopted a motion calling on the Canadian government to initiate a
residency program for conscientious objectors who have left military
service "related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations."

The motion has yet to receive approval from the entire House of Commons.

Norris says the agency has received about 40 applications for refugee
claims from U.S. deserters since the Iraq war began in 2003. Of the
claims that have been addressed in public, only five have made it to
the country's Federal Court of Appeals, a venue of last resort.

All five appeals were rejected, according to Norris.

The high court has yet to rule on its sixth challenge of this kind
from Army combat engineer Joshua Key, who fled to Saskatchewan with
his wife and four children in 2005.

"This has been our home for three years now. It's a lot like the
U.S., and it's as close to the U.S. as you can be," said Key, who
served on the front lines in Falluja before he returned to the United
States in 2002.

Key said that fleeing to Canada was a difficult but obvious choice
when faced with returning to Iraq.

"There was nothing but violence and innocent civilians dying in our
hands for no justification," Key said. "We became the terrorists."

--------

U.S. Iraq deserter loses bid to stay

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/428512

Faces deportation after assessment found no risk of unusual
punishment, treatment

May 22, 2008
Nick Kyonka
Staff Reporter

After a 22-month battle to earn a home in Toronto, a former American
soldier was told yesterday he will become the first Iraq War resister
to be deported from Canadian soil after his application to stay in
the country was rejected.

A dejected Corey Glass, 25, stared blankly at the floor of a tiny
room in Trinity-St. Paul's United Church as members of the War
Resisters Support Campaign informed media and other U.S. war
resisters of his failed bid to remain in the country and the
consequences he now faces.

"He's supposed to leave on his own by June 12," said the group's
co-ordinator, Lee Zaslofsky, who came to Canada after fleeing
enlistment in the American military during the Vietnam War. "After
that, he's subject to deportation."

The rejection, Zaslofsky said, was based on a failed pre-removal risk
assessment by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which found that,
if removed from the country, Glass would not be at immediate risk of
death, torture, or cruel or unusual treatment or punishment.

"They didn't think that he would face that severe a consequence if he
went back," Zaslofsky said.

The potential consequence is unclear; past deserters who have
returned to the U.S. have received punishments ranging from a
dishonourable discharge to jail time in a military prison.

"I guess it means jail time – possibly," said Glass. "They don't
really tell me."

This first rejection could be a chilling sign of things to come for
at least nine other war resisters who have requested a pre-removal
risk assessment, Zaslofsky said, and could shut the door to other war
resisters' attempts to find a home in Canada. "We think that Corey's
case may be similar to some of the others," said Zaslofsky, whose
group is in touch with about 50 of the estimated 100-plus war
resisters currently residing in Canada.

"We think that each case is being assessed individually and they are
all different from each other, but certainly this is not a good sign."

An Indiana native, Glass's tenure with the military began in 2002
when he joined the National Guard to complete "humanitarian work"
within the United States, he said. At that time, he had no idea he
would end up fighting on foreign shores.

"When I joined the National Guard, they told me the only way I would
be in combat was if there were troops occupying the United States,"
he said. "I signed up to defend people and do humanitarian work
filling sandbags if there was a hurricane. ... I should have been in
New Orleans, not Iraq."

When he was deployed to Iraq in 2005, Glass said he tried to quit the
military and was returned home on a leave later that same year.

He then went AWOL for eight months before defecting to Toronto in
August 2006. He has since been working as a funeral director at a
Toronto funeral home.

Glass's deportation order, Zaslofsky said, contradicts a motion
passed last December by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and
Immigration, which called on the Canadian government to allow
conscientious war resisters to remain in the country without the
threat of deportation.

That motion has not yet been passed by Parliament.

-------

Iraq War-Dodger Begs Canada to Rescind Deportation Order

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357092,00.html

Thursday, May 22, 2008

An American national guardsman who refused to redeploy to Iraq
pleaded with the Canadian government on Wednesday to let him stay in
Canada, despite an order from immigration officials that he leave
within three weeks.

Sgt. Corey Glass, 25, is said to be the first Iraqi war dodger from
the U.S. to face imminent deportation from Canada.

"I don't think it is fair that I should be returned to the United
States to face unjust punishment for doing what I felt morally
obligated to do," Glass said.

"I appeal to the Canadian people and the Canadian government to honor
their tradition of respect for human rights and support my decision
not to participate in this unjust war."

Like other American soldiers who fled to Canada, Glass's claim for
refugee status has been turned down on the grounds he faces
prosecution in the U.S., not persecution.

A separate Canadian federal assessment concluded he might be punished
for desertion but that did not mean he was at serious risk of abuse in the U.S.

"The applicant faces no more than a mere possibility of persecution,"
the unnamed immigration officer decided in a decision released Wednesday.

He was given until June 12 to leave or face forced removal.

Glass joined the U.S. National Guard in 2002 believing it was a
"humanitarian organization." He said he was told he would never be
deployed abroad to combat.

In 2005, he was sent to Iraq, where he spent five months in military
intelligence. The job, he said, gave him broad insight into what was
going on there.

"I realized innocent people were killed unjustly," said Glass, who is
living in Toronto.

While on leave in the U.S., he decided to desert. After seven months
in hiding, he fled to Canada because he knew it had become a
destination for others in his situation, and had given refuge to tens
of thousands of Vietnam War draft dodgers in the 1970s.

He arrived in August 2006, one of an estimated 200 American soldiers
who have come to Canada rather than fight in a war they argue is
illegal because it has no United Nations sanction.

In one recent case, a soldier who went absent without leave for seven
weeks was jailed for seven months and given a dishonorable discharge,
which amounts to a criminal record.

Vietnam War draft dodger Lee Zaslofsky called it a "dark day," saying
Canada, which refused to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, was
disavowing its long tradition of welcoming American dissenters.

Ottawa was doing Washington's "dirty work" by rounding up those who
don't want to fight in Iraq, said Zaslofsky, with the War Resisters
Support Campaign.

Joshua Key, another deserter whose refugee claim is still winding its
way through Canadian appeal courts, said the Glass decision was
worrisome for those hoping to stay in Canada.

Several church groups issued a joint statement calling on the
government to recognize the war resisters as conscientious objectors
and let them stay.

"Sadly, Canada has failed Corey Glass," said Jane Orion Smith of the
Canadian Friends Service Committee. "More than that, it has failed Canadians."

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U.S. war resisters' plea for compassion

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/News/Annex/article/48365

Area residents gather at U of T to hear 10 young Americans' plea for amnesty

BY LIAM LAHEY
May 22, 2008

U.S. Iraq war resister Corey Glass was told by Citizenship and
Immigration Canada recently that his application to stay here has
been rejected and he now faces deportation in three weeks.

If deported, the Parkdale resident would be the first American war
resister to be sent back to the U.S. since the late 1960s when
Canadian border officials physically carried a man attempting to
dodge the Vietnam draft back over the Peace Bridge and deposited him
at the feet of U.S. officials. That event caused an uproar in Canada,
and led to then prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau declaring
immigration officials would no longer ask any American about their
military status.

Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq. He
made his move after the U.S. implemented its "stop-loss" policy - the
involuntary extension of a member's active duty under the enlistment
contract in order to retain them beyond their initial term of service.

"I came here because Canada did not join the Iraq War ... I knew
Canada had welcomed many Americans during the Vietnam War," he said.

Dressed in a black suit and looking emotionally spent, he joined nine
other American war resisters discussing their plight to remain in
Canada at a community forum on May 21 at the Innis Town Hall at the
University of Toronto.

After serving eight months in Iraq before going absent without leave,
Joshua Key, author of A Deserter's Tale, arrived in Toronto in 2005
seeking refuge after being repeatedly lied to by the military, he said.

"I joined (the U.S. Army) in 2002 primarily for health care and
steady pay," Key said. "I was raising my family (Key has three young
sons) in Oklahoma City at the time and I couldn't cut the bills. ...
I was told I wouldn't be sent overseas ... I should have gotten a
magnifying glass and read the fine print (of his enlistment contract)
and told them to 'Hold on'."

Kimberley Rivera, the first female American war deserter in history
and a mother of two, was shipped to Baghdad in August 2006 where she
served as a guard searching civilians and vehicles. Upon being
notified she would be sent back to Iraq for a second tour of duty,
she and her family packed up and left their home in Mesquite, Texas,
in February 2007 and drove to Toronto.

"I wasn't truly sorry for joining (the army) until witnessing some of
the things I did in Iraq," she said. "The way families were destroyed
... and what it did to children there impacted me. ... I felt
helpless. ... I'm a mom and that's your basic instinct: to protect children."

It is estimated that several hundred Iraq War resisters are currently
hiding in Canada. Beyond the shame of being regarded as criminals at
home, some also face being ostracized by their own families.

"My dad thinks I'm a coward and a traitor and my mother simply
doesn't understand," said army deserter Steve Yoczick, whose father
served in the U.S. Marine Corp. in Vietnam.

Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow told the audience if the Liberal party
would do as the Bloc Quebecois has and supported her motion to
prevent American war resisters from being sent stateside the issue
could be formally introduced into the House of Commons and debated publicly.

"If (Liberal leader) Stephane Dion were to say tomorrow that he
supports this motion ... we will then debate it," she said. "So we
need people to call Mr. Dion ... 'whose side you on Mr. Dion'?"

Etobicoke Centre MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj was also in attendance. He
suggested it would take more from the public than placing a phone
call or sending an e-mail.

"A motion does not compel the government to act ... a resolution
does," he said. "If you have a majority of Parliamentarians
supporting a resolution it would (move the issue forward) ... it's
something we wouldn't want to do until the time is right; when the
public sends us a strong signal."

As the forum wound down, one young man stood up and identified
himself as a U.S. war deserter from Illinois who's been hiding in
Toronto for the last two weeks. He, too, appeared to be emotionally
exhausted. But he also looked genuinely relieved to be surrounded by
supporters and friends from home facing a similar, uncertain future.

Visit the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign at

www.resisters.ca for details.

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Canada No Longer Safe Haven for U.S. Military Deserters

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/255062

5/22/08

During the 1960's it was not uncommon for young men to travel in
droves across the border between the United States and Canada to
avoid service in Vietnam. Today, deserters from the U.S. military are
finding that things have changed for them, drastically.
Corey Glass, a 25 year-old United States National Guardsmen AWOL in
Canada and under charges of desertion, is not a happy young man
today. Corey has been ordered by Canadian officials to leave the
country on his own accord by the 12th of June, denying his
application to stay in Canada His ordered deportation is the first
rejection by Canadian courts by a group of other deserters who have
sought asylum in Canada as war resisters.

An Indiana native, Glass's tenure with the military began in 2002
when he joined the National Guard to complete "humanitarian work"
within the United States, he said. At that time, he had no idea he
would end up fighting on foreign shores.

"When I joined the National Guard, they told me the only way I would
be in combat was if there were troops occupying the United States,"
he said. "I signed up to defend people and do humanitarian work
filling sandbags if there was a hurricane. ... I should have been in
New Orleans, not Iraq."

When he was deployed to Iraq in 2005, Glass said he tried to quit the
military and was returned home on a leave later that same year.

He then went AWOL for eight months before defecting to Toronto in
August 2006. He has since been working as a funeral director at a
Toronto funeral home.

Perhaps Glass should have read the mission statements found on the
National Guard website outlining their Federal and State obligations
before enlisting.

Consequences for desertion of the United States armed forces carry
very stiff penalties. If convicted by a Court Martial procedure,
under statutes of the United States Code of Military Justice, Glass,
and the other deserters in his group in Canada, could be facing a
possible death sentence under the articles of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice.

885. ART. 85. DESERTION
(a) Any member of the armed forces who--
(1) without authority goes or remains absent from his unit,
organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away therefrom
permanently;
(2) quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to
avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service; or
(3) without being regularly separated from one of the armed forces
enlists or accepts an appointment in the same or another on of the
armed forces without fully disclosing the fact that he has not been
regularly separated, or enters any foreign armed service except when
authorized by the United States; is guilty of desertion.
(b) Any commissioned officer of the armed forces who, after tender of
his resignation and before notice of its acceptance, quits his post
or proper duties without leave and with intent to remain away
therefrom permanently is guilty of desertion.
(c) Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall
be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or
such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, but if the
desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such
punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.

Glass, as a National Guardsman under Federal deployment in a time of
war, is subject to UCMJ law.

We live in a different time than we lived in the 1960's. Military
service today is voluntary, not compulsory. There is no draft. Men
and women in uniform today are they because they have enlisted or
been commissioned of their own accord, not because they have been
called into service by the draft board. National Guard units have
been deployed overseas in this war, in the Gulf War, in Vietnam,
Korea, and World War II. For Glass to proclaim that he was told he
would not have to be deployed overseas goes entirely against the
mission and purpose of the National Guard, which is to act as a
supplementary and reserve branch of the military at large.

According to Lee Zaslofsky, a who fled the U.S. for Canada to avoid
service in Vietnam and who is the co-coordinator of the War Resisters
Support Campaign, the order for Glass to be deported lies in
contradiction with a motion passed last December by the Standing
Committee on Citizenship and Immigration calling for the Canadian
government to allow conscientious protesters of war to remain in
Canada without facing deportation.

The Canadian Parliament has not yet passed the motion and set it into law.

Glass is the first of nine others who have applied to stay in Canada
after desertion from the United States military.

----------

Canada to deport first US deserter of Iraq war

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jFdsgFXBe9csevgyOxUipuylCUiQ

5/21/08

OTTAWA (AFP) ­ Canada is set to deport in June the first of possibly
hundreds of American soldiers who sought asylum to avoid military
duty in Iraq, a group backing the US deserters said Wednesday.

Corey Glass, 25, came to Canada in August 2006 after serving in Iraq
as a military intelligence sergeant.

Authorities told him on Wednesday that his application to stay in
Canada was rejected and he would be deported in early June, a
spokeswoman for the War Resisters Support Campaign told AFP.

According to the group, several hundred Iraq War resisters are
currently in Canada, many of them living underground. Glass would be
the first of them to be deported, it said.

"This goes against Canada's tradition of welcoming Americans who
disagree with policies like slavery and the Vietnam War," said Lee
Zaslofsky, a War Resisters Support Campaign coordinator.

"Corey Glass would be the first Iraq War resister to be deported from
Canada and he would face imprisonment and severe penalties in the
US," he said. A spokeswoman for the War Resisters said Glass would
face a court-martial and a possible five-year prison term for desertion.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has said in a decision
supported last year by the federal court that US asylum seekers are
not conventional refugees under UN High Commissioner for Refugees
rules, nor in need of protection.

Accordingly, Glass's refugee claim was denied.

A spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency, which is
responsible for enforcing the deportation order, was not immediately
available for comment.

.