Overview

Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia became the new face of the antiwar movement in early 2004 when he applied for a discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. After serving in the Army for nearly nine years, he was the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to fight, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. His principled stand helped to rally the growing opposition and embolden his fellow soldiers. Despite widespread public support and an all-star legal team, Mejia was eventually convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison, prompting Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience. Now out of prison after serving almost nine months, the celebrated soldier-turned-pacifist tells his own story, from his upbringing in Central America and his experience as a working-class immigrant in the United States, to his service in Iraq - where he was deployed in the Sunni triangle, and as a prisoner guard, where he witnessed prisoner abuse. Although raised by prominent Sandinista revolutionaries, Medjia joined the US army to secure US citizenship. As he recounts in this stirring book, his court-martial for standing up for human rights and the end to an unjust war, could see his citizenship renounced and his activist past return.

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9781595580528

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The issues [Mejia] has raised deserve a close reading by the nation as a whole... he has made a contribution to the truth about Iraq. - BOB HERBERT, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Author Information

Camilo Mejia grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica before moving to the United States in 1994. He joined the military at age nineteen, serving as an infantryman for three years in the active duty Army, then transferring to the Florida National Guard. He fought in Iraq for five months.

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