The Story of An Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq

[JohnyCanuck]

The Deserter's Tale:The Story of An Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq
By Joshua Key

Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY; 237 pp., 2007

Reviewed by Mark Biskeborn

SNIP

The Deserter’s Tale breaks into three parts: Key’s poverty leading to his decision to join the army, then his moral awakening in Iraq, and then the aftermath of his desertion. When he comes home on leave, he decides he can’t return to Iraq because of moral repulsion, not because of cowardice. By far the most gripping portion of the book recounts his gradual crisis of conscience as he reflects on his own behavior, the madness of tactics that the military applied in Iraq, and America’s crumbling moral standing in the world.

Growing Up Tough, Patriotic, and Conservative

Key grew up tough. Always below poverty’s radar, his mother sank beneath desperation. Violent stepfathers passed through his life. His only anchor was his grandfather, a veteran of the Korean War. Through a confused adolescence, he settled down with a good woman. Key hoped for modest expectations: becoming a welder, raising his kids and loving his wife. But modern American economics makes that impossible. Before he turns around, he passes through boot camp, ready to serve his country and believed he was saving democracy, liberating a nation and doing his patriotic duty.

SNIP

Boot camp trains him to treat all Iraqis as terrorists. Following orders, Key’s most common duty adds up to more than 200 night raids to ransack houses in residential neighborhoods, terrifying the occupants, and beating males over five feet tall and sending them away, never to be seen again. At the end of so many raids, he reports that he and his comrades find not one weapons cache, not one cabal of terrorists. It unleashes the worst in him and his comrades as they terrorize innocent men, women, and children. He realizes that he and his comrades become evildoers, terrorists.

“... the American military had betrayed the values of my country. We had become a force for evil, and I could not escape the fact that I was part of the machine.”

SNIP

As a private, Key’s can never object to the brutality soldiers around him practice. The chain of command responds harshly to any act of whistle-blowing. In the thick of war crimes around him, he witnesses his own officers participating in crimes. He has no access to any form of justice. He is swallowed up in a swamp of daily injustice and war-crimes against innocent civilians.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12995

[TooBigaTent]

1. From the history of people here, this brave person will be trashed for not being

patriotic and simply "doing his sacred and appreciated duty" - because if you praise Pvt. Key, you cannot turn around and applaud those soldiers who willingly participate in the slaughter we have unleasehed on the people of Iraq.

Flame-retardant suit on.

[mike_c]

2. spot on comment....

The war against Iraq is a criminal enterprise, and those who conduct it are by definition, criminals.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. "we picked our fights with civilians who were powerless to resist"

“My own moral judgment was disintegrating under the pressure of being a soldier, feeling vulnerable, and having no clear enemy to kill in Iraq. We were encouraged to beat up on the enemy; given the absence of any clearly understood enemy, we picked our fights with civilians who were powerless to resist. We knew that we would not have to account for our actions.”