Details here; an excerpt:
Specialist Darrell Anderson, who recently left the US Army and sought refuge in Canada, spoke at a War Resisters’ meeting on Monday night in Toronto to a packed out room. This is what he had to say:
Being raised in America, you’re always taught that your forefathers came to America for freedom. You’re raised up with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag. You’re raised up to believe in your country and what it stands for. Later on I needed money for college to better my life, and the army was the way to do that.
So I joined the army. At that time I thought that if they were going to send me to war it would be to defend my country and protect my family and that there’d be honour and pride in that....
On a few occasions [in Iraq] we were under fire and a car drove over the safety barrier that we had set up. The protocol procedure is that you open fire. And the car came and my NCO officer says: "Why didn’t you open fire?" and I said: "I feel no danger and I believe it’s a family." They said: "We don’t care, next time you open fire — that’s what we have to do."
And so that night I started questioning what was going on. They told me that if you’re fired upon, that everyone in the street is a criminal and that they should be shot. I point my weapon at a young boy and I pull my trigger but my weapon is on safe. So I turn to fire and I turn to him again, but then I think; "What am I doing? What kind of situation am I being put in? Do people — does the government care what they are putting these young men through?"
A few days later we were in a vehicle and one of my good friends took a shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade. He fell into the Humvee all bloody and dying, blood coming out of his mouth.
When I came back to the States, people said: "Thank you for what you are doing for your country." I thought that I would come back with pride and honour but it was more like a deep depression of "What exactly have I done over there?" Then you go through the nightmares.
People want to thank you, but you don’t want it, you want to say you’re sorry for what you’ve seen and for what’s going on over there. You start to question "Why am I over there?" And people will tell you: "Weapons of mass destruction". Well I was over there and there were no weapons of mass destruction. There were people fighting for their lives — and the lives of their brothers, their sons, their daughters. Their families had been killed through this combat and they’re trying to protect their family.
So then they say: "It’s to bring democracy to the people". But there’s bad stuff going on in other parts of the world — but they don’t have oil or other resources that we need, so we go to the place where we could benefit from this economically.
They say: "We’re bringing democracy to help these people". Our democracy doesn’t even work in the United States. It’s more a plutocracy — money, corruption, everything.
All this came to me when I was home for Christmas. And then I thought: "What can I do? Can I go back to this? Can I be a part of this? Everybody’s going to think I’m a coward, a traitor to my country."
So I looked at the paths. If I go back to Iraq and I fight this war, at the end of this road I’m going to have $50,000 for college, a house, money to provide for a family.
And then the other way, it’s going to be freedom. I’m going to be able to live the rest of my life with my head up high, knowing that I wasn’t a part of the killing of innocent people. And so I chose to go to Canada.
There are people who say: "You were just a coward, you didn’t want to fight in the war". Well I went to the war, I was willing to give my life. I received a purple heart for being injured in combat. And then they say: "Well you are just scared". If people would open their eyes and see, before it’s at their front door, before their son or their daughter is in combat and they come back and tell them straight to their face: "Mom, Dad, they are killing innocent people over there. Our country does not care if we live or die over there."
They say: "If you turn your back on your country you’re not American". Well, America was founded on people escaping something for freedom. I believe that I am more American than anybody in the United States who is staying there, turning their back and not standing up and doing something against this.
For more on the effort to secure refuge for war resisters in Canada, see here.
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