When A US Soldier In Iraq Won't Soldier
Christian Science Monitor
August 13, 2007
What does the Army do with a private who can't be persuaded to load his gun?
By Mary Wiltenburg, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
W?RZBURG, GERMANY -- No one looked comfortable at the sentencing hearing. Not family and friends who packed the US military courtroom's straight-backed benches. Not the rookie Army prosecutor in stiff dress greens who flushed with every "Your Honor." Not Judge R. Peter Masterton, whose usually animated face was now grave.
And not the convicted deserter - Army medic Agust?n Aguayo - on the stand in a US military court in central Germany last March, pleading for understanding.
"I'm sorry for the trouble my conscience has caused my unit," Private 1st Class Aguayo said, his voice thick with emotion. "I tried to obey the rules, but in the end [the problem] was at the very core of my being."
Colonel Masterton, a veteran military judge, stared down at his bench. The defense wanted him to free this man of conscience. The prosecution asked that he put the coward away for two years to show other soldiers that "they are not fools for fulfilling their obligation."
Aguayo craned to face the judge. "When I hear my sergeants talking about slashing people's throats," he said, crying openly, "if I'm not a conscientious objector, what am I when I'm feeling all this pain when people talk about violence?"
Next door in the press room, where reporters crowded to watch the proceedings on bleached, closed-circuit TVs, a soldier guarding the door wiped tears from his face.
Every war has its deserters, troops who abandon their posts. And every war has its converts to pacifism. The Defense Department reports that 5,361 active-duty service members deserted the US Armed Forces last year; nearly 37,000 since October 2001. In today's all-volunteer force, that means a desertion rate of less than half a percent - much lower than the Vietnam War draft era, when it reached a 1971 high of 7.4 percent. In the past six years, 325 Army soldiers have applied to be recognized as conscientious objectors (COs), soldiers who no longer believe in war; 58 percent were accepted.
Still, Aguayo's story is revealing of the mental battles of these thousands who change their minds during a bloody war - and, arguably, of many who don't.
Struggling to support a young family in the patriotic months after 9/11, Aguayo chose to serve a nation heading into a long fight. War made a man of the naive private - but not in the way his officers intended.
While his struggle to believe in his mission probably resembled that of many young recruits, no one imagined how it would end.
Aguayo is a small, soft-spoken man, tentative but quick to smile. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he immigrated legally to Los Angeles with his parents when he was 4. At 19, he became a citizen and married a girl he'd met at church, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants. He worked a dead-end bank job; for his twin daughters' sake, he wanted more. So he got second and third jobs and enrolled in community college. At Home Depot, where he worked in the fall of 2002, the radio blared through his shift with Army Reserve ads promising he could stay with his family and get a four-year degree.
On the way to renew his driver's license, Aguayo saw a recruiting station and stopped in. "No, you don't want the Army Reserve," he recalls the recruiter saying, "have a seat." Two weeks later, Aguayo joined the active-duty Army. His wife didn't want him to - the Afghan war had subsided and the Iraq invasion was imminent. "But he was so excited and so sure that the future would hold great things," Helga Aguayo says, that she supported his decision. She recalls asking him what he'd do if he had to go to war. "He kind of laughed and said, 'They train you for that. I'll be a different person.' "
But in basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., Aguayo couldn't adjust like other recruits did. It pained him to march to "Left, right, kill!" and to chant "We are not men. We are beasts." He stumbled out of gas-mask training crying, and wrote to Helga that the sting of the gas made him think of Nazi gas chambers. "The point is for you to learn how to use the mask," he says, "but [the gas] hurts, and I'd never want to hurt anyone like that." He hoped his qualms were normal, that he'd master them.
In August 2003, five months after the US invaded Iraq, Aguayo's unit was sent to a base in Schweinfurt, Germany. There they received orders to deploy to Iraq in the new year. His roommate assured Aguayo that the war was over and they would be peacekeepers. Aguayo, who rarely followed the news, felt better.
Then their training changed. "It wasn't targets anymore. It wasn't about me getting a badge. It wasn't about me getting a pat on the back," he says, "It was about me getting ready to take someone down."
In February 2004, on the eve of his Iraq deployment, Aguayo confided to Helga, who had joined him in Germany with their 8-year-old daughters, that he wasn't willing to kill, even in self-defense. She was alarmed. She searched for help online, and found a story about a marine who had refused to serve in Iraq. They read it together; some of the words were new to them.
"I had never heard the term 'conscientious objector,' which is embarrassing," she says. They Googled it, and called the hot-line number that came up. Volunteers explained the application process, and Aguayo, deploying in two days, hurried one together.
In Iraq a week later, he woke to the sound of shouting. Near his Tikrit aid station, a US military truck with five passengers had hit a roadside bomb. Aguayo zipped two officers up in body bags. His horrified expression caught the attention of a physician's assistant who took him aside. "You have to understand, there is a bigger picture," Aguayo remembers him saying, "God has a bigger plan."
"I couldn't reason like that," Aguayo says. "I thought, 'How can God have anything to do with this?' To me it was ignorance: on our side and on the guys that put the bomb out there."
Aguayo never got used to the routine cruelties of war: The men in US uniform he heard speak lewdly to veiled women, the American squads that cut clotheslines on Fridays while families were at prayer. "When someone sees me on a corner, then sees this guy next to me," he says of these soldiers, "he thinks we're the same."
Despite his misgivings, Aguayo developed a reputation in his unit as a mature presence and a diligent worker. He was promoted to the rank of specialist and recommended for another promotion to noncommissioned officer status, which he refused. Friends who served with him say that although they didn't share his beliefs, they respected his growing pacifism.
For his 12-month tour, Aguayo refused to carry a loaded weapon. His medical duties didn't require one, but dangerous patrols in Saddam Hussein's hometown did. Out of consideration for his beliefs, superiors looked the other way as he hoisted an empty rifle. When he told Helga, she was appalled at the danger he was putting himself - and others - in. "I said: You can't do this. You have a family. You have to come back," she says.
In August 2004, Aguayo's CO application was denied. The decision was divided: Aguayo's company commander and investigating officer called him "absolutely sincere" and said he had a "legitimate concern with being a soldier." The next four levels of command recommended rejection; one called Aguayo's application "an attempt to remedy [the] anxiety all soldiers face during an extended deployment in a combat theater."
Aguayo knew there were other ways out: A friend used illegal drugs to get discharged; others went AWOL. But he hated the idea of breaking the law. So the Aguayos threw themselves into challenging the decision when he returned to Germany in February 2005. Superiors decided that whatever the result, he didn't belong in the Army. A sergeant took him aside and promised to "paper" him out: charge him with enough small defiances to disqualify him from service.
But with only one infraction on record - failing to raise his M-16 in a training exercise - and another pending, his unit got word. They were going back to Iraq.
Tuesday: A desperate escape, a prison cell, and a political awakening.
August 13, 2007
What does the Army do with a private who can't be persuaded to load his gun?
By Mary Wiltenburg, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
W?RZBURG, GERMANY -- No one looked comfortable at the sentencing hearing. Not family and friends who packed the US military courtroom's straight-backed benches. Not the rookie Army prosecutor in stiff dress greens who flushed with every "Your Honor." Not Judge R. Peter Masterton, whose usually animated face was now grave.
And not the convicted deserter - Army medic Agust?n Aguayo - on the stand in a US military court in central Germany last March, pleading for understanding.
"I'm sorry for the trouble my conscience has caused my unit," Private 1st Class Aguayo said, his voice thick with emotion. "I tried to obey the rules, but in the end [the problem] was at the very core of my being."
Colonel Masterton, a veteran military judge, stared down at his bench. The defense wanted him to free this man of conscience. The prosecution asked that he put the coward away for two years to show other soldiers that "they are not fools for fulfilling their obligation."
Aguayo craned to face the judge. "When I hear my sergeants talking about slashing people's throats," he said, crying openly, "if I'm not a conscientious objector, what am I when I'm feeling all this pain when people talk about violence?"
Next door in the press room, where reporters crowded to watch the proceedings on bleached, closed-circuit TVs, a soldier guarding the door wiped tears from his face.
Every war has its deserters, troops who abandon their posts. And every war has its converts to pacifism. The Defense Department reports that 5,361 active-duty service members deserted the US Armed Forces last year; nearly 37,000 since October 2001. In today's all-volunteer force, that means a desertion rate of less than half a percent - much lower than the Vietnam War draft era, when it reached a 1971 high of 7.4 percent. In the past six years, 325 Army soldiers have applied to be recognized as conscientious objectors (COs), soldiers who no longer believe in war; 58 percent were accepted.
Still, Aguayo's story is revealing of the mental battles of these thousands who change their minds during a bloody war - and, arguably, of many who don't.
Struggling to support a young family in the patriotic months after 9/11, Aguayo chose to serve a nation heading into a long fight. War made a man of the naive private - but not in the way his officers intended.
While his struggle to believe in his mission probably resembled that of many young recruits, no one imagined how it would end.
Aguayo is a small, soft-spoken man, tentative but quick to smile. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he immigrated legally to Los Angeles with his parents when he was 4. At 19, he became a citizen and married a girl he'd met at church, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants. He worked a dead-end bank job; for his twin daughters' sake, he wanted more. So he got second and third jobs and enrolled in community college. At Home Depot, where he worked in the fall of 2002, the radio blared through his shift with Army Reserve ads promising he could stay with his family and get a four-year degree.
On the way to renew his driver's license, Aguayo saw a recruiting station and stopped in. "No, you don't want the Army Reserve," he recalls the recruiter saying, "have a seat." Two weeks later, Aguayo joined the active-duty Army. His wife didn't want him to - the Afghan war had subsided and the Iraq invasion was imminent. "But he was so excited and so sure that the future would hold great things," Helga Aguayo says, that she supported his decision. She recalls asking him what he'd do if he had to go to war. "He kind of laughed and said, 'They train you for that. I'll be a different person.' "
But in basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., Aguayo couldn't adjust like other recruits did. It pained him to march to "Left, right, kill!" and to chant "We are not men. We are beasts." He stumbled out of gas-mask training crying, and wrote to Helga that the sting of the gas made him think of Nazi gas chambers. "The point is for you to learn how to use the mask," he says, "but [the gas] hurts, and I'd never want to hurt anyone like that." He hoped his qualms were normal, that he'd master them.
In August 2003, five months after the US invaded Iraq, Aguayo's unit was sent to a base in Schweinfurt, Germany. There they received orders to deploy to Iraq in the new year. His roommate assured Aguayo that the war was over and they would be peacekeepers. Aguayo, who rarely followed the news, felt better.
Then their training changed. "It wasn't targets anymore. It wasn't about me getting a badge. It wasn't about me getting a pat on the back," he says, "It was about me getting ready to take someone down."
In February 2004, on the eve of his Iraq deployment, Aguayo confided to Helga, who had joined him in Germany with their 8-year-old daughters, that he wasn't willing to kill, even in self-defense. She was alarmed. She searched for help online, and found a story about a marine who had refused to serve in Iraq. They read it together; some of the words were new to them.
"I had never heard the term 'conscientious objector,' which is embarrassing," she says. They Googled it, and called the hot-line number that came up. Volunteers explained the application process, and Aguayo, deploying in two days, hurried one together.
In Iraq a week later, he woke to the sound of shouting. Near his Tikrit aid station, a US military truck with five passengers had hit a roadside bomb. Aguayo zipped two officers up in body bags. His horrified expression caught the attention of a physician's assistant who took him aside. "You have to understand, there is a bigger picture," Aguayo remembers him saying, "God has a bigger plan."
"I couldn't reason like that," Aguayo says. "I thought, 'How can God have anything to do with this?' To me it was ignorance: on our side and on the guys that put the bomb out there."
Aguayo never got used to the routine cruelties of war: The men in US uniform he heard speak lewdly to veiled women, the American squads that cut clotheslines on Fridays while families were at prayer. "When someone sees me on a corner, then sees this guy next to me," he says of these soldiers, "he thinks we're the same."
Despite his misgivings, Aguayo developed a reputation in his unit as a mature presence and a diligent worker. He was promoted to the rank of specialist and recommended for another promotion to noncommissioned officer status, which he refused. Friends who served with him say that although they didn't share his beliefs, they respected his growing pacifism.
For his 12-month tour, Aguayo refused to carry a loaded weapon. His medical duties didn't require one, but dangerous patrols in Saddam Hussein's hometown did. Out of consideration for his beliefs, superiors looked the other way as he hoisted an empty rifle. When he told Helga, she was appalled at the danger he was putting himself - and others - in. "I said: You can't do this. You have a family. You have to come back," she says.
In August 2004, Aguayo's CO application was denied. The decision was divided: Aguayo's company commander and investigating officer called him "absolutely sincere" and said he had a "legitimate concern with being a soldier." The next four levels of command recommended rejection; one called Aguayo's application "an attempt to remedy [the] anxiety all soldiers face during an extended deployment in a combat theater."
Aguayo knew there were other ways out: A friend used illegal drugs to get discharged; others went AWOL. But he hated the idea of breaking the law. So the Aguayos threw themselves into challenging the decision when he returned to Germany in February 2005. Superiors decided that whatever the result, he didn't belong in the Army. A sergeant took him aside and promised to "paper" him out: charge him with enough small defiances to disqualify him from service.
But with only one infraction on record - failing to raise his M-16 in a training exercise - and another pending, his unit got word. They were going back to Iraq.
Tuesday: A desperate escape, a prison cell, and a political awakening.
0
-
kill or be killed.
i'd bet he'd fight if the attackers were about to cut his 8 year olds throat.
he's a disgrace.
he wont die for you or our country.
he's NOT a true american.
he's the worst example of american existance.0 -
I know this may sound "barbaric" to many of us here. But, it is my opinion that he should be put to death by firing squad.
We have lost too many Gallant men in all of our wars to let this "coward" go unpunished. This very light sentence he received is hardly any punishment at all when one considers the lengthy sacrafices a service man endures!
We OWE this to all the ones left on the field at "Saratoga"... "Tippacanoe Creek"... "Tripoli", "Mexico City", "Gettysburg", "Little Big Horn", "Kettle Hill" , "Argonne Forest", "Leyte Gulf", "Normandy", "Chosin Resevoir", , "IA Drang Valley", 'Tikrit" and thousands of other places where the blood of patriots was spilled defending our way of life !
.... "Soldier ! ... You're going to be shot !, Lt. Tyree !!, Form a firing squad, exclude the Confederates !" ...... (Major Dundee)0 -
My problem isn't that the guy is a conscientious objector. I can respect the man for that. There are some people who just can't bring themselves to kill another human being -- no matter the circumstances.
My problem lies with the fact that the guy volunteered for military duty. What did he think was going to happen? This is no different than Gulf War I when the people who wanted all the free benefits signed up but didn't want to do any of the work when called.
When you volunteer for military duty, you run the risk of going to war. You have to assume that you are going to be sent to a war zone. If you make it through your service term and avoid a war, that's the luck of the draw.
He should be given a dishonorable discharge. That will follow him around for the rest of his life, will have to be put on every job application, every bank loan, etc.0 -
What a wuss! If he had been in my unit, I would've hit him and told him to grow a pair of balls. Frickin mexicans... 0 -
Join the services for several reasons,protect our borders,support our country and do as he or her is told,which means the use of firearms.His sorry arse should be thrown in jail and be made to work off all that he has cost us to train him and then if he is not a citizen thrown out of the country. 0 -
article says he is a medic,
since when do medics even carry an offensive weapon???0 -
Goodness all you SO CALLED christians sure are all forgiving. Nuff said!!!!!!!!!!! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Da-Tank
Goodness all you SO CALLED christians sure are all forgiving. Nuff said!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't turn this into a religious thing. That POS private needs to have his head slapped around. He voulenteered to serve this country, and by doing so said that he'd do anything he was ordered to do, as long as it wasn't an illegal order. He violated his oath, not to mention his contract, when he became a tree-hugging ice cream.0 -
George Washington hung people like him during the revolutionary war. Today they get book deals and are championed as heros by the left. 0 -
Apparently there's more. It sounds like he goes AWOL.
As a medic he shouldnt be compelled to use a weapon and probably wasn't.
He had second thoughts and wanted to back out of a contract with the US Army because he witnessed some realities of war and hadn't the stomach for it. Who isn't scared? Training and character are supposed to overcome that.
At best he needs a Dishonorable Discharge with forfiture of pay, benefits and allowances but properly he needs to be compelled to go back and fulfill the responsibilities he was trained and contracted to do where he'd be most needed. Time in Leavenworth doesn't seem appropriate.0 -
Must be monday or some other week day because christianity don't count right now or for this guy.
Come on guys if your REAL christians it don't matter whats going on . Christianity is not a coat you use like a coat. Take it off when its conveniant and put it on if you need it.
Look at your selfs!!!!!0 -
It's an all volunteer force....and the door needs to be left wide open.
They'll kick out a PFC for a bad knee that can't run the mile in 20 seconds but keep in morons like this that put everyone in danger.
I'll replace him.0 -
show him the door. and have him return monies he has receieved. several of my medics were 7th day adventists- co's. they did not carry weapons. and were excellent medics- and i can respect that. not him. 0 -
Shoot him for dereliction (SP?) of duty and being a coward! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Zulu7
quote:Originally posted by Da-Tank
Goodness all you SO CALLED christians sure are all forgiving. Nuff said!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't turn this into a religious thing. That POS private needs to have his head slapped around. He voulenteered to serve this country, and by doing so said that he'd do anything he was ordered to do, as long as it wasn't an illegal order. He violated his oath, not to mention his contract, when he became a tree-hugging ice cream.
Naturally you don't want to turn it into a religious thing...After you've turned it into a racial "thing" with you frikin Mexican comment.0 -
Well he could always walk point. 0 -
quote:Come on guys if your REAL christians it don't matter whats going on . Christianity is not a coat you use like a coat. Take it off when its conveniant and put it on if you need it.
Look at your selfs!!!!!
Christianity cannot be removed like a coat, but one of the primary things that Christianity shows us is that you must pay for your crimes. Yes, Jesus will forgive this disgraced PFC, but you must render onto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. He still needs to pay for his crime in a natural sense.
I am personally open for a firing squad. You do not join the military for a job and college money, you join to do a job. He was not drafted; he volunteered to do this job. Only after he is put into the fire does he decide that he is an objector, that is a breach of contract and he should be put to death for his actions. It is not our or the Army's job to forgive him and to make sure he makes amends with Jesus, but it should be the Army's job to make sure he meets Jesus soon.0 -
quote:Originally posted by kristov
quote:Originally posted by Zulu7
quote:Originally posted by Da-Tank
Goodness all you SO CALLED christians sure are all forgiving. Nuff said!!!!!!!!!!!
Don't turn this into a religious thing. That POS private needs to have his head slapped around. He voulenteered to serve this country, and by doing so said that he'd do anything he was ordered to do, as long as it wasn't an illegal order. He violated his oath, not to mention his contract, when he became a tree-hugging ice cream.
Naturally you don't want to turn it into a religious thing...After you've turned it into a racial "thing" with you frikin Mexican comment.
What you don't understand is I've served with many soldiers of hispanic decent, and they were all lazy $#!+ bags that didn't deserve to wear the uniform. They always...ALWAYS took the easiest way out. ALWAYS let someone else take the fall for their mistakes. ALWAYS slept when there was work to be done, i.e. clean the latrine, mop the floor, haul the garbage, mow the lawn...the list goes on. I don't deny that there aren't good hispanic soldiers, but this one is the a-typical lazy hispanic soldier who doesn't want to do his job, but wants to get the money.0 -
The soldiers that depend on his team work for their survival have their own ideas. Put him on listening post/point duty and let him deal with his problem. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by 11b6r
show him the door. and have him return monies he has receieved. several of my medics were 7th day adventists- co's. they did not carry weapons. and were excellent medics- and i can respect that. not him.
that's what I don't get about this story. He did go into action as a medic with an empty M-16, that's gotta take some brass balls to go in unarmed. Now he goes AWOL all of a sudden.
Maybe there's more to the story? Like his COs insist that he is prepared to kill?
IMNSHO it takes more balls to be a "conchi" medic and go in after wounded men under the enemy guns unarmed than to sit behind cover and shoot at the enemy. He did the former for one tour, why the sudden change of heart?0 -
This isn't exactly to the point, but I am reminded of a similar WWI soldier. He had no taste for killing, in fact he saw it as sinful and wanted no part of it. He was a gentle, mild mannered man who loved and cared about the human race. He tried and tried to keep out of battle situations, even though he was called a coward by almost everyone who knew of him, except hs family and his church. His name was Alvin york. 0 -
But once the shooting started he took out a whole bunch of Germans because it was the only way he could think of to stop his friends from getting killed 0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
22 comments