Deserter to give up, vows Iraq war challenge
Aims to avoid court-martial
NEW YORK -- In Iraq last April, freshly promoted Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia led squads of Florida National Guard soldiers in the fight against insurgents in the deadly Sunni Triangle.
But Mejia became increasingly pained by his war experiences and decided not to come back from leave last fall. The staff sergeant, one of about 600 soldiers counted as AWOL by the Army during home leaves from Iraq, was labeled a deserter.
Now, after five months in hiding, Mejia plans to surrender in Boston today on the eve of the war's first anniversary, and he aims to become the first Iraq war veteran to publicly challenge the morality and conduct of the conflict. He intends to seek conscientious-objector status to avoid a court-martial.
In an interview, Mejia, 28, said he found the war and many of his combat orders morally questionable and ultimately unacceptable. He has been living in New York and other Eastern cities, traveling by bus instead of by plane or car to escape the attention of the police and military. He has avoided using his credit cards and cellphone.
Mejia accuses commanders of using GIs as "bait" to lure out Iraqi fighters so that US soldiers could win combat decorations. He also says operations were conducted in ways that sometimes risked injuring civilians. He has accused his battalion and company commanders of incompetence and has reiterated past guardsmen's complaints about being poorly equipped.
Those commanders defended their conduct. His immediate commander described Mejia as a poorly performing soldier who "lost his nerve" as bloodshed intensified in one of Iraq's more violent cities, Ramadi. 