By Camilo Mejia
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 28 July 2005

Fort Stewart, Georgia - When Sgt. Kevin Benderman went to Iraq on March of 2003, he saw the destruction of a nation, he saw a little girl with a burnt arm asking the soldiers for help they were ordered not to provide, he saw people drinking water from mud puddles, and he saw that Iraqis were regular people, just like himself, and that our military should not bring destruction to that country. What Sgt. Benderman saw in Iraq changed him in a way so profound, that after ten impeccable years in the Army, he decided to apply for conscientious objection. But Sgt. Benderman also spoke truth to the people about what is going on in Iraq, and he spoke about how the war is not destroying Iraq alone, but our own country as well. He spoke of how American soldiers are dehumanized by the war.

But today’s general Court-Martial did not deal with Sgt. Benderman’s war experience, nor with the dehumanization of America’s children in Iraq; it mostly dealt with a forty-five minute meeting Sgt. Benderman had with his Sgt. Major just an hour before his unit was to deploy to the Middle East, where they were to provide logistic support to American infantry units, and they were to train Iraqi police officers and military personnel.

A memorial service was held this morning at Ft. Sill for the soldier who killed himself last week (I’m sorry we don’t have the soldier’s name), leaving a wife and young child. After a very good group discussion, we decided that while we wanted to try to attend the service, there was a possibility that our presence there could be misunderstood. Instead, we chose to have our own service at a small chapel here. Steve took the lead in celebrating a simple mass — six of us sitting on the floor in a small circle, sharing a meal of chewy bread and sweet wine, painfully aware of our limitations and of the people who are victims of war. These victims, as Steve said, include soldiers and their families.

We began our vigil today at the “Boulevard of Lights,” where we vigiled yesterday, and again we were approached by people on the street who wanted to talk and share their experience. At 3 pm, as school was soon to let out, we set up our vigil outside Lawton High School. It was very good to be there – a busy intersection, where a lot of students and their families could see our message of hope. We were struck by how many people stopped to ask us “Who is Camilo Mejia?” News of him, it seems, isn’t widespread in this town, despite the fact that he is being held prisoner here.

The ABC Six O’clock news had an excellent piece tonight about Camilo and our vigil – a full 2 minutes long. They did an excellent job, interspersing footage of the war in Iraq (including shots of prisoners being abused) with images of Camilo and footage of our vigil. Kathy and Bert’s words punctuated the coverage. We were very pleased that the story was about Camilo, not about us. Clearly, his story is one that needs to be told in this community.

Read the Lawton Journal Day One, and Day Two.

For an explanation of this vigil please read Lawton Peace Vigils For Camilo Mejia

We held a vigil in two separate places on Tuesday, returning in the morning to the entrance to the cemetery, and in the afternoon vigiling at a large Xmas display, on a grassy meridian where 100 colorful and cheerful “nutcracker” toy soldiers stood tall and erect in neat rows. We interspersed ourselves among them in the front row facing traffic, each of us holding a large, vinyl, color picture of one of our Iraqi friends — children, families, people we’ve visited their many times. Bob stood in the middle of our row with a sign reading “Free Camilo. Conscience is not a Crime.”

The local ABC television affiliate came to film and interview us. Kathy and Bert were quite compelling, saying that, like children here in the US, children in other lands also dream of happiness and security and have as much right to them. We support Camilo’s decision to refuse to be a continuing part of a war which (like all wars) inevitably maims, kills, and damages children, killing their futures in countless ways. “He’s our Prince of Peace,” Kathy said. The journalists were genuinely moved by Camilo’s story, and they hoped to air a 2-minute segment on prime-time TV this evening.

As the US military assault on Fallujah intensifies, we feel sure that American troops will have more and more reasons to feel genuinely conflicted about their participation in this war. Here in Lawton, Oklahoma, we consider the words of Camilo Mejia:

“I admit that in Iraq there was the fear of being killed, but there was also the fear of killing innocent people, the fear of putting myself in a position where to survive means to kill; there was the fear of losing my soul in the process of saving my body…I was afraid of waking up one morning to realize my humanity had abandoned me. I say without any pride that I did my job as a soldier. I commanded an infantry squad in combat and we never failed to accomplish our mission.”

During our vigil outside a cemetery, we had the opportunity to leaflet passengers in cars as they came to a stop at a traffic light. Many of the people who accepted our flyers were soldiers from nearby Ft. Sill, where Camilo is a prisoner. Farah remarked on “the almost pained look” on the faces of some of these soldiers when she asked them “Have you been to Iraq?” And we were all struck by their apparent interest in our vigil.

I’ll end with a poem, written today at the vigil

Letter To Camilo

Camilo,
in the armored, seven headed logic
of military justice,
you are pathological
infectious
a foreign cell in the bloodstream
a virulent disease to be isolated, surrounded, smothered.

We seek no chink in that armor.
Rather,
like scientists gone underground
and gathered in makeshift laboratories,
we seek the purest strain
of that virus
and every opportunity
to spread it,
hoping, in time,
to help infect the entire body

Read the Lawton Journal Day Two, and Day Three.

Press Release

Americans who have served in Iraq as peace witnesses are in Lawton this week to honor and celebrate what they call a courageous stance by Iraq War veteran Camilo Mejia. Mejia served in Iraq with his National Guard Army unit, but, when called to return for a second tour, he refused. Mejia explained that he had seen and even participated in prisoner abuse in Iraq, and had seen civilians killed by mistake. Because of this, Mejia has applied for “Conscientious Objector” status while serving a one-year sentence at Fort Sill’s incarceration unit for refusing to obey orders.

Camilo Mejia’s supporters in Lawton this week have all been to Iraq numerous times with their organization: “Voices in the Wilderness.” Founder of the group Kathy Kelly was in Baghdad when the bombing began and has participated in more than 20 peace delegations. “Americans in the military risk their lives, so why shouldn’t activists for peace?,” Kelly asked, explaining the group’s
motivation.