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WAR RESISTANT - PART 2The stories of five members of the American military who have chosen to seek asylum in Canada rather than continuing to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. INTERVIEWED BY ROCCO CASTORO, PHOTOS BY RYAN FOERSTER  I grew up in Fairmount, Indiana. It’s a town of maybe 7,000 people, famous for being the birthplace of James Dean and where Garfield was created. Every year they have this Garfield-themed marathon run. It’s pretty lame. My parents split up when I was young, and I stayed mostly with my mom until I was around 14 and wanted to see what Dad’s house was like. He’s a real Republican, pro-military type of guy—always talking about the Army like he should have never got out. After a couple years I left his place and did my own thing. I dropped out of high school and started working in factories for a while. I tried trade school for a year but it wasn’t for me. All of a sudden I hit 20 and was like, “Whatever, I’ll just give the military a go.” They pay for food, they give you a place to stay—they take care of everything I didn’t have. This was around 2002, when the first rumblings of war were happening. I decided to join the army as a reservist. Boot camp sucked. It’s like waiting in one big fucking long line, forever. Everybody was asking, “Are we going to Iraq?” but our drill sergeant was telling us we wouldn’t because Saddam was keeping that area crazy to the point where people couldn’t band together and threaten America. But then some people were saying the exact opposite: “Oh yeah, we’re going to bomb the shit out of them.” If we got deployed, I wanted nothing to do with it. I’ve always thought war was stupid, and the only way I would get involved is if my country was being invaded. Eventually my unit was scheduled for deployment. I quit the full-time job I had then at the cable company to train for the mission. For whatever reason, I soon developed severe insomnia where I’d be hallucinating and just all screwed up. I had to go to the doctor for medication and thought it would be enough for them to boot me off the mission, but they told me I’d have to go back to the doctor a second time to get officially cleared. I couldn’t pay my initial bill because as a reservist you don’t get health insurance, so when I returned for the prognosis I wasn’t able to get the paperwork I needed for a discharge. I was completely fed up and just said, “Fuck it,” and went AWOL.  They eventually found me and locked me up for about a week, then let me know they were going to proceed with a dishonorable discharge. My dad tried to help and talked me into asking the Army National Guard if they could do anything. The local office told me that if I transferred to a different state I wouldn’t have to worry about a warrant and everything would be OK. I decided on Los Angeles, figuring people on the West Coast are more open-minded and would be against fighting an illegal war. After a week of collecting my thoughts and sleeping on the beach I called the Guard and they picked me up. It was a lot better than Indiana. Everybody was very cool and they didn’t seem to be going to Iraq anytime soon. But then two weeks later they said, “You might be on a deployment roster.” After that it was a sure thing; I was on the list. I sat around for a few months, this heavy shit bearing down on me every second of my existence. There was no way to get out of it because of the repercussions from the first time I bailed. I didn’t want to rot in jail. I finally got to Iraq and they had me working in military intelligence even though I had no fucking clue what I was doing. My job was based on test scores from when I was in school. I was also promoted to sergeant. I’m a high school dropout. I could barely take care of myself and now they have me taking care of a bunch of delinquents—the guys who got in trouble for drinking on duty and other shit. One guy even raped a female soldier. And I felt like a hypocrite because I’d have to bust them even though I was probably out boozing with them earlier. It was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. I tried to quit my job and told everybody I was getting out, that it was bullshit. But my superiors were like, “That’s impossible. It doesn’t work like that. You’re just getting stressed out. We’ll send you home on leave, and then you’ll get all this out of your system.” But I was honest with them and told them I wasn’t coming back. They were like, “You’ll be back. Desertion is punishable by death, especially in a war zone.” I looked into trying to file as a conscientious objector, but it seemed like so much work and took too long and other people were telling me it was impossible. There was really only one choice left if I wanted out.  I came back to Indiana on leave and told my mom I was over it. She was worried about me but knew I had made up my mind. I hid out in the States for eight months, staying at people’s house, sleeping in the woods, going from place to place, and working odd jobs. One day I was searching around the internet and somehow found the lawyer representing Jeremy Hinzman and the other resisters who went to Canada. I got ahold of him and he got me in touch with the War Resisters Support Campaign. They told me to come up for a visit to see if they could offer me anything and that everything would be fine at the border. At that point I had 400 bucks to my name and just went for it. I paid two girlfriends of mine to drive me up. When we got to the border I told them, “Hey, I’m coming up here to see some friends.” And they did a half-assed search of the car. I had mistakenly left this notebook with information about an immigration lawyer in my bag. They found it and were like, “What’s this? Why do you need an immigration lawyer? Are you planning on staying up here?” I started to shit my pants but tried to play it cool by being like, “Whatever, that’s a poem. Leave me alone. It’s a fucking diary!” They just waved me through. I settled in and then went out to eat and have a few beers with some people from the campaign. At that point I hadn’t actually planned on moving. I specifically had the girls I was with hang out for four extra days in case what the campaign told me was bogus. I was going to have them drop me off close to Maine or something and just walk back across the border through the woods if it didn’t pan out. But a few days passed and I decided on staying even though I was flat broke. In the beginning I crashed with a campaign supporter and they fed me and gave me beers. They had a tomato garden out back. It was awesome. I even found a gig for a little bit to make some change. I finally got my working papers and got a proper job selling advertising space on a search engine. I make decent money. I’ve got my own place. I’ll be getting a car soon and I’ve made a lot of friends. My application for refugee status was denied, but I can legally stay as long as I’m appealing it. I think I have a good shot. Things are getting better every day. I think what I did is patriotic in a sense, because America is all about standing up for what you believe and not putting up with bullshit just because the rules were created before you. It’s a fucking shame that I can’t sit in my own country and fight against the war because they’ll throw me in jail for 40 years. I’m 25 years old now, so fuck that. They can kiss my ass. But if the Canadians tell me to leave, I’ll leave the next day. There are ways to get back to the US without dealing with Customs. I would move to a place where nobody knew me. Probably California, where I could be anybody I wanted to be.
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