No Medals for Agustin Aguayo

His conscientious objector (CO) status denied on appeal, Aguayo went
absent without leave, or AWOL, last September before a second
deployment to Iraq. He had been told he would be taken there in
shackles if necessary.

The medic was given a bad conduct discharge, sentenced to eight months
in a military prison and stripped of his pay. It could have been worse,
as he faced a possible seven years in jail.

Agustin Aguayo says that when he first joined the Army in 2002, he
still believed in the US government and he never expected to be in the
news. On Tuesday, he was once again a top story as he was convicted for
refusing to kill people he doesn’t know and who have done nothing to
him, his family or his country.

In an interview with Democracy Now, before he turned himself in last
year, Agustin Aguayo said: "It’s not my job to decide who’s going to
live or who’s going to die. That’s something that I’ve had to deal with
morally and that I’m convinced of. Nothing is clearer in my mind that
war is wrong. And I won’t be a tool of war anymore."

Aguayo had applied for CO status before his first deployment in
February 2004 but that was rejected.

At the time he felt killing was wrong. But according to his wife, Helga
Aguayo, it wasn’t until he was in Iraq and read a book on its history
that came in a care package "that he realized that the war has
essentially been created for the personal gain of a few people."

In an excellent interview by Gillian Russom titled "The Court Martial
of Agustin Aguayo," Helga added: "What he told me was that for a few
corporations, it’s in their best interests to keep the chaos going in
Iraq."

"When my husband enlisted, we were very ignorant. We had both graduated
from college and had no idea about history or the military. Now, our
eyes are wide open," Helga Aguayo told Russom.

"In the movies, Hollywood glamorizes the military and makes them look
like such heroes, but when he started training, he realized, ’I’m
training to kill people,’" added Helga.

Camilo Mejia, a young Nicaraguan born US solider, was another similar
case. Mejia’s wake up call came in Iraq and he wasn’t about to go back
on a second deployment. He has since dedicated himself to speaking out
against the war.

If Aguayo and Mejia and the thousands like them that have left their
posts, or refused to deploy in Iraq, knew what they were getting into
beforehand they may have never enlisted.

Recruitment officers promises of money for college, fast track
citizenship, or "to be somebody" lose ground when a young person
comprehends the cruelty of taking part in an unjust war against a
civilian population.

However, once they are on board the pressures on them are intense and
it takes real courage to fly in the face of them as Aguayo and Mejia
did. While so called deserters may find themselves with fewer options
in a society where education and decent employment are a privilege, at
least they can sleep at night.

Author: Circles Robinson (www.circlesonline.blogspot.com)