awol (american war on logic)

I met an American couple last night, while taking a drink in my local pub, who have been here since July. In October, they'll be returning to the States when their eldest son is let out of prison and will launch their campaign against the charges brought against him.

His crime? Refusing to serve a third tour in Iraq.

He's been in the ARMY for 8 years.

He, like thousands of other soldiers, decided at the last minute before being shipped out into this damned, illegal war that he couldn't face returning again to what is a futile and wasteful travesty of an invasion. Like thousands of soldiers in the past few years, he went AWOL. But he didn't go into hiding. He awaited his fate. He was thanked for his efforts of serving his country with a year's jail sentence (cut down to 11 months... how generous).

I stood in front of his mother, mouth agape with disbelief. "It's alright," she said, smiling and shrugging it off. "He has 4 kids and his wife has left him, but it's ok." I shook my head. How is this ok? How is she so ok with it? She's ok with it because she supports him and she believes that no matter what, they'll get through this together. "14 soldiers were killed in Iraq yesterday," she said with a smile on her face, shaking a victorious fist, "and my boy wasn't one of 'em!"

It's an interesting view, really. How horrifying that 14 other sons were killed. How wonderful that her son decided he wouldn't go and might have spared his own life in doing so. How horrifying that in doing so it has completely turned his life upside down. How wonderful that his parents, who both voted for Bush both times, are in full support of their son's decision, are finally fed up with Bush and Cheney (too late) and are now trying to decide between Clinton or Obama (I brought up Edwards, and my hope for an Edwards/Obama ticket).

This story is hard for me to contemplate. It vexes me that our fearless leader and his righteous regime repay its supporters and service people with such crass injustice. I can't believe that the dogs of war have so much blood in their eyes that blood is all they only see, and they demand their soldiers to go back into the fray again and again until the soldiers are unable to do so either because of a mental inability to cope or death. I knew the military had lost the plot. I had even read the stories of AWOL US soldiers in the Guardian and The Times. But coming face to face with it was something else entirely.

I appreciate this soldier for doing what he signed up to do, and doing it repeatedly so that our young civilian sons and brothers and fathers aren't made to stop their lives to go to war. I appreciate that there are people who are willing to do the work that makes our country strong, and do the things that I would never want to do. I appreciate that young people dedicate their lives to our country. But aside from the obvious indications of a country having overstepped it's brief (in oh so many ways), this solidifies for me definitively that the US military and it's commander are truly at a point at which they've lost their reason.