Nicaraguan-born Camilo Mejía joined the Florida National Guard to finance his college education. Eventually he was called to active duty in Iraq. After six months he returned home for a two-week furlough and decided not to go back. He was convicted of desertion and imprisoned for nine months. Mejía was the first person to apply for the status of conscientious objector to the Iraq war but has still not been granted that status.
Road from Ar Ramadi is his memoir. The book’s strength lies in its riveting account of day-to-day life for U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. Mejía recounts the frustration he and many of his comrades felt about the willingness of senior officers to risk soldiers’ lives for glory and distinction.
“It was pretty clear that the colonel was trying to instigate a firefight and we were the bait. We were to follow the exact same procedure we had followed for three consecutive times a fourth and fifth time,” writes Mejía. “By the fourth night of Operation Shutdown much of the initial lamenting and grumbling had been replaced by a silent mixture of terror and resentment, which floated in the air as we sat in the trucks waiting to move out. Although we felt our chain of command was playing Russian roulette with our lives, no one dared say a word.”
Mejía’s harrowing account is marred by his excessively plaintive voice. Not far into the book, one is acutely aware of his feelings about things he did in Iraq. Yet he repeats those sentiments ad nauseam. Much of his explanation of his inner process, on the other hand, seems to lack sincerity because he doesn’t provide much detail. When he first decided not to return to Iraq, for example, a GI Rights counselor suggested that he apply for conscientious objector status. Mejía didn’t think it was an option for him.
“I had never really thought about it,” writes Mejía. “I knew conscientious objectors were supposed to be opposed to all wars, but I wasn’t sure that was true for me.”
A few pages later, Mejía says that he has “fully embraced the idea of conscientious objection” but doesn’t explain what caused the shift. This seems a rather large omission in a book purporting to follow Mejía’s journey from combat soldier to peace advocate.
Despite gaps in detail and a pervasive sense of woe, however, Road From Ar Ramadi is an intimate look at life in Iraq and sheds light on the conscience of a soldier. “I felt like a coward,” writes Mejía, “for not speaking more loudly against an order that could result in killing of unarmed citizens.”
Mejía will discuss his work as part of Books Out Loud, the second installment of events in A Celebration of the Art of the Book, a presentation by Museums10, a collaboration of 10 Valley museums, on Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. at Mount Holyoke’s Gamble Auditorium. www.museums10.org.