A Soldier Says "War No More!"

At 20 years old, Camilo Mejia of Miami enlisted in the U.S. Army. After serving a three-year term, he joined the Florida National Guard in 1999. When Mejia's Florida Guard unit was sent to Iraq in April 2003, he went. The carnage was too much. He was especially disturbed by the deaths of unarmed civilians, and thought that the U.S. military was not being careful enough to protect them.

Now 28, Mejia returned to the United States last October. He had to renew his permanent resident card. You see, although he serves the United States, Camilo is not a U.S. citizen. He was born in the Central American country Nicaragua. But because he lives here, he's willing to give something back.

His time in Iraq led him to question why the United States invaded Iraq, and how it is conducting itself there.

It took Camilo Mejia time to clarify his thoughts. So he ran away. By early March, he began to think that the war in Iraq is wrong and that he could no longer participate in it. But he also realized that as an enlisted sergeant, he had a responsibility to stand up to the military and be up front about his choice. On March 16, he turned himself in to military authorities, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The military immediately branded Mejia as a deserter, someone who shirked his duty. One captain even referred to him as a "mommy's boy" ("GI to Test Morality of War," Chicago Tribune, March 15, 2004). But another term for him is "selective conscientious objector."

"I am saying 'No!' to war," he told the Tribune ("Iraq war objector surrenders with fanfare," March 16, 2004), "I have chosen peace. I went to Iraq and I was an instrument of violence. Now I have decided to be an instrument of peace."

Around his neck, Camilo, who is Catholic, wears a medal depicting St. Francis of Assisi, who taught us to pray, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." Set inside the medal is a bloodied scrap of the linen robe that Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador wore on March 24, 1980. (El Salvador is a neighboring country to Mejia's Nicaragua.) While saying Mass, Archbishop Romero was gunned down by government agents. The previous Sunday, on the radio he told soldiers in El Salvador's National Guard not to obey orders to shoot unarmed women and children in the brutal war that was then raging.

It's not clear how the military will decide to treat the case of Camilo Mejia at this point.

To learn more, visit the Pax Christi's Conscientious Objection Information and Resources webpage .

Catholic Connections

"Do not follow any leaders who train you in the way of inflicting death. . . .Give yourself to the service of life, not the work of death. Violence is the enemy of justice. Only peace can lead the way to true justice."
- Pope John Paul II, September 29, 1979

"We support those who risk their lives in the service of our nation. We also support those who seek to exercise their right to conscientious objection and selective conscientious objection, as we have stated in the past."
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, November 13, 2002.

Reflection Questions

If you were in Camilo Mejia's situation, what would you do? How would you do it?

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