MEET THE NEW COS
Berrigan, Frida
Meet the New COs By Frida Berrigan Illustration by Kelly Mudge JEREMY HINZMAN JOINED THE MILITARY in early 2001. Like many others, he was attracted to the military by "the prospect of being able...
...We have a lot going for us," says House...
...I knew I could be deployed to fight in a war...
...While other soldiers "just wanted to go and kick some ass," he says, that attitude "didn't work for me...
...Do you count up all the countries that opposed the war...
...About five weeks into basic training, we were on our way to the chow hall shouting 'trained to kill, kill we will.' We were threatened with push-ups because we were not showing enough enthusiasm...
...Although I still have a great desire to eliminate injustice, I have come to the realization that killing will do nothing but perpetuate it," he wrote in his application...
...He responded he would not automatically turn the other cheek...
...He recalls thinking, "No weapons of mass destruction...
...The twenty-year-old high school dropout lived in Toronto's homeless shelters, not knowing where to turn, afraid that if he asked for help, he'd be sent back to Florida...
...Now he is a Toronto attorney, with fifteen years of immigration law experience and a successful track record of gaining refugee status for Central Americans...
...Just days before Christmas, Hinzman's unit was ordered to redeploy—to Iraq...
...Through reading and discussions with Nguyen and friends in Fayetteville, Hinzman solidified his opposition to the Iraq War...
...Thus, I cannot in good conscience continue to serve as a combatant in the Army...
...In target practice, he recalls, we "started out with black circle targets...
...has attacked a country that was no threat to them in an act of aggression...
...Sanders did not know anyone in Canada, and he did not know he had the option to file for conscientious objector status...
...Initially sheltered by a Quaker family, Hinzman and Nguyen eventually found an apartment and— even more importantly—a lawyer...
...If Hinzman, Hughey, and Sanders were sent back to the United States they would be prosecuted for deserting their post...
...When I left for basic training, I didn't hold any political beliefs," Hughey says...
...But J. E. McNeil, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War, believes the number of applicants is much higher...
...two other young American soldiers were in Canada...
...Hughey was desperate to get out of the military...
...The three men face hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board, where they have to prove they are refugees fleeing political persecution...
...But he acknowledges that the argument is "narrower than it sounds at first," noting that there is "an irreducible political component" to the case...
...Soon after their son, Liam, was born in May 2002, Hinzman filed for conscientious objector status...
...If Canada is "afraid of offending America," that will be a "slight impediment to the success of our case...
...Then the circles grew shoulders and then the shoulders turned into torsos...
...What about the 'Coalition of the Willing...
...I didn't want to kill innocent people," he says...
...Does that constitute persecution...
...He argued that he would not only face prosecution if sent back to Russia, he would be persecuted by being forced to "kill innocent civilians and destroy property in a reprehensible manner" in the Chechen War...
...That's what I'd be doing if I'd stayed...
...To die or kill other people so that the American public could have cheap access to oil was wrong...
...He told Hinzman he was not alone...
...Like many others, he was attracted to the military by "the prospect of being able to &o to college without incurring debt and be a part of something bigger than myself," he says...
...Well-founded fear of persecution, not prosecution...
...During wartime, this crime is technically punishable by death, although no one has been executed for this in more than half a century...
...But he was certain of one thing...
...How much condemnation equals international condemnation...
...Not anymore...
...When Hughey crossed into Canada, he says he was quiet for a minute and then breathed deeply and said, "I feel safe now...
...Despite its opposition to the war in Iraq, Canada values close relations with the United States and does not want to become the destination for hundreds or thousands of military deserters...
...It is a test case for their sovereignty...
...At his conscientious objector hearing in Kandahar in April 2003, Hinzman was asked if he would use violence to protect himself...
...He was a "White Devil": a member of the 82nd Airborne's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment...
...House would represent them all...
...When he heard his unit was on its way to Iraq early this year, he walked off base and got on a bus to Toronto...
...At that time, it also had one of the world's most open immigration policies...
...Bragg, and his introduction to the Quaker peace testimony intensified his questioning...
...Canada is not rolling out the welcome mat as it did during the Vietnam War, when Pierre Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, told immigration officials not to discriminate against applicants who had not fulfilled their military obligations in other countries...
...House intends to put the U.S.-led war in Iraq on trial...
...Hinzman has one regret: "I did not strip off my uniform right then and refuse to cooperate any longer...
...But that could prove difficult...
...No one in the military was providing any answers, so Hughey turned to the Internet, where he found Carl Rising-Moore, a peace activist in Indianapolis who has formed Freedom Underground, a "railroad" to help soldiers get to Canada...
...Then he read an article about Jeremy Hinzman in the local paper, found Jeffry House, and filed for refugee status...
...Our aim there was economic in nature...
...military whose unit deploys to Iraq next week...
...While the Immigration and Refugee Board is an independent body, the Canadian government has asked it not to consider the illegality of the war in its deliberations...
...The time to think came later that month when his unit returned to Fort Bragg, and he returned to his wife and son...
...Stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, after basic training, Hughey began asking his superiors to grant him a discharge...
...He completed basic training, and in July 2001 moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with his wife, Nga Nguyen...
...I wasn't na?ve...
...Now he hopes they can keep the life they've started in Toronto...
...I promised myself and my wife that I would not go...
...His application for conscientious objector status was denied on the basis of that response...
...Hinzman was a "good soldier," he recalls...
...The legal argument is nuanced and hinges on the difference between prosecution and persecution...
...I am standing up for what I believe is right...
...Pretty soon they were human beings...
...In all likelihood, the three men would be facing as much as five years in jail...
...In one case, Andre Kor-tov, a Russian military deserter, sought refuge in England...
...We have a fairly good case in law...
...This time he did strip off his uniform...
...House is "cautiously optimistic...
...There is a strong, innate predisposition against killing," Hinzman says, "and the military breaks that down...
...But I did have this image growing up that I would be sort of a good guy, fighting for just causes and fighting to defend my country...
...He felt like he was on a "100-mile-an-hour train" that wouldn't slow down for him to think...
...I found myself hoarse yelling this and, when I looked around me, I saw that most of my colleagues were red in the face, but totally engrossed...
...Hinzman, Hughey, and Sanders are following in the footsteps of tens of thousands of military deserters and draft dodgers who went to Canada during the Vietnam War...
...I feel like a free man...
...More than thirty years before, Jeffry House had made a similar trek to Canada as a Vietnam War draft resister...
...David Sanders was stationed at a Navy base in Florida...
...Told his application was lost, he reapplied right before he left with his unit for Afghanistan...
...These doubts led him to a fundamental question: Could he participate in a war he knew was wrong...
...Our cases are pressuring Canada to have a clear-cut position on the war," he says...
...My dad had to sign a form because I was too young to enlist on my own accord," Hughey says...
...I am proud ofwhat I've done," he says...
...He says he was depressed, even suicidal, at times...
...I think what we did was worth it," Hinzman says, "We did the right thing and came here to make a life...
...He had to get out...
...Morse says the military does not train its personnel in the rights of conscientious objectors, and it intimidates and stereotypes those who apply...
...What does the international community mean...
...Then he understood that the military was not just training him to kill, but "to kill with a smile on my face...
...We were not attacking Iraq because we were under an imminent threat," he says...
...Brandon Hughey comes from a Republican family in Texas...
...Canada opposed the war...
...But Canadian Quakers and peace activists are trying to make up for their government's lack of hospitality...
...House plans to argue that the international community has condemned the U.S.-led war in Iraq and "there should be protection when you don't want to serve in an illegal war that is contrary to international law," he says...
...It might be more than a slight impediment...
...He and his wife found the Quaker meeting in Fayetteville, seeking a "shared spiritual life" as they prepared for the birth of their child...
...It happens all the time," says Steve Morse, a counselor with the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors...
...was using to launch war in Iraq was bogus...
...They told me I was going to Iraq and there was nothing I could do about it...
...The law says you don't have to be a pacifist to be a conscientious objector...
...But during basic training, he began to have doubts...
...He wrote to Rising-Moore: "I am a member of the U.S...
...I realized that basically the U.S...
...Meanwhile, I was having this heavy internal debate about the morality of what I was doing...
...You have to oppose all war, but self-defense is a permissible answer, he explains...
...In January, Hinzman and Nguyen packed their belongings, put Liam in the car seat, and headed north...
...And have told my superiors that I want out of the military...
...They kept brushing me off," he says...
...The Geneva Conventions define a refugee as one who "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted . . . is outside the country of his nationality" and unable or unwilling to "avail himself of the protection of that country...
...They've formed a national committee to support Hinz-man, Hughey, and Sanders, and are prepared to extend the same warm reception to other war resisters who make it across the border...
...The Army says there have been ninety-six applications for CO status since the war in Iraq began, and it has approved forty-eight...
...Kortov's claim was rejected, but the British court ruled that "he might nevertheless qualify if the Chechen War has been condemned by the international community...
...Easier said than done...
...He misses home, but he is comfortable in his choice...
...The night he was scheduled to report for deployment, Brandon drove to Indianapolis, met Carl, and they went north across the border together...
...He came to an uncomfortable and life-altering answer: No...
...The quiet worship contrasted sharply with Hinzman's life at Fort Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center in New York City...
...Plus, she notes, "there are faster discharges than a CO discharge," and some soldiers who are morally opposed to the Iraq War avail themselves of these discharges...
...Hinzman can pinpoint the moment he realized he "made the wrong career decision...
...Interested in money for college, he signed up for the Army at seventeen...
...Hinzman read week-old newspapers and watched satellite television, closely following the buildup to war in Iraq...
...While there, he was assigned to noncombat duty in the kitchen waiting for his hearing...
...What are we doing there...
...Possibly...
...Hughey celebrated his nineteenth birthday in a foreign land, and he has been out of touch with his father and younger brother...
...I do not want to be a pawn in the government's war for oil...
...No ties to Al Qaeda...
...He hopes he can stay that way...
...I was never informed of any route I could take to leave the military, such as applying for conscientious objector status...
...The fourteen-hour days of dishwashing in the desert can make a man think, and Hinzman did, concluding, "The pretense the U.S...
...I couldn't get out of it, so I decided to make the most of it...
...Hinzman points out another political wrinkle...
...But as he began to pay attention to the news from Iraq, he began to have doubts about the mission...
Vol. 68 • December 2004 • No. 12
