this is for the immagration and refugee board me and angel are working on it this is only a draft tell us what you think. These are the events that led me to flee to canada. September 11 2001 The nation is under attack! I woke up, and rubbed my eyes, and sat down to watch the news before going to school. Then I saw the second plane hit the trade tower LIVE. Was this really happening I thought? Is this a movie? This made me really scared, I thought we were safe, it was also angered me at the same time. The rest of the day in school we watched CNN and other news broadcasts showing all the mayhem. I felt so bad for those people; I wanted to do something but what? I was just a sophomore in high school. I remember saying I really wanted to punish the people that did this. I told my best friend I hope the army attacks the country or people responsible. Feb/mar 2003, two years later I start hearing that Saddam aids and a beds terrorists of Al-Qa'ida, and is developing and has weapons of mass destruction. I think this is my chance I can do something I can do my part. Mar 2003, the tanks rolling into Baghdad at full force where really inspiring. This was the first time I truly considered joining the army. May 1984-May 2003, I come from an upper lower class family. I grew up with my mom and my step dad in Boise, Idaho a very republican state. My step-dad works at a warehouse as a stocker and my mom is a home maker. My real dad served for 6 years in the army corps of engineers. He was sprayed by Agent Orange in Vietnam, 1969. He died of gastric cancer when I was 12 as a result. Mar 1999, I was bombarded with army recruiters from the time I was in 9th grade. Oct 2001, I dropped out of school during my junior year so I really cut my options short. I worked the odd jobs fast food, ice skating rinks etc. Oct 2001, I tried to join the army then but I needed a G.E.D. or a high school diploma. So I was out of luck. May 5 2003, I joined a Job Corps. Job Corps is a government funded live in school that helps better the lives of under privileged kids. I signed up as a welder and got my G.E.D. in June. June 26 2003, I got my G.E.D. June 28 2003 As soon as I did a recruiter was talking to me every other day. He often visited the centre and heckled students. The thoughts of 9/11 ran through my mind, and how I thought then I wish I could something. Now is my chance... So I decided to join, I knew fully well that I might go to Iraq, but at that point I thought we were right for being there. I was standing behind the decisions of my leader why shouldn’t I? He was saving us from the terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction. He was acting on behalf of all those poor souls, that perished on 9\11, and to give rest to there souls it was a noble cause. But it was all a lie! Bush and the people around him were praying on my emotions and all the other good people of the United States. But Iraq was no threat what so ever. How were we to know that the media was white washed, that it was sanitized. June 2003, I signed up for the Delayed entry program. I wanted to sign up to be a welder. But the recruiter quickly took my attention elsewhere. He wanted a combat soldier, that’s what the army wanted from him. “Robin: do you remember the tanks rolling into Baghdad?” He said. I could get you 8000 dollars sign up bonus for that. That was more money than I had ever seen. He manipulated me with money he knew I was poor and always was poor. “Tanks are cool” he said “come on what boy wouldn’t want to blow stuff up for a living?” “It’s just like a video game he said”. You’ll be safe just like in your mama’s belly. I thought about this, this would mean I would be going to Iraq. Then he said “we can station you at Fort Knox and you won’t be deployed from there.” There may not be a draft in the traditional sense, but it is a draft of poverty an economic draft. All the people in the army were poor or are a minority. The people that had it the worse are the ones that are willing to stand up and join the army and its set up that way. October 21 2003, I headed for osut (one station unit training) at Fort Knox, Ky. Oct- Mar 2003 -2004; while I was in Basic, I remember marching everywhere I went singing songs about killing death and destruction. “What makes the grass grow green? Blood, bright red blood.” We were taught by the military as recruits to hate another culture and they did not give us the tools to appreciate or understand adequately those who we were being sent to kill and to liberate. They were trying to shape me into a killer and for the first time I realized I might have to kill and that thought didn’t sit well with me. Up until that point being in the army and killing had been so separated. Oct 2003-to date, some interesting things happened while I was in Basic Training. First they found no weapons of mass destruction. Dec 2003, Saddam was captured! This was huge the war would be over soon. This was awesome! March 5th 2003, I graduated from Basic Training. I was assigned to 1/16 Cavalry at Fort Knox. March-July 2004, I got accustomed to what life was like there. No training for combat, just training officers to be tank commanders. March 2004 -March 2005, a lot of people were trying to get out of Fort Knox they wanted to go to Iraq and quote “Kill rag heads”. Fort Knox was too laid back, to boring for them. They had a growing hatred for Iraqis it was all around me from my comrades to my superiors. They where volunteering to kill. It was starting to sound like justified homicide. We were trained to dehumanize our victims. Growing up poor and joining the military for a university education can sometimes be a roadmap to hell for all of us. What good is international law or the Geneva conventions when the most powerful military force in the world regularly slaughters civilians and the front line soldiers do not have the training or the resources to meet the standards required of them. May 2004 Then Abu Ghraib hit the media. Here are some of the atrocities that happened there. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear; Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; Writing "I am a Rapist" on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked; Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture; A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees. Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol; Pouring cold water on naked detainees; Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; Threatening male detainees with rape; Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee That was sick…I couldn’t participate in that, I knew there had to be more of that going on that couldn’t have be an isolated incident. July 2004- feb2005 some new people arrived in my unit fresh from Iraq, Aug 2004 some of these soldiers had pictures of people they had killed, and even someone they ran over with their tank. These images where starting to freak me out, but even worse these soldiers were proud of what they had done. And it inspired, or made other soldiers feel left out and a lot more people where volunteering to go to Iraq. They where psyched about killing and where basing there decisions on the fact they could shoot live rounds at human beings. This was sick. Feb 2005 there were others however that came back. And were questioning why we there. Some had come fresh from fallujah. They had thought that fallujah was just a massive killing of Arabs. And the closeness to the election was kind of weird “I mean why wait until just after the election to launch operation phantom fury”, a friend asked me “it was all kind of fishy.” Feb 2005 White phosphorus was allegedly used, in Fallujah,so I looked into it WP ignites in the air and is capable of burning people right to the bone unless extinguished. However, the Pentagon claims that WP is not a chemical weapon and that its use is legal. Protocol III of the 1980 international Convention on Conventional Weapons (C.C.W.) prohibits the use of incendiary weapons “to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons” unless the military objective “is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.” The U.S. is a signatory to the C.C.W., but not to Protocol III so it’s not illegal for them are they special? Or what? Feb 2005 all this got me to start thinking, the US is using chemical weapons, there haven’t been any weapons of mass destruction found, Saddam was removed from power, what were we doing there? Feb 2005 this got me to start thinking that all Bush has been saying was a pack of lies. What were the really reasons he was there the oil….money of course. This whole war was based on a lie. Way too many young people had died for him, and even more innocent Iraqis. If they really liked us being over there, if they really appreciated us liberating them they wouldn’t be attacking us. Feb 2005 my eyes where slowly opening, the international community was condemning this war. I began to wonder why I never saw any images of war even thought this was the first was the whole world could see as it happened. Feb 2005 I started to research on my own and found out a few important pieces of info. President Bush removed the United States signature from a 1998 treaty establishing an international criminal court for war crimes (ICC). And revoked American support in 2002. And congress passed a bill called the Hague invasion act, which authorizes “any means necessary to secure Americans held by the court”. It’s as if he is protecting American soldiers, like he knows war crimes are going to be committed, very soon. In fact now they have already happened. In Sept 2003, the White House's Web site featured a charming little page called Tales of Saddam's Brutality. Posted in September 2003, the idea behind the page was simple: Overwhelm people with visceral stories of evil Saddam Hussein in order to prop up an increasingly unpopular invasion of Iraq that was originally based on the idea that Saddam was hoarding weapons of mass destruction By fall 2003, it was starting to look like those weapons were never going to show up, so the bush administration began unsubtly revising history to reflect the fact that the U.S. went into Iraq to get rid of "a bad man." After all, no one in George Bush's America would dare suggest that the Iraqi people weren't better off with Saddam out of the way. And Saddam and sons were indeed pretty atrocious, in the strictly literal sense of authoring atrocities. I don’t remember one blown up building one dead or wounded Iraqi or one wounded or dead soldier! Why? To cover up the lies. Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where are the terrorists I mean really? Destroy 100 homes of innocent people in fallujah to look for one terrorist? Who turns out to just be a scared college student? I wish I had known this sooner. Feb 2005 I had seen and heard too much. I couldn’t be apart of the evil that was going on in Iraq, it wasn’t right. Iraq had never attacked the US. Saddam was ruined after the gulf war, there was no army there. There has been no proof up to date of weapons of mass destruction or terrorist training camps. There has been no proof that the US has done anything to better that country, a lot of people say it was better when Saddam was in power at least they had security, power, water, food. And they weren’t afraid that the US would could destroy there homes “in the search of terrorists.” I couldn’t be a tool for destruction. The war is unjust, illegal and immoral. Bush won’t even call it a war but it is. Mar 10 2005, so when I received orders to go on the 10th of March 2005. I had a huge decision to make. I could be a soldier (a uniform following orders) or I could follow my own conscience and refuse the orders and face jail time. But I didn’t think that I should be punished for doing the right thing. So I made the decision to leave my family and friends behind and come to Canada to escape the Incarceration and persecution in the states. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t follow orders I knew were immoral and would put me in the position that I might have to commit war crimes. Or further hurt the Iraqi people, or get my self killed, in a conflict that was based in lies. March 20th 2005 I went home on PCS leave. I said good bye to my family and friends. I stayed in Boise until June I had to find a way up to Canada. Early June 2005 I found a way and I traveled up to Canada with some people I had just met through friends. I crossed the border into Sask. June – Nov 2005 I traveled all over Canada from Toffino to St Johns New Foundland. I was very paranoid that the US army would and could still come up to Canada and get me. So I was planning to stay underground. But then I met some good people and they told me about claiming refugee status. Nov 30 2005 I claimed refugee status in Thunder Bay Ontario _________________ peace to all!!! if you dont stand for something your going to fall for anything Back to top
