US Army struggles with soldier who won't pull the trigger
Is the decision not to fight conscience or cowardice?
from the August 14, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
With time, the Aguayos made a painful break from their church. One of its central tenets is political neutrality: Members don't usually salute flags or perform military service. At first, Aguayo saw his religious estrangement as spiritual license to serve his country. By the time he realized that, church or no church, he couldn't take a human life, he was already a US infantryman.
Last October, Aguayo was returned in handcuffs to the US Army stockade at Coleman Barracks in Mannheim, Germany. The prison had a library, and, for half a year, Aguayo read everything from "The World is Flat" to "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families." He studied Genesis and Exodus, Deepak Chopra, and financial planning. Buddhist philosophy intrigued him. Reading fed Aguayo's growing political awareness. He now viewed Operation Iraqi Freedom as a betrayal of the founding principles of his adopted nation.
While in prison, his conscientious objection suit was rejected. An applicant must demonstrate profound and irreversible moral transformation, but Aguayo chose not to discuss the upheaval in his religious beliefs. Instead, he wrote of his "deep admiration" for Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., and his desire to "follow their lead."
Reviewing judges found this vague. "Clearly this was not an open-and-shut case," they wrote, but the supportive testimony of Aguayo's immediate higher-ups didn't persuade them he'd changed.
On March 6, with family and supporters behind him, Aguayo stood before a US court martial in Würzburg, Germany, charged with missing movement and desertion. He pled guilty to the former; the prosecution set out to prove the latter. At issue was whether Aguayo had shirked "hazardous duty and important service" by not going to Iraq a second time, and how much his presence might have mattered there.
For six hours, Aguayo and superiors relived his year in Tikrit. Under squad leader Sgt. David Garcia, Aguayo had dressed wounds, cleaned Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and patrolled the streets of the former Iraqi dictator's hometown. Sergeant Garcia testified respectfully of Aguayo as a soldier, saying he'd been working on getting him legally discharged. "I told him what he needed to do was stick by his guns, if that was how he felt."
Lt. Aaron Roberts considered Aguayo "fully capable" in his medical duties, but found his refusal to carry a weapon "a major concern.... We would have exhausted all other resources ... before sending Aguayo out on patrol" again, he said. Still, as Lieutenant Roberts headed to Iraq with 800 men, only a third of whom had combat experience, a levelheaded, experienced soldier like Aguayo could have been "an invaluable asset to me," he added.
The twins leaned into Helga as Judge R. Peter Masterton read his verdict: "Of all charges and specifications, guilty."
Sentencing followed, and Aguayo's superiors described the effect of his flight on fellow soldiers. "There's a lot of talk, a bit of embarrassment to the unit, to the regiment," Garcia said. Though sympathetic to Aguayo's beliefs, the sergeant said, "If I've got 20 other guys who do the same thing Pfc. Aguayo did, I've got a problem."
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