Product Description

The inspiring story of the nationally known soldier who fought in Iraq and was brave enough to face jail rather than return to fight again.

As the American occupation of Iraq continues with no end in sight, Camilo Mejía has become a nationally recognized voice in the ever-growing peace movement. After serving in the Army for nearly nine years, he was the first-known Iraq veteran to refuse to fight, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. His principled stand helped to rally the growing opposition and embolden his fellow soldiers. Despite widespread public support and an all-star legal team, Mejía was eventually convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison, prompting Amnesty International to declare him a prisoner of conscience.

Since his release, the celebrated soldier-turned-pacifist has traveled around the country and the world to speak against the war. Now he tells his own story, from his upbringing in Central America and his experience as a working-class immigrant in the United States to his service in Iraq—where he witnessed prisoner abuse and was deployed in the Sunni triangle—and time in prison. Far from being an accidental activist, Mejía was raised by prominent Sandinista revolutionaries and draws inspiration from Jesuit teachings. In this stirring book, he argues passionately for human rights and the end to an unjust war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #769957 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Mejía, a veteran of the Iraq conflict, became an antiwar hero when he refused to return to his unit and was court-martialed in 2004 for desertion. His memoir is a blend of compelling war narrative and dubious soapboxing. Mejía's claim to conscientious objector status, after eight years in the U.S. military, months of combat and a long campaign for a discharge, rings rather hollow. The son of prominent Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he takes a view of the insurgents' "fight for self-determination" that seems naïve ("[t]here seemed to be a unity that spread through the differences among Iraqis") and his prose is laced with clunky rhetoric about "the imperial dragon that devours its own soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike for the sake of profit." Most powerful are his firsthand experiences of prisoner abuse, senseless patrols that invite insurgent attacks, discord among his demoralized comrades and their careerist officers, and the constant brutalization of Iraqis by paranoid, trigger-happy GIs. (In one incident, an irate soldier arrests an eight-year-old rock thrower, who is then beaten by a local man desperate to appease the vengeful Americans.) Those stories add up to an indelible portrait of the dirty war in the Sunni triangle and Mejía's painful confrontation with his immoral complicity in it. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Mejia gained prominence in 2004 when he applied for a discharge from the National Guard as a conscientious objector after having served eight months in a combat zone in Iraq. Eventually, he was court-martialed for desertion and served nine months in a military jail. Mejia apparently felt compelled to describe his odyssey from immigrant to soldier to resister as an act of self-justification. He grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; both parents were active supporters of the Sandinista resistance to the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. Mejia's own political views seem imbued with anti-imperialist sentiments. Nevertheless, he joined the U.S. Army at the age of 19, apparently because he found the benefits package attractive. Mejia describes himself as a rebel; others might see a griper and malcontent. However, his descriptions of the trivia, petty jealousies, and boredom in camp life are enlightening, and his eventual determination to take a principled stand against the war in Iraq seems sincere. This is an interesting if highly biased account of a young man's evolution. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Sgt. Mejía and his 600 co-deserters could well be the harbingers of a new GI movement. -- The Guardian, Clancy Sigal

The issues [Mejía] has raised deserve a close reading by the nation as a whole. -- The New York Times, Bob Herbert

Customer Reviews

Uncomfortable yet comforting
I found Road from ar Ramadi to be an honest (sometimes painfully so), plainly written account of one man's transition from soldier to resister. Although it moved a little fast, racing through segments I found fascinating, like his family background and upbringing, it provided the sort of un-hyped, unglamorized view of military life in and out of the combat zone which civilians don't often get to see and probably should. It ain't pretty, and Mejia doesn't spare himself in his descriptions of the ills thrown into sharp relief by the stressful climate of any war, let alone one based on shoddy grounds and incompetently executed: the bullying, pettiness, blame-shifting, rule-bending-and-selective-enforcing, pervasive confusion, constant jockeying for position, not to mention the spurts of terror and virtually mindless rage spattered over long stretches of grinding boredom and physical discomfort. His story had me with him every step of the way, all the time thinking, What would I have done? By the end I felt as though I'd walked a mile in his combat boots, as the saying goes, and ultimately I believe he did the right thing. And not just for himself alone. The whole world can't help but be a better place when people engage in this type of uncomfortable soul-searching, and refuse to shut down their hearts and minds just because it's the easier or more lucrative thing to do. That's why I'm comforted by Sgt. Mejia's story even though it wasn't exactly comfortable to read. I'm sure he doesn't appreciate being called a hero any more than he likes being called all the other things. Still, that's what he is to me. I hope this book is as widely read as it deserves to be.

read it
This is an important book for a number of reasons. First, it is a soldiers account of the attrocities that have taken place in Iraq. Second, it documents what he went through - his feelings that it was an unwarranted war from the start: prisoner abuse, wars fought for improving rank, resources, etc. Third, it should be a must read for any American because we are the ones who are paying for this unjust, immoral, absolute waste of lives and resources. We are the only ones who can put an end to it and this brave soldier's tale can only help average Americans understand how absurd staying there would be/is. A fifty year commitment would be a huge waste of our resources and it would never change how Iraq will ultimately resolve its own problems....many of which we've created. Mejia is to be commended for telling this tragic, moving yet uplifting story. I would like to see more soldiers come forward and do the same.

One brave voice in a nation of silent cowards
I couldn't put Mejia's book down b/c he takes readers back to the early days of the war when we had to rely on biased governmental claims about what was going on in Iraq. I really appreciated hearing from an eye-witness about what truly went on in the war zone. He shows how from its inception, this war was based on a stronger nation's sense of superiority over a weaker one and how the US went there with a belief that Iraqis were less than Americans and proceeded to do dehumanizing things to them. It's embarrassing to read how our military had no respect for Iraqis, whom our leaders never bothered to understand culturally or religiously. Mejia describes more bravely & honestly than i believe most people would his own internal struggle with what he was assigned to do and how he was torn between being a good soldier & feeling morally aghast at the military's cruelty. He is not only a good role model for other soldiers, who should refuse to participate in immoral acts--no matter what propaganda the government attach to a mission--but also for regular citizens, who should be denouncing this war more vociferously & demanding that all the money (5 billion a month)our leaders are spending there be brought back to our communities. This book is a very gratifying read; it's good to see that all individual thinking has not been co-opted in our service people!