Reviews for The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq

The average rating for The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-19 00:00:00 Dawn Benoit Canada has always been a destination of choice for men and women wanting to escape military service, especially for citizens of the USA. I used to wonder why in hell we didn't send them back, especially during the 'nam era. Nowadays, looking back from the high hill of my advanced age I regard everything more in shades of grey, and I can see that all of those tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Vietnam conflict needn't have died. I am in sympathy with those who evaded being unwillingly drafted to fight in a conflict that was unnecessary and unjust. None of the foregoing means that I support anyone dodging their obligation to defend their country in time of attack; that's cowardice and those found guilty are deserving of some serious punishment. But what if the conflict you are dodging is one in which your country is an unjust aggressor? If you are truly morally opposed to the war, and if your country is not endangered by your departure, are you wrong in taking off at the high port? Joshua Key booked it to Canada after initially serving part of a tour of duty in Iraq. After making it across the border he applied for refugee status and related his story to author Lawrence Hill, resulting in the publication of this book. Mr Key does not pretend to be a nice guy: he readily admits to theft, assault, and all manner of juvenile idiocy. He is definitely not the type of fellow you want your daughter bringing home to meet the parents. I could identify with his background: rural, little education, joined the Army because it was his only shot at a decent career. Being a naïf, he joins the Army that doesn't get sent out of CONUS (wink,wink) and sure enough, next thing you know he's in Iraq. Soon, his unit is detailed to search houses of Iraqi citizens. The searches were invariably unopposed by the occupants but they blow the doors open anyway and storm in: Inside the houses, we knocked over wardrobes, kicked in doors, ripped through mattresses, and threw bookshelves to the floor. We busted locks, threw over refrigerators, and broke lanterns and lamps. Radios and televisions were thrown around and smashed. In the first raid, the second, the third, and the fourth, I wondered why we never managed to find anything. We tore hell out of those places, blasting apart doors, ripping up mattresses, breaking locks off furniture, and ripping drawers from dressers. With all of our ransacking, we never found anything other than the ordinary goods that ordinary people keep in their houses. (p.72,73) The troops take the logical step from B&E to theft on Page 74: I stole whatever I wanted in the initial raids, but I stopped doing that after my first few weeks in Iraq. The more uneasy I felt about what we were doing there, the less I wanted to make matters worse. Others in my platoon looted to their hearts' content. One fellow collected gold jewelry and mailed it home to his wife. Another lugged a television straight out of an Iraqi house. Others took ornate knives, and I saw one soldier make off with a beautiful rug. Who was going to stop us? We were the army of the United States of America, and we would do whatever we pleased. As his tour progresses, Key notices that the citizens are becoming less friendly, and that they take fire from unseen shooters more frequently. His unit is unsuccessful in coming to grips with the shooters, so their frustration is vented on the populace. The result is predictable. Key eventually comes to the conclusion: It struck me then that we, the American soldiers, were the terrorists. We were terrorizing Iraqis. Intimidating them. Beating them. Destroying their homes. Probably raping them. The ones we didn't kill had all the reasons in the world to become terrorists themselves. Given what we were doing to them, who could blame them for wanting to kill us, and all Americans? A sick realization lodged like a cancer in my gut. It grew and festered, and troubled me more with every passing day. We, the Americans, had become the terrorists in Iraq. (P138/139) I know some milbloggers scoff at Key's claims and have branded him a liar. The point out his apparent lack of familiarity with military rank and weaponry to support their suspicions, and it's true that he makes a few mistakes from time to time. For example, on page 20 he mentions shooting a four inch bullet from a "Remington seven-millimeter rifle" into the neck of a deer. This is the second mention of the four inch bullet in the book, so it's likely not a misprint. Now the cartridge designed to be chambered in a 7mm Rem Mag is usually something under four inches in its entirety, and the actual projectile would be roughly 1/4 of that length, so I can see someone calling bullshit on that. He also claims not to have read anything about the Geneva Convention before disembarking in Iraq, but I have a hard time believing that soldiers of any modern industrialized nation have not been schooled in the Geneva convention...but I think of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and I wonder.....? I believe most of what I read in this book, because Key names people and mentions specific incidents, and I have heard too many similar accounts not to know that soldiers went apeshit in Iraq. Key himself is not the quickest of cats and has confessed to too many acts of idiocy for me to list here. Suffice it to say that I am completely convinced that he is thick enough not to know the difference between four inches and one inch and that it is easily within his capacity to confuse USMC ranks with US Army ranks. The book is reasonably well-written, obviously not by Key, and I will leave it to the reader to decide if his actions were justified. Welcome to Canada, eh?

Review # 2 was written on 2015-02-04 00:00:00 Randall Kushell I skimmed the first couple of chapters. He's obviously trying hard for moral justification due to his childhood. Sorry, that won't fly. He's also dumber than a can of rocks. "It wasn't right to kill puppies with a hammer, which is why I shot and buried a litter of pups before my grandfather could get at them in his old-fashioned way." Ridiculous. Leave aside all the rest & think about it. A quiet whack on the head is kinder than multiple loud shots & causes instant loss of consciousness, if not death. The next pup has no idea what happened to the previous one rather the horrific fear of the loud noise. Later on he describes the scene in more detail & proves my point. "Iraq took all of the fun out of guns for me, but even in the days when I still loved shooting I stopped hunting after dropping that deer with a four-inch bullet through the neck." Why? It seems as if he is trying to establish some sort of moral high ground here, but I don't get it. He blasts a snake with a shotgun like a crazy person, talks about being hungry, & yet has a problem with shooting a deer. I'm sure he's eaten plenty of venison. Where does he think it came from? It's a "cartridge", not a bullet. The bullet is the bit of inert metal that strikes the target & it certainly wasn't 4" long unless he was shooting a small cannon. His memories of shooting, poor gun handling, & especially his mention of gun accidents are ridiculous & obvious attempts to garner sympathy from people who don't know anything about guns. I was raised with guns & very little supervision, too. They're a power tool & we always treated them as such. Never had any accidents even though my cousins, friends, & I ran around like wild Injuns from an early age. Most of us had our first BB guns & pocket knives when we were 6 or 7, .22's & shotguns before we were teens. As young teens, we'd shoot a brick of .22 shells each in less than a week while hiking through the woods. I shot a lot of snapping turtles, although I never used an Uzi on them. I only shot one once & don't know anything about the various models, but I wouldn't have used the one I tried for turtles. The Common Snapping turtle is a dinosaur. They're incredibly tough & crafty. I generally shot them from at least 75 yards away with a .22. (We kept an old single shot .22 by the back door & shot them as we saw them on the ponds else they'd clean out the ducklings & goslings in short order.) Only a head shot would kill them with that light of a bullet, though. I don't think the Uzi had the accuracy to hit them squarely nor am I sure the 9mm bullet would kill them. I've used a .222, .223 (AR-15), .270, .303, .3030, & .308. I NEVER had them flip up out of the water. Never - not even with a 220 grain, soft nosed .303 bullet plowing into them. Often enough, even with a huge hole in them, they'd dive for the bottom only to float up in a day or two. Sometimes they'd never come up & that meant they'd had the strength left to dig themselves in. Like I said, they're tough. I won't go into further details, but his childhood has obviously been told in such a way as to garner maximum sympathy & create excuses for his subsequent actions. Yuck. I hate facetious arguments. If he wants to make a case for deserting, fine. Do it. His childhood has nothing to do with the situation he was in over there, though. I don't doubt that he saw some horrific things in Iraq. Soldiers are a bunch of young, scared men who need proper leadership not to turn into a gang of macho thugs especially in a confused situation. Peer pressure in a unit is incredible - far worse than anything in civilian life save for possibly in gang territory & even then running away might be easier. I believe he was in a very bad situation & doubt there was much recourse for him. Oh, the Army & other authorities will tell the public there is, but the reality is far different, so I'm not going to judge him for deserting. It might not have been the right way to handle it, but I can see where that might be the most easiest & most attractive option to him. Hell, it might have been the right & best way. I can't say. While I'm sure many of the scenes & situations are partially or even mostly true, they're likely skewed as much as his childhood stories. Even the most innocuous situations can seem horrific or hilarious depending on how the story is told. He's not writing this himself, but relaying it through another. On top of that, he's obviously justifying his actions, so everything he narrated to this writer is suspect, at best. It's only sort-of-nonfiction & not worth my time to finish reading.