When AWOL Is the Only Escape -- A Patriot's Story

James Circello sat on the edge of his bed staring at the floral pattern on a generic hotel comforter, contemplating what life would be like in prison. It was early August, and his parents had given him a one-way bus ticket to Lawton, Okla., and told him he was welcome home once he got his life together. U.S. Army Sergeant Circello had been AWOL since April, and with just a few dollars left in his wallet and a dying cell phone battery, he saw two options: turn himself in to military authorities at Ft. Sill, or get the next bus out of town and join hundreds of anti-war veterans convening in St. Louis, Mo.

James was a patriot, and after Sept. 11, joined the Army to defend his country. By 2002 James was in Italy, assigned to the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade. The 173rd deployed to Iraq between March 2003 and 2004. Facing redeployment last April, this time to Afghanistan, James asked himself if he could tolerate replicating the disaster he'd been part of in Iraq. When he answered no, a friend drove him to the airport, he flew to the United States and has been AWOL ever since.

Contemplating life in his Oklahoma hotel room, James realized he didn't go AWOL to avoid a second tour of duty. He wanted to help stop the war, and how better to do that than join with the hundreds of other veterans now opposing the Iraq war? So James grabbed his Army-issued green duffle bag and headed for the Greyhound station. He boarded a bus to take him south to the banks of the Mississippi River and joined an international community of veterans working to put an end to war.

James joins a growing number of disillusioned and newly politicized Iraq War veterans. According to an Associated Press report released last week, the number of AWOL Army soldiers has increased 80 percent since March of 2003. The Army says 4,698 soldiers deserted their posts in fiscal year 2007 -- an increase of over 2,000 soldiers from the year before. GI rights advocates say the number is far higher. Soldiers go AWOL for many reasons, and the majority of them don't denounce the Iraq war. However, an increasing number publicly oppose the war, even though this could mean harsh punishments or jail time.

What turns a patriot like James Circello, who volunteered for military service, into someone critical of the United States occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan? What experiences turn someone willing to fight and die for his country into someone who, in a recent interview, said quietly: "It's disturbing when you see humanity fail."

Fighting the war on terror

"I remember the day kids started throwing rocks," James said. Initially, Iraqis did welcome them, served them tea and called them liberators. But gradually, James says they grew hostile. "Not without reason, in my opinion," he says.

James can still hear the helicopters beating the air above the city and see U.S. troops on every street corner in Kirkuk. The city was locked down, the traffic going nowhere and soldiers were herding families into corrals like sheep. That was the day smiles dancing on the faces of Iraqi boys hardened. Boys used to run through the streets of Kirkuk, chasing Jeeps loaded with American soldiers. They would run barefoot through garbage and didn't seem to care when the streets became muddy with sewage. "They were smiling," James said. "That was the weird part. As they'd chase after our Jeeps, they were smiling." Sgt. Circello lost his belief in American liberation at the same time these boys lost theirs.

Even humanitarian aid was distributed with brutality and chauvinism, James says. When the chain of command learned there was a shortage of petroleum -- and without oil to cook, people were starving -- the Army set up distribution centers where women were cordoned into lines made from razor wires. The wait was endless, and there was never enough cooking oil.