Summary
Bob Dylan once lyrically professed about government's influence over people: "He never thinks straight about the shape that he's in, but it's not him to blame; he's only a pawn in their game." After returning home from a tour of duty in Iraq in 2003 for a two-week furlough. Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia was able to clear his head and ultimately realized the shape he was in was not good.
After spending eight years in the Florida National Guard, Mejia initially supported the war and was eager for combat when he deployed in April 2003 with the 1-124 Infantry Battalion, 53rd Brigade. "I understood what they were saying about it being necessary to take out Saddam in order to protect the country's freedom," said Mejia, 3 1 . "And I was ready to put my own life on the line and carry out any mission assigned to me, which I did."One of the most lurid occurrences Mejia wishes he could forget involved his unit decapitating a civilian bystander with machine-gun fire in front of a little boy. Seeing the absolute terror on the boy's face was one of the rare instances during combat Mejia thought he might be participating in something that was immoral. But as Mejia explained, ground combat is "not the environment for people to question the war. There wasn't a whole lot of discussion among the soldiers of whether {the war) was right or wrong. We were too busy worrying about where the next attack would, come from, avoiding mortar and IEDs {improvised explosive devices}, trying to staying alive."See the full content of this document
Extract
Life During Wartime
Bob Dylan once lyrically professed about government's influence over people: "He never thinks straight about the shape that he's in, but it's not him to blame; he's only a pawn in their game." After returning home from a tour...
See the full content of this document
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