April Coffee Klatch
Join us for our regular last-Friday-of-the-month Coffee Klatch at 9 a.m. at Rachel’s Bread in Goshen (212 W. Washington Street). We talk about current events, plan for future WAND activities… and enjoy one another’s company. The size and shape of the gathering varies. Public welcome!
Conscientious Objector – Goshen
Goshen Event:
Tuesday, March 17:
Community-wide event, Camilo Mejia speaks at Iglesia Menonita Del Buen Pastor, 523 S. 6th St., Goshen, Indiana, 7:00 p.m. Free and open to the public.
The son of Nicaraguan revolutionaries who helped topple the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, Mejía moved to the United States as a young man, spending days working while attending night school to get his GED degree. Recruited into the U.S. Army by promises of college assistance, Mejia served in Iraq several months until he went AWOL while on leave in Florida, answering the call of his conscience that he could fight no longer in a war that condoned the shabby treatment of Iraqis and the immoral conduct of U.S. troops.
Mejía was court-martialed, and served almost a year in jail. Despite this, he felt that his decision to go AWOL was correct: “By now I had fully embraced the idea of conscientious objection and had spent countless hours filling out my CO claim. This process, together with the many underground interviews I gave, forced me to go back and relive my experiences in Iraq, and to reflect on their meaning. All this analysis and questioning of war, and of myself within the war, eventually served me as a vehicle toward absolute clarity of the wrongfulness not only of the war against Iraq, but of war in general.”
The above is only part of Camilo’s story; he emphasizes in the book the “unflinching account of how it felt to be a soldier on the ground in Iraq in the early months of the war.” Regardless of one’s political convictions, most will probably hear Camilo’s story and understand the progression of events which led to his application for a discharge from the National Guard on moral grounds.
*Cosponsors so far are IUSB College Democrats; Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition; Goshen College Student PAX organization; WAND of Northern Indiana; Notre Dame Student Peace Fellowship; Notre Dame Progressive Student Alliance; Human Rights Notre Dame; Northern Indiana Seniors for Peace.
Conscientious Objector South Bend
South Bend Event:
Monday, March 16 (also see GOSHEN event on the 17th):
IUSB Wiekamp Hall, Room 1001, 7:00 p.m., followed by a book signing for his book Road from ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía (The New Press, 2007). Free and open to the public.
March Coffee Klatch
Join us for our regular last-Friday-of-the-month Coffee Klatch at 9 a.m. at Rachel’s Bread in Goshen (212 W. Washington Street). We talk about current events, plan for future WAND activities… and enjoy one another’s company. The size and shape of the gathering varies. Public welcome!
