AGUAYO “For the first time I'm cuffed and at that moment its hard to accept that. I'm a good person. I have all those questions inside me. Why is this happening to me?”

[Army Song]
AARON GLANTZ: “You're listening to “The War Comes Home.” Warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Radio. I'm Aaron Glantz.
MUSIC
GLANTZ 31 year old Augustin Aguayo was born in Mexico and grew up in Southern California. After graduating from high school, he married and had twin daughters, but never got a college degree.
Aguayo joined the military in November 2002 while he was working the night shift at a bank to support his wife and daughters, while he attended community college during the day.
AGUAYO “I'm working at night so I can go to school in the day-time and I hear a radio announcement for the National Guard. And I mean that planted the first seed in my head: work two weeks a year, one weekend a month, make some extra money and serve your country. That's exactly what I needed. All those things.”
GLANTZ So Aguayo went to a local Army recruiting office. The U.S. military had already toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and President George W. Bush was talking about war with Iraq. ... But he started having doubts in basic training – and when he was sent to Germany before being deployed to Iraq those doubts were confirmed.
AGUAYO “We would drive around in the woods in Germany in a training area and we would fire out the windows. Constantly, targets would pop up and it was a convoy, live-fire exercise. And we would do this day after day, day after day at night time and at that point it became clear to me that as a medic I wasn't just going to be helping people. I could be asked to engage and destroy life.”
GLANTZ By the time Aguayo arrived in Tikrit, he had already appealed to be discharged from the Army as a conscientious objector. Even though he was a medic
AGUAYO “At that moment I came to realize that a medic in today's army isn't just someone who helps people. In all fairness, its a soldier, an infantryman, a rifleman that has some medical skills and while I was there in Iraq one of the things that I heard from a PA there that had been there a year. He sat with the new medics and he said 'You know you guys, if you have an idea of the job of a medic as being this guy who sits back and waits to treat people, that's very wrong. I mean we have been here and we had to pull our own security and if you have these ideas of Geneva Conventions, you have to disregard that. This is the real thing.”
GLANTZ But Augustine Aguayo said he couldn't kill anyone and went out on patrol and guard duty without loading his gun.
AGUAYO “I remember one time we were driving around the city setting up checkpoints and we heard a huge explosion. So we went to see what was happening and a vehicle of Iraqi police had been hit and my unit stayed back and I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back. And I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back and that seemed weird to me. A company commander was in charge of that convoy and I couldn't understand why we just stood there. So I couldn't understand why we couldn't just randomly help people. We would help people when we hurt them, basically.”
GLANTZ Aguayo rode out his deployment and returned to Germany. The next thing he knew, the military denied his application for conscientious objector status, and decided to send his unit back to Iraq for a second tour.
But Aguayo could not bear the thought of going to Iraq a second time. So he ran, climbing out a window on his base in Germany. A few weeks later, he turned himself in at Fort Irwin in California, hoping that would get him lenient treatment.
Instead, the military shackled him, put him in solitary confinement and flew him back to Germany for trial. He eventually served six months in a military prison.
AGUAYO “Initially, it's that shocking moment. I had never gotten in trouble in any kind of way. I remember the last time I got in trouble was two speeding tickets back when I started driving in 1990. So I finally for the first time I'm cuffed and it's hard to accept that I'm a good person. Why is this happening to me? And of course I understand completely why. And it's a moment where I can reflect and I'm really at peace because I finally have what I wanted for so long. I've wanted to be separated from the military because of my experience there. Because I have realized that this is wrong – that morally I can't continue down this path.”
GLANTZ You've been listening to “The War Comes Home,” warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Radio. I'm Aaron Glantz.