“Sporting a dragon tattoo on his forearm and skulls on both biceps, Cliff Cornell looks tough. But he dissolves into tears as he reflects on his return to the U.S. army four years after he fled to Canada to avoid the war in Iraq.
“I’m nervous, scared,” Cornell said, wiping puffy eyes beneath his sunglasses Monday at a Savannah hotel after a three-day bus ride from Seattle. “I’m just not a fighter. I know it sounds funny, but I have a really soft heart.”
Cornell, 29, of Mountain Home, Ark., turned himself in to military police Tuesday afternoon at nearby Fort Stewart, where he’ll likely face criminal charges for abandoning his unit before it deployed to Iraq in January 2005.
Cornell’s lawyer, James Branum of Lawton, Okla., said Cornell was assigned to a unit after meeting with military police, but it was still unclear if the army would hold him in pretrial confinement. “He was visibly shaking when they came to pick him up,” Branum said.
Cornell said he fled because he doesn’t think the war has improved the lives of Iraqis, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of killing.
“During my training, I was ordered that, if anyone came within so many feet of my vehicle, I was to shoot to kill,” said Cornell, who enlisted in 2002 but never deployed to war. “I didn’t join the military to kill innocents.”
The army artillery specialist made it to Canada in 2005 and soon started a new life working at a grocery store on Gabriola Island in British Columbia.
His exile ended last week when he crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Washington state. He left voluntarily to avoid deportation.
Michelle Robidoux, spokeswoman for the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign, said the group has worked with about 50 U.S. service members seeking refugee status or political asylum in Canada. The group estimates more than 200 have fled to Canada, most of them hiding out illegally.
“There are probably another three or four who are imminently under threat of deportation, and we’re trying hard to fight that,” Robidoux said.
Parliament passed a non-binding motion in June urging that U.S. military deserters be allowed to stay in Canada, but the Conservative government has changed its stance on sending them back.
During the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans took refuge in Canada, most of them to avoid the military draft. Many were given permanent residence status that led to Canadian citizenship, but the majority went home after then-president Jimmy Carter granted amnesty in the late 1970s.
The U.S. army has listed Cornell as a deserter since a month after he left, but he hasn’t been formally charged with any crimes, said Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson.
“He needs to come and turn himself in, and then the justice process will kick in from there,” Larson said Monday.
The unit Cornell was assigned to when he fled – the 1st Battalion, 39th Field Artillery Regiment – disbanded in March 2006.
Larson disputed Cornell’s contention that he would have been expected to kill civilians. “Indiscriminately shooting people is not what the army does,” he said. “That’s not how we train and not how we fight.”
Branum said he expects Cornell to be charged with being absent without leave, punishable by up to 18 months in prison, or desertion – a more serious charge with a maximum prison sentence of five years.
The first U.S. service member forced out of Canada after the government denied him protective status as a war objector was 25-year-old army Pte. Robin Long of Boise, Idaho. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison last August after pleading guilty to desertion charges at Fort Carson, Colo.
Branum said he hopes the army shows Cornell some leniency since he avoided the war because of his political convictions.
“This is different from someone leaving for selfish reasons,” Branum said. “This is someone who said, ‘I’m not going to kill civilians.”‘
MEN AND WOMEN, not just men. Service people.
Attention: Soundbyte Generation
Don’t complain about the length of the article, which I posted in its entirety. If there are too many words for you to digest, move on please.
Lol, Sunshine.
Asked by:—
I have no pity.
People who complain about the long hours, who abandon their shipmates/ fellow soldiers…no pity.
He knew what he was signing up for.
Don’t sign the contract if you can’t fulfill the obligation. I know it’s tough….i’ve lost a marriage and every ounce of my youth to this service. but i’d never abandon my service, esp if lives were counting on me.
He can take refuge with me anytime. I guess he had ethical problems with killing people. Wow, a conscience, that just makes him even more irresistible than before. Didn’t think it was possible.
I have mixed feelings about this. He did join the military before the US invaded Iraq. Like many others who join the military, he didn’t expect to be sent to a war zone. Most people who join the military do so because they were lured by the promises of job training and opportunities to earn money for college. They don’t think they will ever see combat. It is true that in wars, civilians get killed. Sometimes they get killed because they were in the way while other times, it is completely intentional. There have been incidents of Iraqi civilians being killed by soldiers and some of them have been deliberate. I don’t think he should have deserted but I do admire that he did it because he didn’t want to kill innocent civilians. Maybe if some of the politicians who start these wars got to see what sort of things really happen in them, then they likely wouldn’t be so quick to want to start them.