The Deserter’s Tale By Joshua Key,
Roli, Rs 395

This is a book meant to be “chewed and digested”, as Francis Bacon would have said. It is the tale of the American soldier whose conscience made him desert his army and country after he witnessed the unashamed violations of every human right in Iraq. Joshua Key’s story, as narrated by Lawrence Hill, lays bare the reality behind the lofty ideals professed by President Bush in waging the war on Iraq. We get to know how the American army actually behaved with the civilians it was supposed to save.

“I never thought I would lose my country and I never dreamed it would lose me,” says Key at the beginning of the book. “I was raised as a patriotic American, taught to respect my government and to believe in my president”, he adds. But six and a half months of his life as a soldier on the American side brought about a drastic change in his outlook. The tale of Key’s eventful life can be can be divided into three parts: the first part dealing with Key’s early years in Oklahoma, the second section with his experiences in Iraq and the final pages with his return from the battlefield and escape to Canada.

Key came from a poor family and his financial difficulties increased with his marriage. It was Key’s desperate search for a good life that made him look for a job and he eventually found one at the American army base in Oklahoma. He rested safe in the conviction that he would not be sent to the field as long as there is no third world war. But Bush’s sudden declaration of war on Iraq made him a part of the 43rd combat engineer company of the second squadron.

Like thousands, Key too was sent to fight against the so-called terrorists in Iraq and to save the future generations of America from them. Key’s duties included either guarding places like hospitals or raiding houses where his superiors thought terrorists were lodged.

Key says that he had participated in about two hundred raids but never found any terrorist. What he found instead were children, young men and women, sometimes men who had lost their minds. When the raiders found nothing, they would handcuff the harmless occupants, throw them into trucks and ransack their houses. Key records an incident in which his colleagues kicked around the severed heads of men on the street. Key had become sick of the senseless deeds and when he was sent home on leave, Key knew he would never return.

Key’s first person narrative deftly captures his initial idealism and subsequent disillusionment as he confronts the reality of war. The most pointed indictment of the ways of America is also contained in the moving pages of this book.