Former United States solider Joshua Key delivered a speech to a near-capacity crowd at the University of Manitoba last week, describing his experience as an army deserter and war resister living in Canada. Key, who is seeking refugee status from the Canadian government in order to avoid court martial in the United States, described what he calls his fight for freedom during the campus event.
Joining Key was Amar Khoday, an assistant professor in the faculty of law, who provided insight into the requirements for refugee status in Canada.
Key’s story
At age 20, Key was a welder making $7 an hour and a father of two children with a third on the way. He knew he was going to need a better job to support his family. He chose the army, enlisting in 2002, a year before the Iraq War.
“When I signed on the dotted line, I didn’t sign for money for college. The only thing I wanted was steady pay, and health care for my family,” Key said.
He said he attended basic training under the assumption that he would be a bridge builder. Once he arrived, he was trained in landmines and explosives.
Key was stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado, the closest location to his family. He also assumed that he would not be sent to Iraq because of his choice of station in Fort Carson. However, he was deployed to the Middle East for the 2003 invasion of Iraq along with over 100,000 other troops from the American volunteer army.
“When you sign the contract before basic training, they make one thing very clear,” Key said. “You are no longer a citizen of the United States of America; you are now U.S. government property. You no longer have a bill of rights.”
As soon as Key got to Iraq, he took his military contract to the lieutenant, questioning him about its contents and promises he felt were made to him. Key said the lieutenant brushed him off, and told him that he simply did not know the military way of life yet.
“For weeks after that I was hazed, hazed severely to the point where I never questioned anything. I shut my mouth, and I did my job and that’s exactly how I took it day by day,” Key said.
Key served as a combat engineer for eight months in Iraq. He claims that he witnessed a number of brutal acts inflicted upon citizens, including unnecessary raids and bombings of houses and vehicles, resulting in a significant death toll.
When Key returned to Fort Carson for his two weeks of leave, the first thing he did was call a military lawyer, demanding that he not go back to Iraq.
“We were the aggressors, we were the terrorists, not them,” Key said.
The lawyer told him he could get back on the plane to Iraq or go to prison.
Key ran. He spent 14 months hiding in the U.S., before fleeing to Canada.
Applying for refugee status in Canada
Key arrived in Canada in 2005, spending six months in Toronto, before moving to British Columbia, then Saskatchewan, and finally Manitoba. He had his first hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on Oct. 20, 2006, but was denied refugee status.
“They wouldn’t let me talk about the legality of the war, they wouldn’t let me bring in the Geneva Conventions’ international law; they basically stated, ‘You’re just a mere foot soldier. Anything you’re told to do, you have to do it,’” he said.
Over the course of the next four years, Key continued to fight for refugee status, but was turned down again by the Immigration and Refugee Board, who held that, since he signed a contract, he had a commitment to the U.S. military.
“People break contracts every day,” Key said. “But since I had one with the U.S. military, then it’s alright, and you need to go back to prison.”
Key wrote a book about his experiences during his time in Canada. Entitled The Deserter’s Tale, it was published in 15 different countries, in 13 different languages.
“In the military standpoint, you did the worst thing ever,” Key said.
“You wrote about your experiences in war, you ran to another country. You’re still U.S. government property, and you’re going to talk about it, and then you’re going to write a book about it. I didn’t think about it at the time.”
While Key’s actions placed him in a difficult situation, he was not the first American army deserter to speak out in Canada.
“There’s been about 21 of us on record that sort of did what I did, which is talk about it, and do everything they can to alert Canadians of why we’re here,” Key said. “Many have been sent back to prison.”
“The standard involves being outside of your country of nationality or place of last habitual residence, and unable, or unwilling to return to that country on account of a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” Khoday said of Canada’s refugee status requirements.
