TORONTO -- Jeremy Hinzman enlisted in the Army in Boston, did a tour in Afghanistan and prepared for elite Ranger school. Then came orders to go to Iraq. He neatly piled his Army gear in his living room at Fort Bragg and fled to Canada with his wife and baby.
"No matter how much I wanted to, I could not convince myself that killing someone was ever right," Hinzman, 25, said in an interview here.
Jeremy Hinzman, with wife Nga Nguyen and son Liam in Toronto, is awaiting word on his refugee application.
(Doug Struck -- The Washington Post)
|
|
Spec. Hinzman is a deserter, one of at least four who have followed the path of Vietnam War resisters a generation ago to seek refuge in Canada. Here, they have been embraced by many from that time -- former peaceniks who are now pillars of the community.
The government is less welcoming. Despite Canada's opposition to the Iraq war, the government also is opposing the deserters' refugee applications, saying the soldiers are not persecuted. It is resisting the argument that the Iraq war is illegal.
"Canada is worried if they grant us refugee status, others would come up," said Hinzman.
The deserters in Canada provoke anger in the United States among people who argue they are shirking a duty to which they willingly agreed. "There's no draft. These people volunteered for the military," said Jerry Newberry, a spokesman of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in St. Louis. "These people want to have their cake and eat it, too."
Hinzman, a slender, studious young man, accepts the criticisms. He replies that his objections to the military evolved after he enlisted. Well before he was ordered to Iraq, he applied for noncombatant duty. Had that been granted, he said, he would have served his obligation, would even have gone to Iraq as a medic or cook or anything that did not involve offensive operations.
"If I was in a situation where bullets were whizzing by, I'd be fine with that," he said. "I'm not saying I wouldn't be scared, but I would have soldiered on -- as long as I wasn't pulling a trigger."
Hinzman spends his days reading and taking care of Liam, his 2 1/2-year-old son, in the small backyard of the family's basement apartment in downtown Toronto. He and his wife, Nga Nguyen, a biologist and social worker who was barely 3 when her family fled Laos after the Vietnam War, take turns cooking vegetarian meals.
They are in legal limbo while Hinzman's case works its way through the Immigration and Refugee Board, which has scheduled a hearing for Dec. 6. They hope to get work permits and find jobs, but until then, as they pay for rent, food and lawyers' fees, their savings from Jeremy's three years in the Army dwindles.
"I told Jeremy I would support his decision, whether he left or he went to prison," said Nguyen, 31. "At least we are together as a family, and alive."
Hinzman makes occasional speeches along with two other U.S. deserters who have gone public, Pvt. Brandon Hughey, 19, and David Sanders, a Navy enlistee. At least one other deserter is in Canada, according to Jeffrey House, an attorney for the Americans, but has remained out of sight.
House, 57, said he felt a chill of recognition when Hinzman first came to his office. Thirty-four years earlier, House had crossed the border from Wisconsin rather than obey a draft notice during the Vietnam War.
Estimates of how many Americans came to Canada in those times to avoid service in the war range from 30,000 to 90,000. They were invited by the prime minister at the time, Pierre Trudeau, who in 1969 declared Canada to be "a refuge from militarism."
