Soldiers of Conscience Documentary

I felt chills shiver down my spine as I looked at the horrifying pictures of bombs exploding, people being shot to death, children being pulled from their families, and dead bodies piling up. This is how I felt when I watched the documentary on soldiers who have fought in the war called, "Soldiers of Conscience." The documentary gave viewers an accurate picture of how this war looked to the soldiers who decided to oppose the war after serving in it and experiencing the horror themselves.

One man in the documentary, named Joshua Casteel, was a soldier who we learned about previously this year in class. His job in the war was to interrogate prisoners from the other side. One day after interrogating a man about his own age, Joshua realized that this soldier was just a kid looking for answers just as he was. After being raised Christian all his life, Joshua finally realized that his participation in the war went against everything he believed in. This scenario is supported by a term I learned in psychology known as cognitive dissonance in which there are two conflicting thoughts/actions we have and Joshua described this phenomenon as feeling like "something doesn't sit right." After this realization and experience, Joshua decided to leave the war. Pete Kilner was another soldier interviewed for the documentary. He made some comments about how sometimes the action to kill has to be done, in relation to the war. Kilner went on to say that, "sometimes killing is morally justified." Throughout the interviews with Kilner, it seemed to me like he didn't necessarily support the war or not, but he felt strongly about the way people were so quick to judge the war and those who participated in it. He talked and even wrote about how it is wrong to judge the morality of war when you're against the war. I thought this was a fair statement because, in general, when you are against something you are kind of biased to look at only the negative aspects of the situation and disagree with any pros presented by supporters of the thing you are opposing. He related this situation to human rights and said that you can't believe in human rights if you are not willing to defend them.

Another soldier interviewed for the documentary was Camilo Mejia. He talked about his experiences with torturing people in Iraq. It was difficult for Mejia to talk about what he did and as an audience member I could tell he felt terrible for what he, as a soldier, did to these human beings. There was one day when he was on top of a building with some other soldiers and down below in the city they spotted a man holding a grenade. The man was far enough away that the explosion might not have harmed them, but without thinking Mejia suddenly shot the man and killed him. Mejia claims that he didn't remember "squeezing the trigger or seeing him go down." He also didn't realize that he fired 11 bullets to kill the man with the grenade. Although what Mejia had to do was unfortunate, he talked about how it's hard to make moral decisions when you are trying to stay alive yourself. After being in the war and realizing how he truly felt about it, Mejia said, "I'm going to take a stand and I'm going to say no." Aidan Delgado was another soldier who had encounters with prisoners in the war. He wasn't really effected by the war at first, but he said that it didn't really become personal for him until he saw the reality of it and realized things like some of the prisoners were picked up at random and hadn't really done anything wrong. Delgado said that it really hit him when he looked at the prisoners and saw his own unit with brown skin. After this, he said, "You can't kill someone who is like yourself." So, he refused to kill anymore and turned in his weapon. He decided to take a public stand and become a conscientious objector. Delgado, once back from the war, spoke out in memoriam for all those who had died and who are still dying in the war. A conscientious objector is someone who states moral opposition to all war, just like all of the above soldiers did. They show that they are firm in their beliefs and choose to live peaceably with the people who are against them. One more soldier from the documentary was Kevin Benderman who wondered, "Why am I carrying around an M-16 in the Garden of Eden?" when he was fighting over in the Middle East. He also said "There's nothing honorable about killing." His statements were very powerful and left the viewers feeling even more sorry for what the soldiers had to endure while in the war. Although they were there on a volunteer basis and had already completed the necessary training, a few of them said that there was nothing that can prepare you for what you see in war.