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Some of your boys are coming home soon.
For Corey Glass, the last straw was a video of Iraqi children talking about how they wanted to grow up to be suicide bombers so they could kill Americans.
It's the moment when Glass, who was born and raised in small-town Indiana, decided to quit the Iraq war.
The problem was, he wasn't allowed to just up and leave. Having signed up for the National Guard when he was 20, Glass, 25, was committed to service.
So there he was, several months into his Iraq tour, a sergeant working as an intelligence officer at Camp Anaconda, a U.S. base in the Sunni Triangle 110 km north of Baghdad, when he realized he couldn't live with himself for being part of the U.S. war effort.
"That was the last straw," he says of the video of the Iraqi children. "So I tried to quit the next day."
Glass was told by his superiors he couldn't do that, but that he'd be sent back home on leave for two weeks.
Glass told them bluntly -- if you send me home, I'm not coming back. You'll be back, they told him curtly. Plus, they threatened, if you desert the armed forces during wartime, it's punishable by death.
Technically, according to U.S. law, Glass' bosses were right, though no deserter has been executed since World War II.
But Glass fled anyway.
After spending two weeks in January 2006 with his parents in Indiana, he went into hiding in the U.S., hanging out with friends in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and elsewhere. After eight months, he decided to cross the border into Canada because he'd heard other deserters had gone north.
For him, he says it was the right decision. Glass, in fact, doesn't see his decision to desert as breaking his word. Instead, he says the U.S. government broke its word by mounting a war based on a now widely discredited claim Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"It's a war of aggression," Glass says. "Wars of aggression are illegal. Pre-emptive strikes are illegal, unless there's a credible threat, or a danger, and there was no credible threat. Saddam had no way of launching an attack on America. That's totally absurd to think he could launch an attack."
Glass accuses the National Guard recruiters of lying to him, and says he was told by recruiters he would only face combat if foreign soldiers landed on American soil.
He says he signed up because he wanted to help fill sandbags in natural disaster situations, like Hurricane Katrina.
"I thought it was the right thing to do, I thought it was a good thing to do," Glass says. "War has never really appealed to me."
In August 2006, shortly after arriving in Toronto, Glass filed a refugee claim. It was denied.
Since arriving, however, he's established a life in Toronto, with a decent job at an online firm, an apartment near the Danforth, and a girlfriend.
But two weeks ago, Glass and the rest of the small community of Iraq war deserters in Canada were dealt a blow when the Supreme Court of Canada denied an appeal bid by two other war resisters who'd also been rejected as refugees, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.
The top court's decision effectively ended the pair's legal quest to stay in Canada and set the precedent for the other deserters seeking asylum.
Now, barring some sort of near-miraculous political involvement, Glass is almost certainly going to be deported back to the United States, where he faces the remote possibility of death, and the very real possibility of jail time.
"Hopefully it comes down to politics, and the politicians do something about it," Glass says.
In Canada there are currently about 50 known Iraq war deserters scattered across the country, with most of them in Toronto, Vancouver, and Nelson, B.C., says Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resisters Support Campaign, which offers assistance to deserters who've fled to Canada.
With the courts having ruled against the deserters' bids to remain in Canada, Zaslofsky is also hoping enough politicians will come on board to get a motion passed in Parliament that would allow the former soldiers to stay here.
FACING FIVE YEARS IN JAIL
If they don't, a deserter like Glass is looking at five years in jail, Zaslofsky estimates, while also admitting that the U.S. military has been inconsistent in meting out punishments.
(Some deserters who haven't been jailed have been given Other Than Honourable Discharges, while some have been told to report for duty.)
Olivia Chow is trying to get Parliament to let the deserters stay. Last Tuesday, the Trinity-Spadina MP introduced a motion to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that would allow the deserters to stay here.
But Chow couldn't get a majority of committee members to vote with her, so instead she asked for hearings that would put some of the resisters in front of a microphone at a committee meeting. This way, the MPs could hear the individual resisters' stories.
Those hearings are slated for Dec. 6 on Parliament Hill.
"Hopefully after we hear from the war resisters, the Liberals will say yes," Chow says, adding she needs to convince four remaining Liberals to get a majority. These Liberals include Maurizio Bevilacqua, Jim Karygiannis, Colleen Beaumier, and Andrew Telegdi, who has already indicated his support, Chow says.
Then, if a majority of the committee votes in favour, Chow will be able to introduce a motion to the full Parliament. "If the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc combine their votes in favour of it, then we're in good shape," Chow says.
But the Harper government is not expected to be onside. A spokesman for the federal immigration minister says as much after Hinzman and Hughey lost their Supreme Court bid on Nov. 15.
"Canadians want a refugee system that helps true refugees," says Mike Fraser, spokesman for minister Diane Finley. "All refugee claimants in Canada have the right to due process, and when they've exhausted all legal avenues we expect them to respect our laws and leave the country."
Zaslofsky, himself a war resister who deserted the U.S. Army in 1970 rather than fight in Vietnam, says the Canadian people wouldn't mind the deserters being granted amnesty, because the Iraq war is immensely unpopular in Canada anyway.
"They make a good impression not because they're all spiffy and nice little choir boys, but because they're very ordinary," Zaslofsky says. "They're very typical Americans, and people notice that. And they see that these are not wild-eyed radical weirdos coming up here. These are typical Americans. They like NASCAR, they like football."
It's the moment when Glass, who was born and raised in small-town Indiana, decided to quit the Iraq war.
The problem was, he wasn't allowed to just up and leave. Having signed up for the National Guard when he was 20, Glass, 25, was committed to service.
So there he was, several months into his Iraq tour, a sergeant working as an intelligence officer at Camp Anaconda, a U.S. base in the Sunni Triangle 110 km north of Baghdad, when he realized he couldn't live with himself for being part of the U.S. war effort.
"That was the last straw," he says of the video of the Iraqi children. "So I tried to quit the next day."
Glass was told by his superiors he couldn't do that, but that he'd be sent back home on leave for two weeks.
Glass told them bluntly -- if you send me home, I'm not coming back. You'll be back, they told him curtly. Plus, they threatened, if you desert the armed forces during wartime, it's punishable by death.
Technically, according to U.S. law, Glass' bosses were right, though no deserter has been executed since World War II.
But Glass fled anyway.
After spending two weeks in January 2006 with his parents in Indiana, he went into hiding in the U.S., hanging out with friends in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan, and elsewhere. After eight months, he decided to cross the border into Canada because he'd heard other deserters had gone north.
For him, he says it was the right decision. Glass, in fact, doesn't see his decision to desert as breaking his word. Instead, he says the U.S. government broke its word by mounting a war based on a now widely discredited claim Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"It's a war of aggression," Glass says. "Wars of aggression are illegal. Pre-emptive strikes are illegal, unless there's a credible threat, or a danger, and there was no credible threat. Saddam had no way of launching an attack on America. That's totally absurd to think he could launch an attack."
Glass accuses the National Guard recruiters of lying to him, and says he was told by recruiters he would only face combat if foreign soldiers landed on American soil.
He says he signed up because he wanted to help fill sandbags in natural disaster situations, like Hurricane Katrina.
"I thought it was the right thing to do, I thought it was a good thing to do," Glass says. "War has never really appealed to me."
In August 2006, shortly after arriving in Toronto, Glass filed a refugee claim. It was denied.
Since arriving, however, he's established a life in Toronto, with a decent job at an online firm, an apartment near the Danforth, and a girlfriend.
But two weeks ago, Glass and the rest of the small community of Iraq war deserters in Canada were dealt a blow when the Supreme Court of Canada denied an appeal bid by two other war resisters who'd also been rejected as refugees, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.
The top court's decision effectively ended the pair's legal quest to stay in Canada and set the precedent for the other deserters seeking asylum.
Now, barring some sort of near-miraculous political involvement, Glass is almost certainly going to be deported back to the United States, where he faces the remote possibility of death, and the very real possibility of jail time.
"Hopefully it comes down to politics, and the politicians do something about it," Glass says.
In Canada there are currently about 50 known Iraq war deserters scattered across the country, with most of them in Toronto, Vancouver, and Nelson, B.C., says Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resisters Support Campaign, which offers assistance to deserters who've fled to Canada.
With the courts having ruled against the deserters' bids to remain in Canada, Zaslofsky is also hoping enough politicians will come on board to get a motion passed in Parliament that would allow the former soldiers to stay here.
FACING FIVE YEARS IN JAIL
If they don't, a deserter like Glass is looking at five years in jail, Zaslofsky estimates, while also admitting that the U.S. military has been inconsistent in meting out punishments.
(Some deserters who haven't been jailed have been given Other Than Honourable Discharges, while some have been told to report for duty.)
Olivia Chow is trying to get Parliament to let the deserters stay. Last Tuesday, the Trinity-Spadina MP introduced a motion to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that would allow the deserters to stay here.
But Chow couldn't get a majority of committee members to vote with her, so instead she asked for hearings that would put some of the resisters in front of a microphone at a committee meeting. This way, the MPs could hear the individual resisters' stories.
Those hearings are slated for Dec. 6 on Parliament Hill.
"Hopefully after we hear from the war resisters, the Liberals will say yes," Chow says, adding she needs to convince four remaining Liberals to get a majority. These Liberals include Maurizio Bevilacqua, Jim Karygiannis, Colleen Beaumier, and Andrew Telegdi, who has already indicated his support, Chow says.
Then, if a majority of the committee votes in favour, Chow will be able to introduce a motion to the full Parliament. "If the Liberals, NDP and the Bloc combine their votes in favour of it, then we're in good shape," Chow says.
But the Harper government is not expected to be onside. A spokesman for the federal immigration minister says as much after Hinzman and Hughey lost their Supreme Court bid on Nov. 15.
"Canadians want a refugee system that helps true refugees," says Mike Fraser, spokesman for minister Diane Finley. "All refugee claimants in Canada have the right to due process, and when they've exhausted all legal avenues we expect them to respect our laws and leave the country."
Zaslofsky, himself a war resister who deserted the U.S. Army in 1970 rather than fight in Vietnam, says the Canadian people wouldn't mind the deserters being granted amnesty, because the Iraq war is immensely unpopular in Canada anyway.
"They make a good impression not because they're all spiffy and nice little choir boys, but because they're very ordinary," Zaslofsky says. "They're very typical Americans, and people notice that. And they see that these are not wild-eyed radical weirdos coming up here. These are typical Americans. They like NASCAR, they like football."
Well, at least one of us was right. 
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