I joined the Air Force right out of high school. I wanted to escape perpetuating a negative lifestyle within my family, friends, and community of gangs, violence, drugs, poverty and imprisonment. I saw the military as a way out of a small town to see the world, a climb out of poverty through training and employment, and a gateway to higher education through the GI Bill.

Question: How would you have described yourself the day before you went to war?

All kinds of nervous; I was scared and excited. I didn’t understand much and I was afraid of losing my life or taking another life. Yet, at the time it seemed like the right thing to do and a chance to prove myself to society as a soldier fighting for freedom.

Question: What about you has changed the most since that day?

I am still nervous, only for different reasons. I am afraid to see how much longer this atrocity will continue at the cost of Iraqi and US casualties. I now know that war is an unjust act against humanity and nature, and I must prove myself to society as a soldier of conscience, a soldier fighting for peace.

Question: What was the most defining moment of your time at war?

Con-Air missions. The transferring of Iraqi detainees to and from the Basra prison in Iraq was very eye opening as to exactly how the general civilian population was being treated. Upwards to 200 Iraqi men at a time were captured in their homes, strapped to the floor of a cargo airplane, imprisoned and interrogated, and then released for the next herd to be processed. It was outright dehumanizing but had become a systematic approach to acquiring information from the citizens of Iraq.

Question:  Now that you have returned, what does peace mean to you?

Peace will only be reached the day we observe and protect each other’s rights as citizens of the world. Every human has the right to housing, food, and work. And every nation has the right to govern themselves and the right to the resources of their land