A soldier refuses to fight in Iraq

"THE Deserter's Tale" by Joshua Key is destined to become part of the literature of the Iraq war. It is not literature with a capital L, nor is it full of arty metaphors or artistry or artfulness. No soldier reaches out of a trench to touch a butterfly only to be shot by a sniper, as in Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Key's story, as told to writer Lawrence Hill, lacks the atmospheric writing of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" or Irwin Shaw's "The Young Lions." But from the book's opening pages, Key's clear voice rings out, explaining why he deserted the Army after seven months in Iraq, with anguish and a frankness that invests the book with quiet eloquence:

"I never thought I would lose my country, and I never dreamed that it would lose me," writes the native of Guthrie, Okla. "I was raised as a patriotic American, taught to respect my government and to believe in my president. Just a decade ago, I was playing high school football, living in a trailer with my mom and step dad, working at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and hoping to raise a family one day in the only town I knew.... Back then, I would have laughed out loud if somebody had predicted that I would become a wanted criminal, live as a fugitive in my own country, and turn my wife and children into refugees as I fled with them across the [Canadian] border."

Key describes himself as a rough and ready young man, who was comfortable with guns from an early age, got in fights and generally raised a ruckus. He tells of a hard time at home with an abusive stepfather, of marrying young and trying to make a living. Whether working in fast-food establishments or as a welder, he found it difficult to make ends meet and discovered the hard way (burns suffered on the job, kidney stones) what it was like not to have health insurance or to be able to see a dentist.

Patriotic as he certainly was, economic hardship played a large role in his enlistment in the U.S. Army, where he hoped to learn a trade that would give him and his family a chance at financial security. He says he was assured in April 2002, just before signing his enlistment papers to join an engineer brigade, that he wouldn't be sent into combat and would be able to live with his family and work for the Army in the United States.