Crawford, Texas – Army Spc. Mark Wilkerson clutched the steering wheel of his pickup truck crammed with his belongings, his pockets stuffed with cash, his eyes darting nervously between the rearview mirror and the road stretching before him.
A million thoughts raced through his mind: What will my parents say? What if the police stop me? Did the soldiers who said they supported me and wished they could do this really mean it? Today, a year and a half after going absent without leave before his second deployment to Iraq, Wilkerson plans to return to Fort Hood to face his fellow soldiers and superiors.
“I would rather turn myself in now than live in constant fear that I do something stupid, that I get pulled over for a missing headlight or something and they find out I’m AWOL,” said Wilkerson, 22, of Colorado Springs. “I’m ready to face the consequences. Whatever happens, I’m prepared for – at least I hope I am.” Wilkerson, who said he never left the country but won’t reveal where he was, has consulted with an attorney but does not know exactly what penalties he faces. Others have served time in military prisons.
Simple desertion has been decreasing in the military in recent years – about 2,500 troops last year simply didn’t show up for work, down from almost 5,000 in 2001, according to the Pentagon public affairs office.
Francisco Tomas Martinez, whose son Army Spc. Francisco Gregorio Martinez was killed in Iraq last year, said he is not angry when troops desert, but “it breaks my heart.” The Fort Worth computer programmer, who has 10 years of military service, recently enlisted in the Air Force Reserve – despite believing that the U.S. should have had more international backing before invading Iraq.
“It’s not a matter of agreeing politically. We’re definitely in it now, and we need to unite as a nation,” said Martinez, 42.
“We’re going to be in it for years to come. … Once you see that, it wouldn’t make sense to desert.” Wilkerson was just 17 when he enlisted in the Army. He wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandparents, who also served in the military. Then after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he felt even more sure of his decision, he said.
Wilkerson went to Iraq at the start of the March 2003 invasion and returned to the U.S. a year later, having lost one friend in his unit. He began seeing more news of Iraqi civilians killed and reports on whether American companies were profiting from the war, he said.
Wilkerson said his views of the war changed and he realized he could no longer stay in the military, so he applied for conscientious objector status. But his request was denied a month before his unit was to return to Iraq.
He said he was told his appeal would not be considered until after he came back. So Wilkerson then decided not to return from the two weeks of approved leave before the January 2005 deployment.
“For the first month, I really was scared and had a whole bunch of cash on me,” he said. “But I didn’t kill anybody or rape anybody, and I realized there are (so many) AWOL soldiers, they aren’t going to come after me.” Wilkerson is vague about what he and his wife did after leaving their two-bedroom Killeen apartment near the central Texas Army post. He said he got jobs, using his real Social Security number, and drove but never flew.
He started wanting more from his life, though: school, which would mean applying for student loans and having people delve into his background, or even “something as stupid as being on a reality show.” He was tired of looking over his shoulder, of jumping every time someone knocked on the door.
When Wilkerson decided to stop his life on the run, he heard that Cindy Sheehan’s new war protest site near President Bush’s Crawford ranch was a “war resister refuge.” Sheehan protested for a month last summer in ditches near Bush’s ranch, but she recently bought a 5-acre lot in town as a permanent site for vigils and as a clearinghouse for information about soldiers’ rights to resist deployment to Iraq.
After talking to protesters, Wilkerson finalized his plans recently and came to Crawford, about 40 miles north of Killeen. He has met with group members camping there during this summer’s protest, including Iraq Veterans Against the War, which Wilkerson has since joined.
Wilkerson, who is now separated from his wife, said he knows some people disapprove of his decision not to deploy.
“Having gone to Iraq once, I saw what happened there,” he said. “I saw what was the right thing to do, and I had to do what was right for me.”
