And, so are the fellows who have deserted and agreed to speak with a reporter for the TIMES: You wouldn't catch me dead in Iraq. Watrada is mentioned. Here's an excerpt from one of them:

The US used to be something you could say you were proud of," he adds. "You go to another country now and say that you're an American, you probably won't get a lot of happy faces or open arms, because of the man in charge. It's amazing what one person can do. The leadership totally screwed up any respect we had." His rejection of US policy in Iraq is making him question his sense of national identity. "In my heart I'm not American… if it means I have to conform to what they stand for," he says about the Bush administration. "I'm not American because America has lost touch with what they were. The founding fathers would definitely be pissed off if they found out what America's become."

My thanks to Canada for being there for our veterans who cannot take the insanity anymore. THEY are heros, imo.

kat