Soldier who deserted Iraq gets year in jail, bad conduct discharge

<p>A U.S. soldier was sentenced to a year in jail and a bad conduct discharge after a military jury found him guilty of desertion for leaving his combat unit in Iraq in protest of what he called "oil-driven" war.</p><p>Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, an infantry squad leader with the Florida National Guard, received the maximum sentence. He told the jury before it determined his sentence that he's not sorry for refusing to return to his unit because he believes the war in Iraq is unjust.</p><p>"I have no regrets. Not one," said Mejia, before the jury of four officers and four enlisted soldiers met for 20 minutes before handing down his sentence.</p><p>In his comments to the jury, Mejia said he was not afraid of going to jail. "I will take it because I will go there with my honor, knowing I have done the right thing," he said.</p><p>Mejia, 28, said he disobeyed orders to return to his unit from a two-week furlough in October because his war experiences prompted him to seek status as a conscientious objector. He turned himself in to the Army five months later.</p><p>He told jurors that one of the turning points for him was an ambush his unit faced in Ramadi, when he said four soldiers were wounded by shrapnel and he saw an Iraqi civilian decapitated by U.S. machine gun fire.</p><p>"So things change, perceptions change," Mejia said. "You lose perspective of the value of human life. It happens."</p><p>When the guilty verdict was read earlier in the day on the desertion charge, Mejia hugged his mother, Maritza Castillo, and she kissed him on the cheek.</p>