Joining the military is a huge decision that thousands of young men and women make every year. Whether it is to show patriotism and support the values of the United States or for the financial benefits and being able to fund their higher education, it is a decision that completely changes the course of their lives. For many, their military experience helps them achieve their future goals. For others like Camilo Mejia Castillo, their experience scars their lives.

Mejia is an Army soldier who went absent without leave because he morally opposed the war after serving in Iraq for six months. According to this 28-year-old soldier, the war was an “immoral, oil-driven war” with barely any connection to the reasons given to him, such as weapons of mass destruction or ties to al-Qaida.

Mejia was given a two-week leave deal to come back to the United States in order to figure out his legal status and residency problems.

He is one of the 40,000 members of the armed forces who serves as a legal permanent resident. However, during that time he analyzed his experience and decided he could not return and participate in the war.

As a staff sergeant and squad leader, he was expected to fulfill his duty and lead his battalion by setting an example. The Florida National Guard soldiers who served with him returned after serving 13 months in Iraq and expressed how they were offended by his actions. One of them said to CBS News, “He was a staff sergeant. … If you tell your men to do something, you’d better be ready to do it, too. And that kind of action out of a senior [Noncommissioned Officer] is totally unacceptable.”

Mejia’s decision was solely based on his values and principles. He not only disagreed with a war that has wounded, even killed around 5,000 U.S. soldiers, he also disagreed with the killings of civilians and the cruel treatment of prisoners, which he reported to 60 Minutes II prior to the Abu Ghraib scandal. He hoped to receive an honorable discharge when he applied for conscientious objector status in mid-March.

Instead he was charged with desertion, sentenced to a year in prison, given a dishonorable discharge, and demoted to private — the same sentence given to Jeremy Sivits, who took part in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

On the Web site www.codepink4peace.org, his mother Maritza Castillo cries for justice: “The American soldier who tortured Iraqi prisoners was sentenced to one year in prison and my son, who denounced these abuses … was also sentenced to one year in prison. Is that fair?”

A member of his defense team, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark said: “What an incredible irony that we’re prosecuting soldiers in Iraq for violations of international law, and we’re prosecuting a soldier here because he refused to do the same things.”

To many, Mejia is a courageous leader; to others, like his commanding officer Capt. Tad Warfel, he is a coward. Nor is Mejia’s situation an easy one. He told 60 Minutes II before his ruling, “I would say this war is not about America, safety, nor freedom. This war should not be paid with the blood of American soldiers. And if I do end up paying with jail, then at least I’ll know that it was for the right decision.”

Never have I met anyone who is willing to go to jail, and him accepting his sentence saying it will be for the right decision proves to me that he is not a coward, like Warfel said.

Warfel also said that Mejia’s “duty’s not to question myself or anybody higher than me. … We’re not paid in the military to form personal opinions or to doubt what our leaders say.” Is Warfel telling us that our military only serves as puppets for the government? I certainly hope not.

If the men and women from the military cannot form their own opinions, then a lot of intelligent men and women who serve in our military are not free thinkers, since, according to Warfel, they have been trained to think in a specific way.

Mejia dared to formulate his own opinion, challenged the rationale for this war, and has to pay the consequences of his actions. When he joined, he probably never thought of what would happen if he ever questioned his leaders. He has been a brave man to accept his sentence, despite the many that fail to see his courage toward justice and moral values.