Joshua Key, a young husband and father in Oklahoma, enlisted in the United States Army in 2002, to get training as a welder and lift his family out of poverty. A year later, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq and Key was sent to Ramadi.
The war he found himself participating in was not the campaign against terrorists and evildoers he had expected. Key tells of the human rights abuses he saw: Iraqi civilians beaten and shot, killed or maimed for little or no provocation; raids on homes with little or no justification; the casual desecration of bodies of the dead. After seven months in Iraq, Key went home on leave, and knew he could not return, knew he could no longer serve his country.
'The Deserter's Tale' is the devastating story of that war, and the journey Key took with his family, fleeing across the US to finally seek asylum in Canada after fourteen months in hiding.
