75,000 words hardcover
Finished books available
World (ex-Canada): Atlantic Monthly Press, Feb 2007
Canada: House of Anansi, Feb 2007
Film: The Film Works
Australia: Text Publishing
France: Albin Michel
Germany: Hoffmann & Campe
Holland: De Arbeiderspers
India: Roli Books
Italy: Neri Pozza
Norway: Font Forlag
Sweden: Bonnier Fakta
Japan: Godo Shuppan
Spain: Debate
(Photo: Lisa Sakulensky)
Former Private First Class Joshua Key is originally from Oklahoma. He fought with the US Army in the Iraq war, but deserted after witnessing numerous human rights abuses. After hiding out for fourteen months in the US, Key fled north to Canada, where he is currently seeking refugee status and a permanent home. He lives with his wife and his four children, and is active in the War Resisters Support Campaign.
The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq
by Joshua Key, as told to Lawrence Hill
THE FIRST MEMOIR FROM A YOUNG SOLDIER WHO DESERTED FROM THE WAR IN IRAQ, THE DESERTER'S TALE IS A VIVID AND DAMNING INDICTMENT OF WHAT WE ARE DOING THERE AND HOW THE WAR IS BEING WAGED
Joshua Key, a young husband and father from a conservative background in Oklahoma, enlisted in the United States Army in 2002, to get training as a welder and lift his family out of poverty. He believed he would not be deployed unless "World War III" broke out. A year later, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq.
In spring 2003, Key was sent to Ramadi as part of the 43rd Combat Engineer Company of the Second Squadron,Third Armored Cavalry.The war he found himself participating in was not the campaign against terrorists and evildoers 
he had expected. Key saw Iraqi civilians beaten and shot and killed or maimed with little or no provocation. Nearly every other night, he participated in raids on homes he was told were harbouring terrorists. Ransacking the homes after arresting all of the men inside, with frightened women and children standing by, they never found evidence of terrorist activity. He witnessed a seven-year-old girl killed while attempting to scrounge leftover Army rations for her family, and a carful of apparently unarmed
Iraqis whose dead bodies were providing sport for US soldiers. After seven months in Iraq, Key went home on leave, and knew he could not return. So he took his family and went underground in the US, finally seeking asylum in Canada after fourteen months in hiding.
The Deserter’s Tale details life as part of the occupying force—it is not an exposé of one terrible atrocity, but an account of an experience where human rights abuses and impunity for committing them were routine. It is the story of a conservative-minded family man and patriot from Oklahoma, who went into the war believing unquestioningly in his government’s commitment to integrity and justice, and how what he saw in Iraq transformed him into someone who could no longer serve his country.
“If anybody invaded America and did to us what we did to the Iraqi people, I’d be right up there with the rebels and insurgents, trying to blow up the occupiers. I would hole up in my home town in Oklahoma and rig mines in trees (they kill more people when they go off overhead) and set them to explode when tanks passed below. I’d lob all the mortars and rocket-propelled grenades that I could get my hands on. No doubt about it, if somebody ripped apart my home and my family in the United States, I’d be a force to be reckoned with, and I’d keep giving the occupiers hell until I was dead and gone, twice over.”" — Former Private First Class Joshua Key, May 2006
PRAISE FOR THE DESERTER'S TALE
“One of the book's great pleasures is in seeing the author's personal development, the journey he has taken, turning away from violence and destruction to become more humane. … He is believable…and through his words and the actions he describes, he conveys hard-earned honesty and integrity. In this testament of his experience in military service in Iraq he is making a substantial contribution to history.” — LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Key describes without judging… [A]s a chronicle of the experiences that led one soldier to this irrevocable step, Key's is a grim and necessary book.” — THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR
“What if it's not war, argues Key, but a war crime that you find you've been ordered to take part in? … This book is about cowardice. The question is whose?” — AUSTRALIAN COURIER
“Key’s first person narrative deftly captures his initial idealism and subsequent disillusionment as he confronts the reality of war. The most pointed indictment of the ways of America is also contained in the moving pages of this book.” — THE TELEGRAPH, CALCUTTA
“[W]hat makes Key’s story believable is the absence of any high-drama encounters with the authorities in the U.S. after he decided to desert the army. … But, he makes no attempt to exaggerate his travails to sell his story, and it is this honesty that reflects through all the detail.” — THE HINDU
“The Deserter’s Tale is broken down into three parts: the first leading up to Key’s decision to join the army, the story of his moral awakening in Iraq and the aftermath of his desertion, when he came home on leave and decided he couldn’t return, not out of cowardice or fear, but out of moral repulsion. By far the most gripping portion of the book recounts his gradual heeding of conscience as he faces brutal facts about himself, the madness of tactics the military was using in Iraq, and America’s moral standing in the world.” — DAILY KOS
“The Deserter's Tale is told in simple, compelling prose. Joshua Key's story may just be one perspective on the Iraq war, but in many ways the young war resister is also speaking on behalf of the voiceless thousands senselessly killed in this war. Relentlessly honest, and graphic, this book stands out as unique and significant amidst the shelves of books critiquing the Bush administration's foreign policy. It will surely stand up long after this war is over as a condemnation both of the pretensions of empire, and of the grotesque inequality that scars life in the United States itself.” — ZNET
“The Deserter's Tale is destined to become part of the literature of the Iraq war… [F]rom the book's opening pages, Key's clear voice rings out . with anguish and a frankness that invests the book with quiet eloquence. . [T]hrough his words and the actions he describes, he conveys hard-earned honesty and integrity. In this testament of his experience in military service in Iraq he is making a substantial contribution to history.” — LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Lawrence Hill … does a marvelous job preserving Key's authentic voice. The writing is fluid, crisp and compelling.” — MONTREAL GAZETTE
“… stark and compelling … What's most engaging about this book is its essential honesty. … The Deserter's Tale ought to be required reading for soldiers heading overseas.” — THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“[I]t is a story worth telling: how a good man became lost in an immoral system, and in the process lost his livelihood, his nation, and part of himself.” — QUILL & QUIRE
“The case of Joshua Key is unique. He is the first US soldier who actually served in Iraq to claim sanctuary from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, based on his 'personal experience with atrocities' in Iraq.. Combatant Key will be able to raise the question of the war's legality as a defence.” — THE PROVINCE, UNWIND SUNDAY MAGAZINE
“The American Army is having a lot of trouble attracting new recruits, in part because of the war in Iraq—its horrors, the lies, and the 1,600 GIs who are dead. Joshua Key enlisted. But after eight months on the front lines in Ramadi and Fallujah, Key took advantage of home leave, and deserted…. He left behind the hardship of war, the blood, the lies. Like thousands of others.” — LE MONDE