Growing up in a military and evangelical Christian family in Cedar Rapids, little did Joshua Casteel know that two powerful forces would be battling for his soul in a notorious Iraqi prison known as Abu Ghraib.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, Casteel, 24, who served with the Army’s 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion as an Arabic translator and U.S. Army interrogator inside the prison, faced an internal struggle between his sense of duty as a soldier and his moral and religious obligations.

After he had executed over 100 interrogations, Casteel’s internal battle coalesced in the case of a 22-year-old Saudi detainee, a self-proclaimed Jihadi who never fired a gun in his life, yet came to Iraq to fill his cousin’s shoes.

Ironically, Casteel, who had already been fighting a moral struggle before the interrogation, ended up being the one interrogated.

“When the Saudi told me that I wasn’t following Jesus, I told him he was right,” Casteel told the Iowa Independent during an interview. “If anything, I should be in his shoes, because the people who are the most important to me in my life were prisoners: Jesus, Saint Paul, anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King. They were never the captors.”

It was this epiphany that convinced Casteel to tell his commanding officer that he couldn’t interrogate the Saudi prisoner anymore because he saw him as a 22-year-old kid and a person, not an object of exploitation.

“I couldn’t argue with him about the virtue of nonviolence, so it was at this point I decided that I needed to make a practical decision in my life,” Casteel said. “I, too, had to lead by example.”

Casteel’s conscience and morality as a human being overcame his duty as a soldier, and it was here that he initiated the process of filing for conscientious objector status, eventually ending his military career.
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Casteel completed his tour, returned to the United States in January 2005, submitted his CO paperwork in February and was honorably discharged in May.

“This is wildly fast for a CO to get processed and discharged," he said. "I had never heard of such a quick turnaround. Under the military’s ‘Needs of the Army' clause, a CO is a lag to morale, so the military didn’t want me around killing morale.”

Mélida Arredondo, a member of Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) and Gold Star Families Speak Out (GSFSO) responded:

Meghan McCain was born in 1984 and has the opportunity to speak to the media. My stepson Alex also was born in 1984. He cannot speak to the media. Why? Because he was deployed to Iraq twice and killed on his second tour. He returned from his first tour of duty very much impacted by PTSD yet returned to be with his troops to be at their side.

We also have a nephew who is currently serving in Afghanistan in the army.

My family has more than an idea of what war is like. We live the war everyday. When we have a holiday, there's a place set for Alex.

What my husband and I do not have an idea of is what it would be like to hold our 24 year old son in our arms again since he was killed at the age of 20. Period.

Lcpl. Alexander Arredondo, USMC was killed in action in An Najaf, Iraq on August 25, 2004.

MFSO and GSFSO members Joyce and Kevin Lucey are the parents of Lcpl. Jeffrey Lucey, USMC, who killed himself on June 22, 2004 after being denied treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder connected with his service in Iraq. The Luceys write:

There are too many of us who know all too well what war is like - much more than the McCain family.

How many of us have buried our loves and part of our futures due to war ... have the McCains? How many of us have watched our lives forever changed so radically ... and for what? ... have the McCains? How many of us have watched our loved ones suffer so much by wounds - be they physical or hidden - until they succumbed to their wounds ... have the McCains? How many of us have had faith in the VA and the Government to care for our troops and veterans only to see them turn their backs and abandon our heroes - leaving them in the battlefields of their ravished souls and minds - have the McCains? How many of us have looked to the veterans in Congress to take the lead to treat our veterans and military families as they claim that they should be ... regretfully this is where the McCains have failed this nation. Senator McCain abandoned our troops and veterans - voting time and time again against bills which would have given help to his less fortunate brothers and sisters in arms. God Knows how many lives he might have saved - if he truly had cared.

If he has done this to his own brothers and sisters in arms - My God! ... what would he do to our nation?

The past is the best predictor for the future.
We invite Meghan to spend some time with us in our world. We pray that she will accept.