While attending Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, I had the opportunity to interview Logan Laituri, a former sergeant in the United States Army, about his time in Iraq and the religious awakening that led to the end of his military service.

    Laituri joined the military in 2000 to earn money for college. He served for two years as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, after which he reenlisted with the 25th Infantry Division. He deployed to Iraq in January 2004 and spent 14 months in the war zone.

    His experiences in Iraq made him question the legitimacy of the invasion and subsequent occupation. He struggled to reconcile his religious beliefs with the bloody reality of Iraq.

    Upon returning from combat, Laituri began to study the Christian Bible. He had always identified with Christianity, but had never fully examined his faith. During his testimony at Winter Soldier, he talked about turning to his faith as a way of understanding what was happening in Iraq.

    Then, on April 20, 2006, at 9:40 AM, while riding in a bus on the way to Fort Erwin, Laituri experienced what he described as his "point of crystallization." He said all of a sudden he had a vision of himself back in Iraq but, this time, without a weapon. This moment confirmed a feeling that had been building inside him for some time.

    Laituri applied to be a conscientious objector - someone who refuses to participate in combat on religious, moral or ethical grounds. "COs" as they are known in the military, are stigmatized and called "traitors" and "cowards" because they refuse to fight. His commanders said he was "aiding his enemies" by refusing to fight.

    Laituri hoped to return to Iraq when his unit was called back to action. He wanted to serve as an unarmed noncombatant, as conscientious objectors have in previous wars. However, his request was denied; his commanding officers thought he was being dishonest and was trying to avoid service. Laituri said watching his unit deploy with out him was one of the most difficult moments in his life.

    Instead of becoming recognized as a conscientious objector by the military, Laituri waited out his contract and was discharged from the Army.

    Since leaving the military, Laituri has become a Christian peace activist. He spent four weeks in Palestine with a Christian Peacemaker team, where he spent time speaking with Palestinians and Israelis about the ongoing violence in the region. He plans to move to Jerusalem in the future to study and work to end the fighting there.

    After being discharged, Laituri moved into a communal living situation with other young people with powerful Christian beliefs. They set up in Camden, New Jersey - one of the most violent and impoverished cities in the country - in an effort to "return to the abandoned places of the empire," as a part of a movement of young Christians called New Monasticism. "The problem isn't that we don't see the poor, it is that we don't understand them," Laituri said, adding "if you removed all the passages about economic struggle from the Bible, all you'd have left would be five or six pages."

    As a result of his activism, Laituri has come into contact with a handful of other former soldiers who have had similar transformations.

    He is currently wrestling with the Veterans Administration to address his post traumatic stress disorder. Someday, Laituri would like to open up a coffee shop in Hawaii to serve the large military population there.

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