ST CATHARINES: Brandon Hughey is a teenager living among strangers, far from his friends, family and home in San Angelo, Texas. The 18-year-old is one of two American servicemen who recently deserted their units and fled to Canada to claim asylum as refugees.

"We plan to argue that the war in Iraq is illegal under international law and that I have a right not to choose to participate," he says.

Hughey, who has been taken in by a Quaker couple in the Ontario city of St Catharines, spends his days preparing his legal case. For breaks, he takes solitary walks downtown. He seems mature, composed, and hopeful that he will be able to build a new life for himself in Canada.

Hughey signed up for the army when he was 17, during his final year in high school. "I joined because it was the only way I was going to get a college education," he says.

He went through basic training, and in his spare time began learning about the campaign in Iraq on the Internet. He says he became increasingly uncomfortable about the mission, then so disturbed that he considered killing himself. He brought his questions to a commanding officer, who told him to stop thinking so much.

Then, through the Internet, he met a stranger who offered help getting to Canada. He decided to leave and drove away from his base on March 2, the night before his unit was due to ship out for the Middle East.

Now he was a deserter, terrified he would be stopped for speeding as he drove for 17 hours to meet a peace activist who took him across the Canadian border. They pretended to be basketball fans, on their way to a game in Toronto.

Through the Quaker church he met his lawyer, Jeffry House, who came to Canada from the US in 1970 after he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. He had graduated from college by then, and went on to earn a reputation in Toronto as a lawyer with a strong sense of social justice.

Representing Hughey, who he says is "really just a sweet kid", and Jeremy Hinzman, 25, a private who fled to Canada with his wife and child in January, has brought back memories for him.

But it will take more than youthful appeal to win over the Canadian immigration and refugee board. Last year, a record 317 Americans applied for refugee status in Canada. None was accepted as a legitimate refugee. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.