Nat'l Guard Sergeant Refuses Second Deployment to Iraq

[Nickdfresh]

Army sergeant refuses 2nd Iraq deployment
Seeks conscientious objector status

Thursday, January 13, 2005 Posted: 10:12 AM EST (1512 GMT)

SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) -- A mechanic with nine years in the Army, including a role in the assault on Baghdad, has refused to return to Iraq, claiming "you just don't know how bad it is."

Sgt. Kevin Benderman, 40, said he became morally opposed to war after seeing it firsthand during his first Iraq tour. Now he faces a possible court-martial after failing to deploy Friday with his unit.

"I told them that I refused deployment because I just couldn't go back over there," Benderman said Wednesday. "If I'm going to sit up there and tell everyone that I do not believe in war, why would I go back to a war zone?"

Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, a Fort Stewart spokesman, said Benderman was being considered absent without leave because he had orders to deploy to Iraq while the Army processed his conscientious objector claim.

"He was AWOL from the unit's movement," Kent said. "Beginning the application process for conscientious objection does not preclude you from deploying."

Benderman has been reassigned to a rear detachment unit at Fort Stewart while his case is processed, Kent said. Kent said the Army has not decided whether to bring charges against him.

Gaining objector status is a time-consuming process for soldiers, requiring meetings with counselors and a chaplain with lengthy paperwork reviewed far up the chain of command. Under military law, a person must be opposed to war in all forms to be considered a conscientious objector.

"If a person said, `I'm not opposed to war, but I'm opposed to the Iraq war,' they would not qualify," said Louis Hiken, an attorney with the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild.

Filing an objector claim does not prevent the Army from prosecuting soldiers for disobeying orders.

In May, a Fort Stewart court-martial sentenced Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia of the Florida National Guard to a year in prison for desertion despite his pending objector application. Mejia filed his claim after refusing to return to his unit in Iraq while home on leave.

In December, a soldier who re-enlisted with the Marines after becoming a Seventh-Day Adventist was jailed for refusing to pick up a gun. Cpl. Joel D. Klimkewicz, 24, of Birch Run, Michigan, told his superiors he was a conscientious objector and cited his new religious status. It was rejected in March 2004.

Benderman served in Iraq from March to September 2003 with the 4th Infantry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas. When he later transferred to the 3rd Infantry at Fort Stewart, Benderman said, he was already questioning the morality of the destruction he had witnessed.

"You can sit around your house and discuss this thing in abstract terms, but until you see and experience it for yourself, you just don't know how bad it is," he said. "How is it an honorable thing to teach a kid how to look through the sights of a rifle and kill another human being? War is the ultimate in violence and it is indiscriminate."

Asked why he waited until a week before his unit deployed to file notice of his objector claim, Benderman said, "It takes time for you to make sure that you 100 percent want to do things. This is not something you make a snap judgment on."

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Nickdfresh]

This guys in the National Guard for Chistsakes! They want to send him for a second tour?? I think this is bullshit! He's done his time, I hope he raises a big stink before this is over and they crucify him.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Most of the NG are going (or already have gone) on their 2nd tours....

While I wholeheartedly agree with the Sgt's opinion on this bullshit war, this guy's life is over as he knows it....

He's going to get dishonorably discharged, do Leavenworth time, and that shit is going to follow him for the rest of his life....

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Most of the NG are going (or already have gone) on their 2nd tours....

While I wholeheartedly agree with the Sgt's opinion on this bullshit war, this guy's life is over as he knows it....

He's going to get dishonorably discharged, do Leavenworth time, and that shit is going to follow him for the rest of his life....

Sad but true.

[rochesterdr]

This guy probably could've gone about the whole thing a different way, I completely understand where he's coming from. The Army is right in saying he waited too long. He'll pay for this one, but you know what...he'll still be alive.

[academic punk]

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Most of the NG are going (or already have gone) on their 2nd tours....

While I wholeheartedly agree with the Sgt's opinion on this bullshit war, this guy's life is over as he knows it....

He's going to get dishonorably discharged, do Leavenworth time, and that shit is going to follow him for the rest of his life....


Yeah, but maybe in a good way. People who share your opinion regarding this war/distraction will see that on his resume and actually CREDIT him rather than hold it against him.

(Just like anyone involved in Abu Gharib: some folks in Human Resources will see that, and some will actually look at, say, Lindsay England, and say, "GOOD WORK! YOU'RE A FINE AMERICAN!")

[Spc. Graner]

They need to make this son-of-a-bitch my cell mate. My Mom is baking this into a cake and bringing it in for me! I wanna test it out on him!

http://nysexshop.com/pimages/back_1052.jpg

[stringfelowhawk]

It's a damn shame that he even has to disobey an order he should never have been given in the first place. I'm still active duty and I'm about to rotate back to sea duty in a few months. I'm not as well versed in the inner workings of the National Gaurd but when they tried to recruit me way back in high school, they told me they were to protect or supplement if you will, the regular army on American soil. Not to be deployed to a foreign country that has NOT attacked us. While I do have an opinion on the Iraq war, it does not have a bearing on this statement.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Originally posted by academic punk
Yeah, but maybe in a good way. People who share your opinion regarding this war/distraction will see that on his resume and actually CREDIT him rather than hold it against him.

That's possible as well, but I'm not sure that I would take that risk when it comes to earning a living for my family....

But like String says, they shouldn't be over there in the 1st place...

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by stringfelowhawk
I'm not as well versed in the inner workings of the National Gaurd but when they tried to recruit me way back in high school, they told me they were to protect or supplement if you will, the regular army on American soil. Not to be deployed to a foreign country that has NOT attacked us.

The keyword there is "recruit." You know those damned recruiters. Anything to make their quotas.

[bueno bob]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
The keyword there is "recruit." You know those damned recruiters. Anything to make their quotas.

Yup. I had those mother fuckers calling my house about 3 times a week from 11th grade up to, oh, about 2 YEARS LATER! All because I was dumb enough to let one of them lead me into one of the recruiting tents in the parking lot one day. I told them "I'm not interested, fuck you", and yet they STILL kept calling - I eventually had to get serious and threaten them with legal action for telephone harassment before they finally laid off.

[Nickdfresh]

Soldier explains refusal to return to Iraq
Decision came from long deliberation

Monday, January 17, 2005 Posted: 7:58 AM EST (1258 GMT)

HINESVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- A young girl clutching her arm blackened by burns, dogs feeding off bodies in mass graves -- the images still haunt Sgt. Kevin Benderman 15 months after he came home from Iraq.

Witnessing the brutal reality of war, Benderman stunned his commanders when he sought a discharge as a conscientious objector after 10 years in the Army.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the sergeant said he never grasped the misery that war inflicts on civilians as well as combatants until he saw it all firsthand.

"Some people may be born a conscientious objector, but sometimes people realize through certain events in their lives that the path they're on is the wrong one," Benderman said. "The idea was: Do I really want to stay in an organization where the sole purpose is to kill?"

Benderman's decision -- choosing conscience over his commitment to fellow troops -- has meant bearing the insults.

An officer called him a coward. His battalion chaplain shamed him in an e-mail from Kuwait. That's because Benderman, whose unit just deployed for a second combat tour in Iraq, refused to return to war.

Benderman, 40, filed notice in December, and his timing could hardly have been worse for the Army. The Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division began deploying its 19,000 soldiers this month.

Benderman's unit, the 3rd Forward Support Battalion, was leaving for Kuwait on January 5. When commanders ordered him to deploy while they processed his objector application, he refused to show up for his flight.

He said he has his reasons, reflecting on time in Iraq.

Benderman told of bombed out homes and displaced Iraqis living in mud huts and drinking from mud puddles; mass graves in Khanaqin near the Iranian border where dogs fed off bodies of men, women and children.

He recalled his convoy passing a girl, no older than 10, on the roadside clutching a badly injured arm. Benderman said his executive officer refused to help because troops had limited medical supplies.

"Her arm was burned, third-degree burns, just black. And she was standing there with her mother begging for help," Benderman said. "That was an eye opener to seeing how insane it really is."

Now Benderman, a mechanic who has been reassigned to a non-deploying rear detachment unit, could face a court-martial. Fort Stewart officials have not decided whether to charge him.

Separately, he must convince commanders he is morally opposed to war in all forms, as Army regulations define conscientious objection, despite his lengthy military service and previous combat tour.

"If he went to Iraq and then comes back and says, `I'm now opposed to war,' the issue is are you opposed to all wars or just this one you don't want to go back to?" said Mark Stevens, a military defense lawyer and retired Marine Corps judge advocate. "He wasn't opposed to war two years ago, why is he opposed to it now?"

Benderman said the officer who took his objector notice dismissed him as a coward. His unit's chaplain offered little encouragement.

"You should have had the moral fortitude to deploy with us and see me here in Kuwait to begin your CO application," Army Chaplain Matt Temple said in a recent e-mail to Benderman. "You should be ashamed of the way you have conducted yourself. I certainly am ashamed of you."

Benderman's wife, Monica, said her husband hinted that he had doubts about taking part in the war in a letter he sent home that referenced scholars' belief that Iraq was home to the biblical Garden of Eden.

"He said, `Here I am in the Garden of Eden, and what am I doing here with a gun?"' she said.

Raised a Southern Baptist in Tennessee, Benderman keeps an open Bible on his living room table but said he's "more spiritual than religious." After going to Iraq, he picked up the Quran and was struck by the similarities between Islam and Christianity.

He returned in September 2003 after serving eight months in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. As a mechanic who fixes Bradley armored vehicles, he said he never fired a weapon in combat.

Still, Benderman began questioning whether he could return to a war zone when he transferred to Fort Stewart in October 2003. He said he never mentioned his doubts to soldiers in his new unit, but trained with them for a year as they prepared for a second tour. By December, he had even packed his clothes and equipment for shipping overseas.

Benderman acknowledged that waiting more than a year, until right before deployment, may seem "out of the blue." But he insisted his decision came from long deliberation, not desperation.

"People say, `You're abandoning these soldiers that depend on you,' and so that weighs on you," he said. "But what's worse? Going over there and participating in war, or maybe doing something that can help people figure out that you don't have to go to war?"


Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Sgt. Kevin Benderman

[BITEYOASS]

Well I'm taking a neutral stance on this war. First off, I don't want to object to something I haven't taken part in and wind up fucking over my unit. I volunteered for activation in July know that it would happen sooner or later, added to the fact that I was on my second civillian job in one year and going to college at the same time. Well, I'm heading over there this year and I won't go into any details. All I have to say is: Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian! :D

As for Graner, all I have to say is that I hope they put that kid of yours to sleep. You should get the death penalty just for sleeping with that ugly bitch. And If I ever see you on the street after you get out of Leavenworth, be expecting a meeting with mr. Louisville Slugger, mr. bowie knife and mr. Smith & Wesson. :D

[Spc. Graner]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
The keyword there is "recruit." You know those damned recruiters. Anything to make their quotas.

Ha Ha! You said it.

He needs to go to the brig for 7 years hard time!

By the time he gets out, he'll have a butthole of steel.

[rochesterdr]

I'm starting to think that this guy is kind of a fucking moron. If he feels so strongly about this, he should have done something a little sooner than the week before your unit deploys. He sounds like a coward and the reason I say that is he just fucked over guys in his unit. IMO, you've got to be a little on the fucked side of things if you want to go to Iraq, but this guy had a commitment to his soldiers. He's a 10 yr vet, too, not some e-1 fresh off the farm. You expect those guys to pull shit to get out of a deployment, but an E-5 who pulls this at a week out...a disgrace.

[FORD]

A Matter Of Conscience
Tuesday, January 18 2005 @ 05:30 AM
Contributed by: Admin | Views: 19

By Sergeant Kevin Benderman, U.S. Army

01/16/05 "ICH" --Having watched and observed life from the standpoint of soldier for ten years of my life, I always felt there was no higher honor than to serve my country and defend the values that established this country. My family has a history of serving this country dating back to the American Revolution and I felt that to continue on in that tradition was the honorable thing to do.

As I went through the process which led to my decision to refuse deployment to Iraq for the second time, I was torn between thoughts of abandoning the soldiers that I serve with, or following my conscience which tells me: war is the ultimate in destruction and waste of humanity.

Thoughts that we could, and should, consider better ways to solve our differences with other people in the world have crossed my mind on numerous occasions. And this was the driving force that made me refuse deployment to Iraq a second time. Some people may say I am doing so out of fear of combat; I am not going to tell you that the thought of going back to that place isn’t scary, but that is not the reason for my decision to not return.

I want people to know that the longer I thought about just how stupid the concept of war really is the stronger I felt about not participating in war. Why do we tell our children to not solve their differences with violence, then turn around and commit the ultimate in violence against people in another country who have nothing to do with the political attitudes of their leaders?

Having read numerous books on the subject of war and having heard all the arguments for war, I have come to the conclusion that there are no valid arguments for the destructive force of war. People are destroyed, nations are destroyed, and yet we continue on with war. The young people that I went with to the combat zone looked at it like it was a video game they played back in their childhood.

When you contemplate the beauty of the world around us and the gifts we have been given you have to ask yourself, “ Is this what humanity is meant to do, wage war against one another?” Why can’t we teach our children not to hate or to not be afraid of someone else just because they are different from us? Why must it be considered honorable to train young men and women to look through the sights of a high-powered rifle and to kill another human being from 300 meters away?

Consider, if you will, the positive things that could be accomplished without war in our lives; prescription medication that is affordable for seniors, college grants that are available for high school seniors, I could name a list of reasons not to waste our resources on war. The most important being to let the children of the world learn war no more.

I’ve received e-mails from people who said that I was a coward for not going to war, but I say to them that I have already been, so I do not have anything to prove to anyone any more. What is there to prove anyway, that I can kill someone I do not even know and has never done anything to me? What is in that concept that anyone could consider honorable?

I first realized that war was the wrong way to handle things in this or any other country when I went to the war zone and saw the damage that it causes. Why must we resort to violence when things do not go our way? Where is the logic of that? I have felt that there are better ways to handle our business than to bomb each other into oblivion. When you are on the water in a boat and you have a chance to see dolphins playing with each other as they go about their business, you realize that if they can live without war then humanity should be able to as well.

Can’t we teach our children to leave war behind in history where it belongs? We have come to realize that slavery was an obsolete institution and we realized that human sacrifice was an obsolete institution and we left them behind us. When are going to have the same enlightened attitude about war?

I look at my stepchildren and realize that war has no place with me in giving them what they need to survive the trials and tribulations of early adult hood. And if you look at all the time soldiers lose in the course of fighting wars such as birthdays and anniversaries, their children going to the senior prom and college graduations, and other things which can never be replaced, then you have to come the understanding that war steals more from people than just the sense of humanity, it also steals some of that humanity from their family.

I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the “art” of killing. That is a very deranged mindset in my opinion. It destroys the environment, life, and the resources which could be used to create more life by advancing our endeavors.

War should be left behind us; we should evolve to a higher mindset even if it means going against what most people tell us in this country, such as that we can never stop fighting with other people in the world. I have made the decision to not participate in war any longer and some people in this country cannot comprehend that concept but to me it is simple. I have chosen not to take part in war and it was easy to come to that decision.

I cannot tell anyone else how to live his or her life but I have determined how I want to live mine - by not participating in war any longer, as I feel that it is stupid and also that it is against everything that is good about our world.

Sergeant Kevin Benderman may be reached at mdawnb@coastalnow.net.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by rochesterdr
I'm starting to think that this guy is kind of a fucking moron. If he feels so strongly about this, he should have done something a little sooner than the week before your unit deploys. He sounds like a coward and the reason I say that is he just fucked over guys in his unit. IMO, you've got to be a little on the fucked side of things if you want to go to Iraq, but this guy had a commitment to his soldiers. He's a 10 yr vet, too, not some e-1 fresh off the farm. You expect those guys to pull shit to get out of a deployment, but an E-5 who pulls this at a week out...a disgrace.

This guy's not a coward. Bush sending thes people over there, twice no less, is the disgrace.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
This guy's not a coward. Bush sending thes people over there, twice no less, is the disgrace.

Wah Wah Wah :rolleyes:


Actually, rochesterdr made the accurate statement. :gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Wah Wah Wah :rolleyes:


Actually, rochesterdr made the accurate statement. :gulp:

So did I.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
So did I.

Let's look at your statement:

This guy's not a coward. Bush sending thes people over there, twice no less, is the disgrace.

I assume you wish to debate the second part? The part about those people going over there twice? Is it legal? That's what it comes down to.

No, I agree, it's not optimal, but that's the way it is. I did a lot of damn time away from home when Clinton was in office, and I never blamed him for that though it was tempting. If my chain of command told me to go I went. A military organization cannot function any other way.

It's easy for us on the outside to use servicemen and women as pawns in our own political chess games. I'm damn tired of it. These people deserve better from both sides of the fence. :(

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Let's look at your statement:

This guy's not a coward. Bush sending these people over there, twice no less, is the disgrace.

[quote][b]I assume you wish to debate the second part? The part about those people going over there twice? Is it legal? That's what it comes down to.

It's immoral and a sign of imcompetence that they have to repeatedly put their asses on the line! And since we have never claimed war, I would say YES! It IS ILLEGAL!



No, I agree, it's not optimal, but that's the way it is. I did a lot of damn time away from home when Clinton was in office, and I never blamed him for that though it was tempting. If my chain of command told me to go I went. A military organization cannot function any other way.

You weren't having roadside bombs going off hero! You didn't see the shit this guy has experienced! It's about damn time somebody stood up to this bullshit.



It's easy for us on the outside to use servicemen and women as pawns in our own political chess games. I'm damn tired of it. These people deserve better from both sides of the fence. :(

It's easy for these assholes to use servicemen as pawns too! I'm not deploying them to immoral invasions!

http://www.evote.com/evotepix/whitehouse/bushadministration/rumsfeld_and_bush_memorialday_060104.jpg