An Army sergeant who refuses to return to Iraq seeks a discharge as a
conscientious objector. He may instead face a court-martial.
By David
Zucchino Times Staff Writer
February 7, 2005
HINESVILLE, Ga.
His sergeant called him a coward to his face. His chaplain sent him an e-mail
saying he was ashamed of him. His commanders had him formally charged with
desertion.
Sgt. Kevin Benderman, who has served one tour of duty in Iraq,
is refusing to serve another. When his fellow soldiers of the 3rd Infantry
Division packed their gear and left nearby Ft. Stewart for Iraq last week,
Benderman stayed home. He says he has chosen to follow his conscience not his
commanders.
After 10 years in the Army, Benderman has applied for a
discharge as a conscientious objector a heresy to many in the military at a
time when the country is fighting two wars overseas.
Today, Benderman,
40, will attend a military court hearing at Ft. Stewart that will determine
whether he will face a court-martial for desertion and failure to report for a
unit deployment. He could face up to seven years in prison if
convicted.
"War is the greatest form of wrong," Benderman wrote in his
seven-page conscientious objector application. "I believe that my moral
obligation to humanity is to not allow myself to be a part of this
destruction."
In the six months he spent in combat in Iraq in 2003,
Benderman said, he was badly shaken by what he witnessed. He saw a young Iraqi
girl with her arm horribly burned and blackened, standing helplessly on a
roadside as Benderman's convoy rushed past. He saw dogs feasting on civilian
corpses that had been dumped into pits. He saw young U.S. soldiers treat war
like a video game, he said, with few qualms about killing or the effects of the
invasion on ordinary Iraqis.
Benderman said he begged an officer to stop
and help the girl, but was told that the unit couldn't spare its limited medical
supplies. "I had to look at that little girl, look into her eyes, and in her
eyes I saw the TRUTH. I cannot kill," Benderman wrote in his
application.
Only a handful of conscientious objector applications have
been filed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are being fought by
professional soldiers, not draftees. Vietnam, a war that bitterly divided the
U.S., produced 172,000 conscientious objector applications from draftees and
17,000 from active-duty soldiers.
For the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
applications increased from 23 in 2002 to 60 in 2003 and 67 last year, according
to Pentagon figures. Of those applications, 71 almost half have been
approved. Unlike Benderman, few applicants have spoken publicly about their
beliefs.
After seeing the civilian corpses, Benderman said, he made a
point of befriending ordinary Iraqis, only to be warned by officers not to
fraternize with "the enemy." He had long talks with an English-speaking
schoolteacher. He began reading the Koran and realized that the religious and
moral values of most Iraqis were similar to his. Everything he had been told
about the rationale for the U.S. invasion, he said, seemed misguided and
destructive.
Benderman said he now believed the war in Iraq and all
wars were immoral. His conscience would no longer allow him to fight or kill,
he said, even if that made him a pariah.
"War robs you of your humanity.
It makes people do terrible things they would otherwise never do," Benderman
said in the living room of his home in Hinesville, his wife, Monica, by his side
and his dog, Carl, at his feet.
When Benderman returned from Iraq to Ft.
Stewart a year ago, he began studying the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry
David Thoreau. He engaged in long discussions with his wife. He weighed his
options before deciding to file his application Dec. 28. Benderman said his
military superiors tried to shame him and talk him out of it. But he said he was
willing to endure the contempt of his peers, and even go to prison.
"I'm
not going to run from my convictions," he said. "I believe what I'm doing is the
right thing, whatever the consequences."
Monica Benderman, whose essay on
a faith-based pacifist website about the immorality of war helped crystallize
her husband's views, said she was proud of him. Many soldiers and their families
have told the couple they share their opposition to war, she said, but were
afraid to speak up for fear of being ostracized. Several Vietnam veterans have
stepped forward to support them.
"We believe in speaking the truth. You
put forward the truth and the right things will happen," she said.
The
couple said they have received e-mails and letters of support from people around
the world, including Iraqis, Guatemalans and Germans. They have also received
e-mails and phone calls branding them cowards and traitors.
"All because
a man has chosen to speak out against war and violence, and his wife has chosen
to stand with him," Monica wrote in her essay, "Catching Flack A Military Wife
Speaks."
Kevin Benderman looks and talks like a soldier. Tall and solidly
built, with close-cropped brown hair, he speaks with a Southern drawl in the
jargon-laden argot of a career soldier.
His father served in World War
II, his grandfather in World War I. Members of his family served on both sides
in the Civil War, and one ancestor, William Benderman, fought in the American
Revolution, Benderman said.
Raised in a Southern Baptist family in
Alabama and Tennessee, Benderman grew up wanting to be a pro football player,
not a soldier. At age 22, Benderman decided he wanted to follow family tradition
and join the Army. He served four years, then worked laying hardwood and tile
flooring. In June 2000, feeling patriotic, he decided to reenlist.
"I
signed up to serve my country," he said. "I felt I had a commitment to
fulfill."
He was a Bradley fighting vehicle mechanic with the 4th
Infantry Division in Iraq.
Benderman said his father, Guy, who died in
2001, had discouraged him from joining the military. He believes his father
would have supported his decision to seek objector status.
While his
application works its way through the military, Benderman has been assigned to
the 3rd Infantry's rear detachment at Ft. Stewart, a few miles from his home. He
reports daily for 6:30 a.m. physical fitness training, then spends his days
supervising soldiers held back from deployment to Iraq for medical reasons or
family emergencies.
"There are no restrictions on him," said a base
spokesman, Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone.
Filing for conscientious objector
status is a long and arduous process. Benderman has been required to meet with a
chaplain and psychologist and write essays detailing his moral and religious
beliefs.
His chaplain did not respond to phone messages or e-mails,
Benderman said, and refused to talk to him when Benderman went to see him at Ft.
Stewart. After the chaplain had reached Kuwait en route to Iraq with other
soldiers from the division, Benderman said, he sent him an e-mail: "You should
be ashamed of the way you have conducted yourself. I am certainly ashamed of
you."
Benderman later met with another chaplain, who wrote a letter
saying, "Sgt. Benderman is sincere in his moral and ethical beliefs . His
beliefs are deeply held to the point where he has no choice but to act in accord
with them."
Benderman also met with a military psychologist, who filled
out a one-page assessment saying he exhibited no mental health
problems.
His commanding officer filed a one-page form in which he
recommended that the objector application be rejected, then told him, "You're on
your own," Benderman said.
The final decision on Benderman's application
will be made by the Army Conscientious Objector Review Board, made up of three
officers, including a chaplain. A Pentagon spokeswoman said the burden of proof
was on applicants, who must convince the board of their moral and religious
objections to war.
Like all new recruits, Benderman signed a statement
saying he was not a conscientious objector. However, the military accepts
applications made by soldiers who, like Benderman, say their beliefs have
changed during their service.
Conscientious objection is a long-standing
principle in America. As early as 1673, Rhode Island provided alternative
militia service for conscientious objectors. In 1701, Pennsylvania under William
Penn provided that anyone with a proven conscientious objection to war "shall
not be in any case be molested or prejudiced."
During the first federal
conscription, in the Civil War, about 1,200 conscientious objectors were allowed
to perform alternative service for the Union. The Confederacy exempted certain
members of pacifist churches.
During World War I, local draft boards
granted conscientious objector status to 22,000 draftees. In World War II, about
25,000 men were granted objector status and assigned to noncombatant duty.
Alternative service was provided for people who opposed war "by reason of
religious training and belief."
Benderman said several soldiers who
served with him in Iraq shared his views. Two members of his battalion attempted
suicide after being ordered to return to Iraq, he said, and several more have
gone AWOL to avoid deployment. A specialist from the division has been charged
with having a friend shoot him in the leg as part of a staged armed robbery in
an attempt to avoid returning to Iraq.
Antiwar groups that offer
counseling to soldiers say opposition to the Iraq war among soldiers is higher
than the Pentagon acknowledges. The GI Rights Hotline, run by a consortium of
antiwar groups, received 32,000 calls last year, many from soldiers who have
gone AWOL or complained of psychological or emotional problems after serving in
combat. About 15% of the calls were from soldiers considering conscientious
objector applications, said Steve Morse of the Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors.
"Soldiers are finding that the military is much
different from the way it's sold to them by recruiters," Morse said. "When they
get into combat, it's suddenly not a video game. It's no longer
abstract."
Benderman says his training did not prepare him for the
brutality and often indiscriminate slaughter he witnessed.
"You can train
all you want and watch training videos, but you can't possibly know what combat
is like until you experience it," he said. "You can't burn a little girl's arm
off in training, or have dogs eat human remains, or have soldiers actually shoot
and kill real people."
Young men who had never experienced combat were
eager to fight in Iraq, he said, but were overwhelmed once they had to kill the
enemy or watch their friends die or suffer grievous wounds.
Benderman
said he saw 19- and 20-year-old soldiers hardened by killing. While under enemy
fire, he said, one young soldier leaped up and began videotaping incoming
rounds.
Monica Benderman said she sensed her husband's view of war
evolving in the letters and e-mails he sent from Iraq. He asked her to mail him
small gifts to hand out to Iraqis, and told her he had come to realize how
destructive the invasion had been for civilians.
Benderman said he
believed he would prevail at today's hearing, and insisted that he had not
deserted his unit.
"I didn't go anywhere. I didn't run to Canada," he
said. "I'm still right here."
If his application is denied and he is
ordered back to Iraq, he said, he would refuse to go. He has turned a corner, he
said, and he will not turn back.
"I've already refused once," he said. "I
will not change my mind, no matter what."
