March 1, 2005
You Can Get Out of the Military, Even if You Enlisted
Soldiers Speak Out, Get Out
Pro-Soldier, Anti-War
My Experiences as a Conscientious Objector and the Launching of Peace-Out.Com by Perry O'Brien
Published on February 8, 2005 by CommonDreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0208-20.htm
I joined the Army on August 27th, 2001, just two weeks before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. As naive as its sounds, I wasn't thinking about going to war when I signed up. I was thinking about jumping out of planes, learning medical skills, and getting a tangible experience that would be somehow more "real" than the previous two years of college. Enlisting was totally spontaneous, and I never took time to sit down and consider how I really felt about war.
A year and half later I found myself working in a field clinic in Kandahar, Afghanistan. As a company of medics, my unit saw the worst consequences of war: mutilated children, traumatized civilians, dead soldiers. Even then, at least for the first few months of my deployment, I didn't take time to consider the implications of what I was doing; I was too busy doing my job. It was the Afghani children that finally got me thinking. No matter how many casualties I saw, there was always a sense of universal wrongness when a 5- year-old child came into our clinic with a ragged amputation. "How are all these kids getting hurt," I wondered, "Why are people letting this happen? What's wrong with this country?"
Then we heard figures, that up to 3,000 innocent civilians had been killed by American bombs. How many had been injured?
I thought to myself, 3,000 is about the number of people that were killed on 9/11. Were we getting even? I started to feel like an Army mechanic, fixing things that my comrades in the Air Force and Infantry had broken. But they weren't "things," of course, they were people, and after they left our clinic they were going home to their families. How many would return to devastated craters, or get home only to learn that one of their sons, fathers, or brothers had been spirited away by American soldiers?
We used to see those prisoners, too, doing medical checkups to ensure that the Afghanis [sic] didn't develop any new injuries during their stay with us. Of course, we never knew what happened to them before they got to Kandahar. During the examinations the prisoners were naked, shivering even if it was warm, with hands zip- tied and eyes covered. Sometimes they had sandbags over their heads. Sometimes they had been tortured by the Afghani [sic] militia and needed more extensive care. If these guys weren't terrorists before, I thought to myself, they sure might be leaning in that direction after we released them.
What were we doing here? I used to accept the idea of a war on terrorism, but isn't war a form of terrorism? Are we just laying the groundwork for another attack, and another war, and on and on? Have wars ever solved more problems than they created?
I left Afghanistan with many troubling questions, and it took me over a year to find satisfactory answers. When I did, I filed to become a conscientious objector. I was lucky. I had the education to present a clear, coherent case, and my unit was supportive, even if they didn't exactly agree with my philosophical perspective. I was given an honorable discharge in November of 2004.
There are many, many soldiers in all branches who feel the same way I do about war. Most of these soldiers are not aware that the option of discharge or alternate service as a conscientious objector is available to them. Of those who come to the conclusion that war is unethical, many feel their only options are insubordination, deception, or desertion. Some of them face imprisonment without ever realizing that there is a perfectly legal mechanism within the Army to recognize their opposition to war.
Last week, I, along with several other conscientious objectors from across the country, launched www.peace-out.com, a comprehensive online resource for soldiers wishing to become CO's. <Peace-out.com>, which was generously designed and launched by The Difference Machine <http://www.differencemachine.com/home.html> , includes a step-by-step guide to the complex CO application process, including the complete text of my application, and a list connecting prospective CO's with those who have successfully been through the process.
I feel that it is particularly important for those of us in the peace movement to give aid and support to soldiers, regardless of how they feel about war. As much as we are antiwar, we must also be pro-soldier.
Perry O'Brien lives in Portland, Maine. He can be reached at perry.obrien@gmail.com and
peace.out.now@gmail.com.
A Matter of Conscience
by Kevin Benderman
http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/benderman-k.htm
Sgt. Kevin Benderman (40) is a U.S. Army mechanic with ten years of service under his belt, including a role in the assault on Baghdad. While there, his outfit was ordered to open fire on children who were throwing rocks at unit personnel. Troubled by this and other similar incidents, and facing a second tour of duty in Iraq, Benderman applied for conscientious objector status in December 2004. The U.S. Army has charged him with desertion. He has been called a coward by his commanding officer, and his chaplain has told him that he is ashamed of him. Born in Alabama, Sgt. Benderman currently lives in Hinesville, Georgia, with his wife, Monica, and stepson Ryan.
Having watched and observed life from the standpoint of a 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 anymore. What is there to prove anyway - that I can kill someone I do not even know and who 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 realized that slavery and human sacrifice were obsolete institutions, 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 adulthood. 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 that can never be replaced, then you have to come to 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 firsthand 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 that 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 against everything that is good about our world.
Catching Flack
A Military Wife Speaks
Monica Benderman
For the past several weeks, my husband, Kevin, and I have answered questions from reporters, and other interested citizens from almost every state in the union, and about eight foreign countries. After all of these interviews, I have a few questions and comments of my own.
"What's gone wrong when a man and his wife are called cowards, all because that man has chosen to speak out against violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?"
What's gone wrong when a man and his wife receive phone calls and emails from all over their country asking them to explain themselves, calling them cowards, wondering if they have ever read the Bible or studied the scripture, all because that man has chosen to speak out against war and violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?
What's gone wrong when a man's mental stability is doubted and his morality is brought into question by a chaplain (a supposed man of God), all because he has decided he cannot use a weapon to kill another person for any reason?
What's gone wrong when a man can walk into a military recruiting office, sign on the dotted line and find himself in a war zone two months later, without one question directed toward his sanity?
What's gone wrong when war is glorified, and fighting for peace is seen as cowardly?
People ask how my husband arrived at his decision. They are amazed that after all his years in the military he has come to the conclusion that he can no longer bear a weapon and go to war against another man..
People want to know if it was stress or PTSD which caused him to change his mind. They want to know what terrible things he saw that made him make such a drastic change. People want to know if there was thunder and lightning, an awakening, an epiphany. There was no bright light. There were no angels, no mighty bolt of thunder. There was only reality and facing the music with eyes wide open…
War -- all war -- is wrong. War brings nothing but death and destruction. War takes away all humanity, not only from the people who die, but also from the people who do the killing. War is insanity…
One man has stopped killing. Hope for more to do the same.
Reprinted from http://www.bruderhof.com