Me, too.
Posted on 01/21/2005 3:13:54 PM PST by Former Military Chick
January 20, 2005 - "I am ashamed to be associated with this mess, and I certainly did not join the Army to kill women, children and old men. I just don't see how these innocent people could be a threat to the Constitution of the United States. An American soldier should not be ashamed of what they do," said Sgt. Kevin Benderman of the U.S. Army.
Benderman has said that he will refuse to deploy to Iraq as ordered. A 40-year old veteran who has received many awards, including four Good Conduct Medals, Benderman was deployed in Iraq from March to September of 2003. During that time, he says, "elements of my unit were instructed by a captain to fire on children throwing rocks at us."
He said that he realized that "the people that we are fighting now are for the most part people like you and me, people that are defending themselves against a superior military force and fighting to keep that which is rightfully theirs." He has also said the Iraqi people have the right to choose their own form of government, "just like we did in America after the revolution."
Benderman, who first entered the Army in 1987, has applied for a conscientious objector discharge. A decision on his application is still pending.
Benderman is not alone in his objection to the war. Twenty-two soldiers in his unit have refused to deploy to Iraq. Seventeen have gone AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave). Two have attempted suicide.
Discontent and low morale are becoming so widespread throughout the armed forces, especially the reserves, that even top officers are getting worried. In a recent memo, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly criticized repeated "stop loss" orders, decisions extending reservists' tours in war zones, and calling reservists to active duty after they had returned to civilian life.
Helmly wrote that these policies have pushed the Army Reserve to the point that it is "in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements" and is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
Meanwhile, soldiers in Iraq face daily attacks from a popular resistance that now numbers more than 200,000, according to the head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. U.S. deaths in combat are approaching 1,400. As many as one in five returning troops suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The soldiers want to come home, and the Iraqi people clearly want them to leave. In a letter from Kevin Benderman and Monica Benderman to President George W. Bush, they outlined the only way to end the violence in Iraq: "Until America leaves Iraq to the Iraqis, and brings its soldiers home, freedom cannot begin to materialize for the Iraqi people."
January 20, 2005 - "I am ashamed to be associated with this mess, and I certainly did not join the Army to kill women, children and old men. I just don't see how these innocent people could be a threat to the Constitution of the United States. An American soldier should not be ashamed of what they do," said Sgt. Kevin Benderman of the U.S. Army.
Benderman has said that he will refuse to deploy to Iraq as ordered. A 40-year old veteran who has received many awards, including four Good Conduct Medals, Benderman was deployed in Iraq from March to September of 2003. During that time, he says, "elements of my unit were instructed by a captain to fire on children throwing rocks at us."
He said that he realized that "the people that we are fighting now are for the most part people like you and me, people that are defending themselves against a superior military force and fighting to keep that which is rightfully theirs." He has also said the Iraqi people have the right to choose their own form of government, "just like we did in America after the revolution."
Benderman, who first entered the Army in 1987, has applied for a conscientious objector discharge. A decision on his application is still pending.
Benderman is not alone in his objection to the war. Twenty-two soldiers in his unit have refused to deploy to Iraq. Seventeen have gone AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave). Two have attempted suicide.
Discontent and low morale are becoming so widespread throughout the armed forces, especially the reserves, that even top officers are getting worried. In a recent memo, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly criticized repeated "stop loss" orders, decisions extending reservists' tours in war zones, and calling reservists to active duty after they had returned to civilian life.
Helmly wrote that these policies have pushed the Army Reserve to the point that it is "in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements" and is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
Meanwhile, soldiers in Iraq face daily attacks from a popular resistance that now numbers more than 200,000, according to the head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. U.S. deaths in combat are approaching 1,400. As many as one in five returning troops suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The soldiers want to come home, and the Iraqi people clearly want them to leave. In a letter from Kevin Benderman and Monica Benderman to President George W. Bush, they outlined the only way to end the violence in Iraq: "Until America leaves Iraq to the Iraqis, and brings its soldiers home, freedom cannot begin to materialize for the Iraqi people."
:: Article nr. 9035 sent on 21-jan-2005 18:24 ECT
:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=9035
:: The original address of this article is : www.workers.org/ww/2005/reserves0120.php
And, who has to take their place? I would think that would make for an interesting "news" item.
Because the military owns this guy.
I heard that he has never been called upon to fire his weapon in Iraq.
I live near Ft. Stewart and the claim of the 20+ soldiers refusing to go to duty is bogus. Absolutely FALSE!!! The Savannah Morning News started this ball rolling when it published this story on their front page THE VERY SAME DAY THAT SOLDIERS FROM THE 3RD I.D. WERE DEPLOYING!!!! This Benderman character has been taken up by the far left - even had his op-ed piece published on Al-Jazeerah online.
I wrote a response to the newspaper's article and it was published on GOPUSA.com ("Objecting to the Objector"). Shmuley Boteach even called and interviewed me for his radio show.
This whole story REEKS!!!!!
I can't read German, but am I incorrect in reading Heldentat's FR home page as some sort of WWII Anti-American screed? Quick, get a translator on that thing...
Thank you for your service and God Bless you.
It does appear that the graphic on his home page is a link to a fairly anti-US German politics site (aren't they ALL?)...still checking...
I can't read German, but am I incorrect in reading Heldentat's FR home page as some sort of WWII Anti-American screed? Quick, get a translator on that thing...Babelfish sez:
As "Bloody Omaha" entered the landing section between haven EN Bessin and Vierville war history, where the Gefreite Hein Severloh with its mg prepared a bloody receipt for the invasion troops. Here the Gefreite Hein Severloh, a farmer from Metzingen looked for with Celle, with the binoculars of its battery leader the sea before Colleville off on the early morning 6 of June 1944. Here WN 5 (resistance nest 5) was, that among other things from men of the 1. Battery of the artillery regiment 352 was occupied. The men in the WN 5 were the observers for the 1. Battery, which was equipped with four 10,5-cm-Haubitzen and lay in Houtteville in firing position. After the enormous accumulation of ship of the allied ones before the normannischen coast was constituted, calls of being astonished and frightening broke out with the men: "the fleet!" Hein Severloh recognized the landing boats, which approached on the beach as the first. At the same time the heavy ship cannons of the invasion fleet began with its bombardment of the German beach positions. Left Severloh announced to the b-place: "landing forces go from board of the transporters." Up to now was from German side still no shot please, the men behind the cannons and machine guns by their commanders nevertheless in-sharpened had gotten to only then shoot if the enemy were direct before the beach. The battery commander, first lieutenant Frerking, was likewise in front in the b-place, calmly notified he his goal announcement to the battery: "goal Dora, impact fuze, whole battery, fire order wait for!" Now also Severloh behind its mg 42 lay in the ditch. Again it looked itself within the range of WN 5 over: Before the dune the infantry lay. At the left slope the base crew with three mg was in position, before it was garnet thrower conditions. And then was the Amis there! They had reached kneel-high water in 400 meters distance. The battery commander roared in the telephone: "goal Dora, fire!" Now hell broke loose with the Boys from the USA. Also Hein Severloh, 21 years old, actually Bur of its battery commander, let speak now its mg 42. It pulled calmly the departure through and seized the first number of the Amis stapfenden from the water. It had seized and did not release it it! Ever more met US soldiers fell back in the sea or remained wounded because of the beach being. Also the other German weapons were in the fight: With mg and garnet who far from the landing Americans were held down and the 1. Battery shot defensive fires now additional at the landing section. Here the Americans had thus charged themselves. After Hein Severloh with its mg the first group of landings 16. US infantry regiment had niedergemaeht, bled before WN 5 hope for a fast break-down into the German positions. But to noon the superiority artillery of the allied ones came ever more to carrying, and the German defenders looked the ghost of the ammunition scarceness in the face. However Severloh had hunted 12,000 shot from its mg up to now. Because of the beach were the American pleasures with the white 1 (the 1. Division) at the helmet. Up to now there was no coming through here for it. But also in the German resistance nest it had given losses. By the bombardment of the heavy ship artillery the ditches were buried, the infantry forces had strong losses and the garnet throwers had failed. In the early afternoon the Americans with landing ships came, from which tanks rolled and with heavy mg armed jeeps. Aimed they took the shelters of the defenders under fires. Close combat around WN 5 had begun. Also Hein Severloh was taken now by a tank under purposeful bombardment. It was hurt by fragments in the face and the visiereinrichtung of its mg was destroyed. But Severloh continued to shoot; it had anyway only tracer ammunition for the night operations, which replaced the goal mechanism now to it. But it made itself in such a way also the well visible goal for the US destroyer before the beach. With purposeful shots forced it Severloh to the task of its position. From the battery commander first lieutenant Frerking was set off a last radiogram: "defensive fires on the beach, each shot a hit!" Then he instructed the by bounds retreat of the beach. Only it succeeded to few men of WN 5 to escape from the moerderischen fire of the ship artillery and the tanks. Hein Severloh, the courageous mg contactors of WN 5, created it and arrived into a catching position between Colleville and the coast. The Obergefreite walter Gerhold had announced itself voluntarily to the small combat forces of the war navy. He was trained as the one-man torpedo driver and had his first employment in April 1944 in the Italian port from nice UN to the fight of allies of ships. Gerhold had its second and most successful employment at the night of 5. on 6 July 1944 in the Seine bay against the invasion fleet before the coast of normandy. At dark night it broke through the hostile destroyer safety device before the coast with its one-man torpedo and sank a British cruiser of the Auroraklasse. Also impressing sinking successes arrive to its comrade used at the same time; several supply ships and landing boats of the allied ones were sent on the reason of the sea. Later followed in the fight with these small, but effective weapon still different comrades its example. Gerhold reported on its employment: "I had aimed exactly. The confirmation was long in coming not. First I, while I turned off, heard a loud detonation, which few seconds later second followed: That, Aal` had aft met the cruiser and had brought the ammunition to the inflammation! Into the dark smoke clouds of the bursting cruiser the bright steam clouds of the exploding boiler plant mixed!" Thus the freiwilligen single fighters under verachtung of their life of the anglo American fleet taught heavy impacts. That only 23-jaehrige walter Gerhold was distinguished for this act as first single fighters and first crew rank of the war navy with the knight cross of the iron cross. That also the anglo American troops did not refuse their acknowledgment to the courageous German soldier, the report of an English Sergeant come into German shank proves. It described the hero death of the Gefreiten Kurt spengler, which fell in June 1944 far before the German lines: "a only one German soldier had stayed somewhere in the mine field of Hermanville, 13 km northeastward Caen, when the German bulk set off to the south. He held the apron under fires for day and night and shot a reconnaissance patrol after the other one from us. It was not small wars. Ring around it dead no man's land was gespickt, with mines of special kind. When we broke through after meet-long substantial artillery preparation, we found it dead. In the proximity the empty doses of canned goods lay, on which it had lived, and many empty patronenhuelsen. After the income of Hermanville the commander of our regiment with an instruction pointed out that this tenacity of the German sniper, who was called spengler for us was the best example of bravery and attitude. Hat off before such soldiers." The described employments of these three single fighters during the invasion battle in normandy in the year 1944 show clearly, of whatever achievements the German soldiers were capable still in the fifth war year. They knew that it could over its or Nichtsein of their people and native country and that the homeland in the case a terrible fate threatened the defeat. They fought with an amazing strength against the multiple superiority of the allied weltmaechte - with superior intelligence, cold-blooded self-assertion and the death-despising moral of those, which are in the right.
Yeah, I saw this, and got the sense that it was lauding the heroes of the German resistance to the Normandy invasion - but since Babelfish is limited, I can't be sure.
Me, too.
They will be and who does he think is giving them that right..??.. Despite the steady drumbeat of mainstream media analysts, the Iraqi people actually look forward to the opportunity to vote in the upcoming elections. A poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, part of Congress' National Endowment for Democracy, shows that over 80% of Iraqis plan on voting:
The U.S. Army should be ashamed of Sgt. Kevin Benderman. Not the other way around.
The idea that he should slander our military and the brave men and women in uniform by accusing them of targeting "women, children and old men".. and "innocent people" is contemptible.
Thank you for your service.
IF some guys just can't 'kill' someone, can't they put them in another area of the force where they can do other kind of work? I am just wondering what I'd do if I joined and then when it came down to it, I couldn't pull the trigger to save my own life. I would hope they would put me somewhere else in the unit where I could still help out somehow. Don't flame me, I'm just wondering if this happens.....
I don't mean to make a blanket statement here, and do not want to in any way dishonor our Reserves. Most serve honorably, and have my upmost respect.
However, I can only speak from personal experience.
A good friend of mine's son was encouraged by his family to join the Reserves in order to get his education paid for. Period. I have a son the same age. We discussed it a bit, and decided that he could work to put himself through college, with help from me and his dad. Using our government to pay for his education was not an option for us.
That was 2000, and the threat of going to fight for our country seemed to be minimal. I wondered at the time how my friend would feel if her son had to go to war.
Those who sign up for the military, nomatter what branch, should be prepared, even during peacetime. Don't expect to get the bennies if you're not ready to pay the price. It's that simple.
Into the cold brig with em all.
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