Two Years After the War Began, A Growing Number of US Troops are Refusing to Return to Iraq
At the same time that Kevin Benderman's unit was called up for a second tour in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division, two soldiers tried to kill themselves and another had a relative shoot him in the leg. Seventeen went AWOL or ran off to Canada, and Sergeant Benderman, whose family has sent a son to every war since the American revolution, defied his genes and nine years of military training and followed his conscience.
As the division packed its gear to leave Fort Stewart, Sgt. Benderman applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector - an act seen as a betrayal by many in a military unit considered the heart of the US army, the "Walking Pride of Uncle Sam".
Two years ago today, the columns of the Third ID roared up from the Kuwaiti desert for the push towards Baghdad. When the city fell, the Marines controlled the neighborhoods on the east side of the Tigris and the Third ID had the west. It was, according to the army command, an occasion for pride.
Some of the men and women who were there remain unconvinced. Like Sgt. Benderman, who served six months in Iraq at the start of the war, they were scarred by their experience, and angry at being called again to combat so soon.
- posted by geoff @ #