Veterans for Common Sense

Iraq War Veteran Convicted of Killing Wife

An Army reservist was convicted of killing his wife, who had hailed him and other soldiers as heroes in a letter to the editor while he was serving in Iraq.

The jury found Matthew J. Denni, 39, guilty of second-degree murder Wednesday in the shooting death last March of his wife, Kimberly, 37. He had been charged with first-degree murder, but he testified he was in a rage because she had been having an affair, and the jury decided the crime was not premeditated.

Her body was found in May in a footlocker in Denni’s van after her brother reported her missing. Prosecutors said her husband had conceiled her body for two months.

The night of the shooting, the couple had argued and Kimberly Denni said she was going to going to her boyfriend’s house, Denni testified. “I just thought, `No, you’re not.’ I reached down, opened the drawer and pulled out the gun,” Denni said. He said he had not planned to kill her.

A supply sergeant based at Fort Lewis, [Washington] Denni served several months in Iraq before he was sent home in October 2003 after he was accidentally shot in the leg. He said he had been unable to sleep and had nightmares because of the stresses of war and collapse of his marriage.

In September 2003, Kimberly Denni had written to The Columbian newspaper, referring to a plan to release an action figure based on President Bush’s appearance aboard an aircraft carrier that May, declaring declaring major combat operations in Iraq to be over.

“If they want action figure heroes, it’s time they look at who the heroes really are,” she had written. “I wish people could understand that the soldiers are in Iraq because it’s their job, but many don’t want to be there.”

Denni faces 15 to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced March 10. The Dennis’ daughter, who was 7 when her mother was killed, is in the care of a relative.

Concern spreads over drug lariam given to troops

SAN DIEGO, California (Associated Press) — As a volunteer firefighter, Georg-Andreas Pogany had seen disfigured bodies pulled from wrecked cars. But something very different happened when the Army interrogator saw the mangled remains of an Iraqi soldier.

He became panicked, disoriented and that night reached for both his loaded pistol and rifle as he thought he saw the enemy bursting into his room. Pogany asked his superiors for help; the Army packed him home to face charges of cowardice – the first such case since Vietnam.

None of it made sense to Pogany until he learned more about the white pills the Army gave him each week to prevent malaria.

The drug’s manufacturer warned of rare but severe side effects including paranoia and hallucinations. It became his defense: The pills made him snap. The Army dropped all charges, a spokesman later saying that Pogany “may have a medical problem that requires care and treatment.”

Pogany is among the current or former troops sent to Iraq who claim that Lariam, the commercial name for the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, provoked disturbing and dangerous behavior. The families of some troops blame the drug for the suicides of their loved ones. Though the evidence is largely anecdotal, their stories have raised alarm in Congress, and the Pentagon has stopped giving out a pill it probably never needed to give to tens of thousands of troops in Iraq in the first place.

“What are we doing giving drugs that cause hallucinations, confusion, psychotic behavior to people that carry weapons and hold secret clearances?” asked Pogany, 33, who is now seeking a medical discharge. “It doesn’t pass the common-sense test.”

The U.S. military, which developed the drug after the Vietnam War, maintains that Lariam is safe and effective, though officials have expressed some concern and the military tells its pilots not to take Lariam.

In written guidance on the drug last year, the military urged commanders to send for a medical evaluation anyone who showed behavioral changes after taking the drug, “especially … if they carry a weapon” _ a description of nearly all U.S. troops in Iraq.

“Delay could put the service member or your unit at risk,” the guide said.

Lariam is among the drugs recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for treatment and prevention of malaria, which kills about 1 million people worldwide each year. The drug is manufactured by Hoffmann-La Roche of Switzerland and distributed by U.S. susidiary Roche Pharmaceuticals of Nutley, N.J. Roche points out that more than 30 million people worldwide have used Lariam over 20 years.

“There is no reliable scientific evidence that Lariam is associated with violent acts or criminal conduct,” Roche spokesman Terence Hurley wrote in an e-mailed response to questions.

Further blurring the issue, the side effects associated with Lariam closely mirror symptoms of stress disorders related to combat, making diagnosis difficult.

Still, the pill has dedicated critics who believe it’s causing problems that are only beginning to be understood. A review by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs found 34 articles in medical journals about patients who took Lariam and became paranoid, psychotic or behaved strangely.

Within the civilian medical community, faith in the drug is mixed among doctors who specialize in tropical diseases. Two said they routinely prescribe it to travelers and believe troop complaints are overblown. Another criticized the military’s use of a drug with a known history of psychiatric complications.

Dr. G. Richard Olds, professor and chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is among Lariam’s critics.

“There’s a strong recommendation not to use Lariam for those who depend on fine motor skills,” he said. “Do you call firing an M-16 a fine motor skill? I do.”

Doctors at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego have diagnosed a disorder in the region of the brain that controls balance in 18 service members who took Lariam, among them Pogany.

The Pentagon’s records show the number of Lariam prescriptions issued to active-duty personnel nearly doubled from 18,704 in 2002 to 36,451 the next year, said Lt. Col. Stephen Phillips, a program director for deployment medicine. Since prescriptions issued at remote locations aren’t counted, actual numbers may be higher.

Shortly after the March 2003 invasion, military doctors determined another malaria drug would do the job with fewer side effects. Around the same time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that doctors should give patients revised information, underscoring that some Lariam users experience severe anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, depression and think about killing themselves.

Troops were supposed to receive those kinds of warnings, but several current and former soldiers interviewed for this story said they did not _ and that they continued taking the drug in Iraq as recently as 2004. In that year, Phillips said, the number of prescriptions fell to 12,363.

Concerns about those taking the drug weren’t new. Some U.S. and Canadian forces deployed to Somalia in the early 1990s reported strange behavior. Lariam came up as a possible explanation after four Fort Bragg, N.C., soldiers killed their wives over 43 days in 2002. An Army probe ruled out Lariam, which was only prescribed to two of the soldiers.

Last year, the assistant defense secretary for health affairs ordered a review of the drug’s use based on troop concerns. Many who complained came from the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Carson, Colo. A base spokesman referred all questions to the Pentagon.

In a letter last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to release results of the Pentagon’s investigation. Feinstein has said there is enough evidence in the warnings from Lariam’s maker “to make the causal link between the drug and many of the serious adverse events experienced by service members.”

Military officials now concede Lariam wasn’t needed in Iraq _ and not just because, according to the Pentagon, no malaria infections have been reported among U.S. forces there.

Troops sent to Kuwait in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm were given another anti-malarial, chloroquine. Before the Iraq invasion, the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center in Fort Detrick, Md., which is charged with evaluating medical risks, was concerned that a deadly malaria strain in the region might have become resistant to chloroquine. They relied on reports from the World Health Organization and U.S. Special Operations units sent to northern Iraq.

In a series of reports before the invasion, the intelligence center extrapolated that _ without bug spray, mosquito nets or other preventive measures _ about 1 in 2,000 troops could pick up a deadly chloroquine-resistant malaria strain, according to a spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Michael Birmingham.

In March 2003, U.S. Central Command recommended the use of Lariam or another drug, doxycycline, in high-risk areas in Iraq. The idea was “to err on the side of caution,” rather than assume chloroquine would work, said Phillips of the Pentagon’s deployment medicine program.

Some commanders chose Lariam because it could be taken once a week rather than daily like doxycycline, whose main side effects included sensitivity to sunlight.

By July 2003, the military had determined the chloroquine-resistant strain wasn’t in Iraq. Chloroquine then became the drug of choice.

“That’s the saddest part,” said Laura Howell, a widow with two children after her husband killed himself in Colorado Springs, Colo. “There was never a need.”

Howell blames Lariam for what happened a few weeks after her husband, a veteran Green Beret, returned home. In March 2004, Chief Warrant Officer William Howell went from “normal to murderous” in a half-hour, his wife said, and ended his life in his front yard with a bullet to the head.

Critics of the drug in organizations such as Lariam Action USA and the National Gulf War Resources Center believe Lariam is connected to the surge in military suicides in 2003, when 23 people deployed to Iraq and Kuwait took their lives. The suicide rate dropped after Lariam’s use was halted in Iraq.

Former Army Spc. Don Dills and his wife say he grew anxious, paranoid and depressed after taking Lariam for seven months in Iraq. Dills, 22, says he “went crazy” on a family visit to Mississippi last year and wound up jailed for robbery. When Dills’ wife called her husband’s first sergeant about the arrest, he told her: Look into Lariam.

Dills, who like Pogany and Howell was based at Fort Carson, was kicked out of the military shortly after he wound up in a psychiatric ward for problems he and his wife contend are linked to Lariam.

“The bottom line is they know what’s going on,” said Elicia Dills, 25, of Pueblo, Colo. “They just don’t know how to deal with the can of worms they opened.”

On the Net:

http://www.deploymenthealth.mil/mefloquine.asp

http://www.Lariam.com/

http://www.Lariaminfo.org/

Iraq War Vet Arrested After Standoff With Police  
Charles LaPorte Metro Jail Photo(MCSO)

A man who once served in Iraq is in trouble after a three-hour standoff with police.

Police say it started Tuesday afternoon when they got a domestic disturbance call from a quiet neighborhood in Saraland. But when they got there they discovered much more.

Saraland’s Public Safety Director says after three hours of negotiating, Charles LaPorte finally surrendered. When they got to the home police say they found LaPorte armed with guns and a full clip of ammunition.

LaPorte’s wife would not talk to News 5 on camera, but says her husband returned home from the Iraq last June. She says he was a Sergeant in the 1165th Military Police Company and was working as a Paramedic for Mobile Fire Rescue. 

News 5 talked with one person who says neighbors pitched in to buy him gifts while he was fighting overseas. The neighbor says LaPorte was quiet and kept to himself.

 “Coming from Iraq, I know he has guns and I know he knows how to use them,” Kim Boutzale said. “The guy is capable of using these things.”  

LaPorte’s wife says what happened at her home Tuesday night was a result of her husband not getting the support and help he needed and asked for after he returned home from combat duty. She says he is now getting help.

LaPorte is in police custody charged with Disorderly Conduct.

Military concerned over treatment for returning soldiers

KNOXVILLE (WATE) — One type of injury that’s seldom reported for soldiers in Iraq is combat stress. An officer from Powell says the Army isn’t ready to treat returning soldiers.

First Lt. Phillip Goodrum has been diagnosed with severe depression and post traumatic stress. He claims the Army wasn’t ready to fully care for psychologically injured soldiers when he returned from Iraq.

“I was a threat to the medical system by speaking out and telling the truth about care that Reserve and Guards were being provided,” he says.

Anti-anxiety pills are prescribed to ease the panic attacks for the 16-year veteran who’s fought in both Iraq wars. “I’m just in total disbelief that at the level we’re at now, that no one has stepped forward to say, no, this is wrong. Let’s stop it.”

Soldier seeks treatment

The Army is pursuing a court-martial against Goodrum for being AWOL while in Knoxville. He checked himself into St. Mary’s Medical Center for psychiatric care.

Goodrum says he had no choice after the Army denied him treatment at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He claims this is documented in his medical records.

“The Army says it was a ‘misunderstanding’ that I was denied medical treatment. A misunderstanding that you deny a soldier medical treatment?”

Treatment for other soliders?

Over the last year, thousands of Tennessee guardsmen and Reservists went to Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the largest call up in over 50 years.

What psychological help will be available, if needed, for these soldiers and their families when they return? “The military recognizes post traumatic stress as an illness,” 6 News asks and Lt. Col. Charles Woods answers, “Oh yes,” adding, “since 1980.”

Woods is part of the National Guard chaplain service at McGhee Tyson Airbase, preparing teams to assist soldiers and their families.

Three of the state’s top-ranked chaplains say that while the vast majority of combat vets don’t suffer from depression, they must be ready for those who do. “We’re laying all of the foundations right now to be prepared for the surge,” says Maj. Kevin Wilkinson.

According to Lt. Col. Joe Bando, “Eight-six percent of the military coming back have seen a traumatic event, been involved in a traumatic event. We’re working very diligently to be ready for them in all phases: initial, reintegration and reunion.”

“If we get the word out to families and to returning soldiers that there’s no stigma with raising your hand and having the courage to say, I need to see someone with this problem,” Woods says.

Vet center preparing

The VA vet center in Knoxville is a place where soldiers with readjustment issues have been coming for 25 years. Ron Coffin is one of three counselors ready to assist returning vets. His staff is helping soldiers with problems from other wars.

By the end of this year, some of the 4,000 Reservists and Guardsmen may need assistance when they come home. “What we’re doing now is some planning so that we’ll be in place to help all those returning veterans,” Coffin says.

Questions remain for Goodrum

Tennessee’s U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bill First have lent support to Lt. Goodrum’s cause. In January, he went to Capitol hill seeking help from other senators. Now, he hopes the court-martial proceedings are dropped and he can go home.

“If it goes bad, what happens?” 6 News asks. “My life is ruined, basically,” Goodrum says.

An Army study shows that one in seven returning Iraq war vets suffers from depression.

U.S. Guardsman Accused Of Iraqi’s Murder

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — An Indiana National Guardsman who received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Iraq has been charged in the death of an Iraqi citizen, the Army said Tuesday.

And the Army is accusing the soldier of being undeserving of his Purple Heart. AP Image U.S. military service Purple Heart medal

The Iraqi died at the same time Cpl. Dustin Berg, 21, was wounded, the military said. Berg also faces charges of false swearing and the wearing of an unauthorized award.

A hearing was scheduled Thursday at Fort Knox, Ky., to determine whether the case will proceed to a court-martial.

The Iraqi died in November 2003 near Nippur, south of Baghdad, said Gini Sinclair, a Fort Knox public affairs officer. She declined to release further details about the case. Berg’s mother was quoted in The Herald newspaper of Jasper, Ind., on Nov. 24, 2003, as saying her son, of Ferdinand, Ind., had been shot the day before in the abdomen and had undergone minor surgery. Reached at her home Tuesday by The Associated Press, Mary Lee Berg would not comment, saying only that her son had returned to duty in Iraq after the shooting. Berg received a Purple Heart during a ceremony Feb. 19, 2004, at Camp Atterbury in Indiana. The Indiana National Guard on Tuesday would not release the citation describing why the Purple Heart was awarded. Berg was a member of the 1st Battalion, 152nd Infantry Regiment, based in Jasper, Ind., when it mobilized in January 2003 for the Iraq war and returned home in February 2004. He has since been put on active duty and assigned to Fort Knox. He was charged in the case on Jan. 13, Sinclair said.

Sinclair said an attorney has been appointed for Berg, but she could not release the attorney’s name.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/4185114/detail.html

Investigator: Soldier Admitted Killing Iraqi, Shooting Self

FORT KNOX, Ky. — An Indiana National Guard soldier charged with killing an Iraqi police officer changed his story multiple times before admitting killing the man, then shooting himself, a military investigator said Thursday.

Cpl. Dustin Berg, 21, is shown here at a February 2004 ceremony at Camp Atterbury in Johnson County.

Cpl. Dustin Berg, 21, of Ferdinand, Ind., who had received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq, is charged with murder. His lawyer said Thursday the fatal shooting was in self-defense.

Berg also faces charges of false swearing and the wearing of an unauthorized award for allegedly lying about the incident. His attorneys are not contesting those charges.

The testimony Thursday came at an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury. Next, investigating officer Maj. Samuel Butzbach will make a recommendation on whether Berg should face a court-martial.

Butzbach’s recommendation goes to Col. Michael Alexander, the special court martial convening authority, who will review the case and send it with a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Terry L. Tucker, the commander of Fort Knox. Tucker will ultimately decide if Berg will face a court-martial.

Testimony during the nearly three-hour hearing focused on Berg’s reaction just after the shooting and his accounts of it in the months that followed.

Special agent Clarence Joubert of the Army Criminal Investigative Division said Berg initially said he was shot by a man in a red turban and white shirt. After four interviews, Berg acknowledged shooting and killing Iraqi police officer Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood Al-Dubeidi on Nov. 23, 2003, south of Baghdad.

Joubert said Berg also acknowledged picking up Al-Dubeidi’s AK-47 and shooting himself in the side.

“Each meeting I had with him, there were inconsistencies of what happened,” Joubert said. “Bottom line is the versions of his actions and what prompted him to do his actions changed.”

Berg initially said the Iraqi police officer shot him, before changing his story, said Capt. Rodney J. Shambarger, who supervised Berg for about 10 months. Shambarger said three other soldiers in the unit were under criminal investigation at the time of the shooting.

That may have played a role in Berg’s decision to falsify the story of the shooting, Shambarger said.

“It’s an unnerving thing being investigated, having to worry about the outcome,” Shambarger said.

Staff Sgt. Richard Hamilton, who served with Berg in the 1st Battalion, 152nd Infantry Regiment, based in Jasper, Ind., said Berg told him about shooting the policeman and himself the day Berg made the same admission to Joubert in June 2004.

“He doesn’t seem like the type of soldier to do that,” Hamilton said. “It just caught me off guard.”

“Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Milton, a military police officer who worked near Convoy Support Center Scania, where Berg was based, said he heard the shooting, then saw an injured Berg running toward him.

Milton, who testified via telephone, described a panicky Berg telling officers a man in a red turban and white shirt shot him. Milton and other soldiers found Al-Dubeidi near an old road a short time later.

“He made no mention of an Iraqi policeman,” Milton said.

Maj. Michael Smith, with the Army’s medical examiner unit in Washington, D.C., reviewed pictures of Al-Dubeidi and said the police officer died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

“It would be a close range gunshot wound,” Smith said by telephone. “Most likely, it was inches, not yards.”

Berg did not testify. The prosecution did not specify a motive for the shooting, but his military attorney, Capt. Travis Hall, said the shooting was justified because Berg feared for his life.

“He was in an environment that was dangerous,” Hall said. “There was a fair amount of uncertainty as to who the enemy was.”

Hall also said Berg made up the story about being attacked and shot himself because he feared that the military would investigate the shooting.

“That’s really what this case is all about, a soldier being afraid of an investigation,” Hall said after the hearing.

The prosecutor, Capt. Dan Stigall, said there is no doubt Berg killed the policeman and should face a court-martial for murder.

“The accused has admitted under oath that he shot an Iraqi policeman who did not shoot him,” Stigall said.

Berg received a Purple Heart during a ceremony in February 2004, the month he returned home from Iraq. The Indiana National Guard has declined to release the citation describing why the Purple Heart was awarded to Berg.

Berg has since been put on active duty and assigned to Fort Knox. He was charged in the case on Jan. 13.

Advocates for veterans decry VA fee hike

More than half of Colorado’s 430,000 veterans would pay double for prescription drugs plus a $250 fee to access their medical care under President Bush’s proposed 2006 budget.

The $71.3 billion requested for the Department of Veterans Affairs includes a slight increase in overall funding to Colorado veterans’ benefits programs, such as life insurance, GI Bill education and medical programs. But for the second year in a row, funding of medical care will increase just 1.2 percent, far less than is needed to keep up with demand, according to veterans advocates.

“The budget is not adequate for veterans that have earned benefits by virtue of their service,” said Bob Clements, state commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Clements said he and other veterans groups plan to fight the proposed enrollment fee and increase in drug co-payments, which would require veterans in higher-income groups to pay $15 for a 30-day supply instead of $7.

Nationally, the Bush budget calls for a 2.7 percent funding increase for veterans programs.

Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said he worries that’s not enough to cover both older veterans and what he predicts will be an onslaught of new veterans seeking care.

Another matter of concern for Colorado veterans is that a replacement for Denver’s cramped and aging VA Medical Center is not on the agency’s list of construction projects.

The VA expects to spend $750 million on several new hospitals nationwide in 2006, but that does not include specific funds for a proposed VA hospital at the University of Colorado’s Fitzsimons campus.

Those plans recently halted after VA officials backed out of a shared hospital with CU and requested a larger, stand-alone facility.

It is not clear how the VA’s proposed budget would affect the project. Colorado VA officials declined to comment.

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democratic member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, criticized the proposal, as did U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

“It is wrong for the president to hike health care fees for veterans to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy we cannot afford,” DeGette said through spokesman Josh Freed. “This does not reflect the real priorities and values of our nation.”

Staff writer Marsha Austin can be reached at 303-820-1242 or maustin@denverpost.com

Bush may cut program for vets going to college

When Katherine Hegler first tried college after leaving the Army, her grades were so bad that she ended up on academic probation. She left school and re-enlisted.

When she returned to school more recently, she had the help of Veterans Upward Bound, a decades-old federally funded program that helps vets transition from military to college life. Hegler, of Rogers Park, credits the program with helping her adjust to life outside the military and better prepare for attending Northeastern Illinois University, where she’s earning nearly all A’s.

And Hegler, 45, hopes to keep learning, someday earning a doctorate in theology.

But the program for vets, part of a national initiative that also serves low-income high school students, might soon be on the chopping block, officials told the Chicago Sun-Times. Advocates say they’ve been told by Bush administration officials that the president’s forthcoming budget proposal will ax funding for Upward Bound and another similar effort, Talent Search.

‘Outrageous decision’

The two initiatives have been in place for 40 years and serve more than 450,000 students annually at a cost of $460 million.

“It’s an outrageous decision,” said Arnold Mitchem, a native of a Chicago public housing complex who is now president of the Council for Opportunity in Education, which lobbies for universities on behalf of such programs. President Bush’s budget proposal would still need to be approved by Congress.

Program participants receive free remedial help in English, math and computer skills, among other courses. They also can receive tutoring and more intense academic counseling. Many of those students then are better prepared to move on to college.

Mitchem said the programs help people who otherwise wouldn’t pursue higher education. About 92 percent of Upward Bound graduates and 73 percent of Talent Search graduates enroll in college each year, he said. Most are low-income minorities.

About 120 students annually use the Veterans Upward Bound office at Roosevelt University to help with their studies, program director Chris Chalko said. At least a fifth go on to college, he said.

Officials with the White House and the U.S. Education Department would not comment on the budget proposal until after it is released today. But they have told Mitchem’s group they think the program is ineffective.

Breaking Ranks to Shun War

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, Georgia — 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{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} 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.”