Conscience is not a Choice

Thanks to Kos, for pointing me to this article, which I highly recommend you read, about Sergeant Kevin Benderman whose courage and resolve may earn him seven years in prison.

"If I have to go to prison because I don't want to kill anybody, so be it."

Benderman applied for conscientious objector status when his unit was called up to go back to Iraq while he was still haunted by "the image of a young Iraqi girl, no more than eight or nine, one arm severely burnt and blistered, and the sound of her screams." Where does this notion come from that conscientious objection isn't real unless it pre-exists? Well we know that it practically comes from impossibility of waging a war of any length if a precedent is established that one can declare CO status after enlistment. That doesn't make the legitimacy of many such claims invalid, however.

I also noticed an article the other day about the new 15-month enlistments being offered. Why would anybody believe the military would honor a still shorter term, when it hasn't been honoring longer terms with its abhorrent and immoral stop loss policy? They're desperate and have no honor, yet expect their soldiers to have endless honor even after reality awakens a conscience to the horror of what they may be asked to do.