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Responsibility
By Sgt. Kevin Benderman
06/13/07"ICH"
-- -- A few months ago I wrote an article talking about
human sacrifice and slavery and how human kind had moved away
from those institutions when we had educated ourselves enough to
realize that these were not honorable or sane things to do to
one another.
The reason I write this today is to further explore the concept
that war is slavery and human sacrifice all rolled up into one
vile package.
The reason I say war is slavery is that we have trapped
ourselves into believing that we cannot live in a world without
war because it is and has always been with us. I believe the
people who practiced those two aforementioned subjects said the
same thing about them as well.
We have conditioned our minds into believing that we cannot live
without war, but I say we can and we must. Look at how war keeps
us from attaining the levels of humanity we could achieve if we
did not spend so much talent and energy on ways to destroy each
other.
The lies that we have been told to get us into this present war
are another example of our accepting whatever anyone tells us
and not using the mind we have been given to think on these
matters for ourselves. That is enslavement of the mind and
spirit and we have succumbed to it.
I refuse to accept the notion that war is some one else’s
responsibility and not ours. We have some in the world who say
that war is God’s fault or it is Satan’s fault, (substitute any
deity’s name you want here) but it is not the fault of either of
them. It is ours and ours alone. We thought it up, we created
the weapons to go to war with and we carry it out on one another
on a regular basis.
NO, I refuse to try and wiggle out of the blame that is mine for
wanting to experience war and training for it for ten years of
my life. That is my responsibility and mine alone. God did not
come to me in a dream and say, “Son you must wage war on the
people who are different than you”. I entered the military and I
received the training that would allow me to physically destroy
another human being. I entered the mindset of wanting to do this
and accepted the training to do so of my own free will.
I say war is human sacrifice simply because that is what it is.
We train our young people that it is honorable to kill be or be
killed. I trained some of these young people myself on how to be
effective in killing other human beings. I remember training the
soldiers under my supervision on how to be effective with the
.50 caliber Browning machine gun. I remember being trained on
how to be effective with the “ma deuce” as it is known. I
remember being trained on how to be effective with the hand
grenade, the M16, the bayonet, and a host of other weapons in
the U.S. arsenal. I also recall going in search of other methods
of killing that are not taught to most regular soldiers.
I was trained and trained well to sacrifice myself to war and I
was also training others to make the same sacrifice.
But what is it all for? Money for the power elite? A chance to
prove my manhood? No, in the end all you get if you kill someone
is a dead human being, or you are dead. That is all there is.
There is no glory. There is no honor.
The hardest thing I have done in my life is go to a memorial for
a fallen soldier and to see his family grieving his death. I had
to watch his wife break down, I had to watch his children break
down and I realized that I did not want to see another family
have to go through this.
This human sacrifice has to stop.
We hear our so called leaders pay lip service to the sacrifice
that is made; that they do not want to continue on with war, yet
that is exactly what they do. I can give you a good example of
the lip service that comes from the people who claim to be
looking out for the welfare of the soldiers. When I was going
through my courts-martial at Ft. Stewart, the garrison
commander, Col. John Kidd, led one of the ceremonies for a
fallen soldier. He laid it on pretty heavy about how he cared
for the soldiers that have given the ultimate sacrifice and that
he would continue to respect these people who serve. After all
he had said about taking care of soldiers he did something that
would have an adverse affect on them.
The community of Hinesville had a service for the soldiers of
Ft. Stewart where they did not have to pay deposits to move into
a rental property or pay one for the utilities. This deposit
waiver program had been in place since about 1971 or so, give or
take a few years. In 2005 the garrison commander told the people
who were running the program that they could no longer offer
this service to the soldiers of Ft. Stewart. This is the same
commander who cried crocodile tears at a soldier’s memorial
service. Is this what our soldiers sacrifice themselves for?
As someone who has seen what war is and what it does to people
and to know how it made me some what different than before I
went, I would like to challenge the people to stand up and
accept their responsibility for war and to stop blaming it on
Gods or Devils or who ever else we can try and lay the blame on.
We created it, we own it.
The question is; will we get smart enough to stop it?
Sgt. Kevin Benderman served a combat tour in Iraq and
returned home to file a conscientious objector application as
his legal refusal to participate further in an unjust, immoral
action. He was court-martialed for his actions and served over a
year in prison. Kevin and his wife Monica are now working on
projects to integrate veterans and communities, and will be
speaking about their experiences on a Truth Be Told tour
beginning this summer.
Kevin and Monica may be reached at
info@bendermansbridge.org
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