Biography
Sergeant Kevin Benderman was a U.S. Army mechanic with the 3rd Infantry Division who served in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and, after returning to Fort Stewart, applied for conscientious-objector status when his unit was ordered to redeploy in early 2005. The Army denied his application, and when his unit deployed without him in January 2005 he was court-martialed for missing movement and desertion. On July 28, 2005, a military jury at Fort Stewart convicted him of missing movement and acquitted him of desertion; he was sentenced to 15 months in military confinement, reduction to private, and dishonorable discharge. He served his sentence at the Naval Consolidated Brig at Charleston, South Carolina, and was released in March 2006. With his wife Monica he wrote the memoir Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience.
