Bell County Sheriff's Office / Reuters

Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 31 in a November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, is pictured in an undated Bell County Sheriff's Office photograph.

An Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others at a Fort Hood, Texas, military post in 2009 has been denied a trial delay by a judge.

Major Nidal Hasan, 42, who has been allowed to represent himself, had requested a three-month postponement to his trial so he could prepare more. Military Judge Col. Tara Osborn refused the request Tuesday, and said jury selection was set for July 9 and was expected to last for four weeks; testimony will start Aug. 6 at the earliest. 

Hasan's court martial has been sidetracked numerous times by questions over his legal representation and the beard he has, which violates military dress code. Opening statements had been scheduled to begin on July 1.

Most of those killed in the shooting four years ago at Fort Hood, a staging base for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, were military personnel. Hasan was shot four times by civilian police after the attack.

Hasan, who was born in the U.S. and is Muslim, could face the death penalty in the trial. He has been charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder; 32 others were wounded.

Osborn ruled last week that Hasan could not use as a defense that he carried out the base shooting in an attempt to protect Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.

According to witnesses, a gunman in an army combat uniform opened fire in a packed medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, stopping only to reload his weapon. 

None of the victims posed an “immediate imminent threat” to Taliban personnel in Afghanistan, the judge said.

Although Hasan is representing himself, Osborn ordered his three former defense attorneys to remain on the case and to offer assistance to him if he requests help.

Hasan's trial was initially slated for March 2012, but was delayed twice because defense attorneys said they needed more time to prepare. It was delayed a third time last fall when Hasan appealed an order from then-judge Col. Gregory Gross that his beard be forcibly shaved if he didn't remove it before his trial. 

Gross was ousted from the case and his order was thrown out, and court proceedings resumed in December with the current judge.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

• Fort Hood suspect, defense attorneys at odds
• Judge bans Fort Hood suspect's defense strategy
• Judge rules Fort Hood suspect can represent himself

Evan Vucci / AP file

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 18, before the House Appropriations subcommittee on Military Constructions, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies hearing on the Veterans Affairs Department's fiscal 2014 budget.

The U.S. Veterans Affairs department says it has hit a “tipping point,” cutting its monstrous backlog of disability claims by 74,000 since late April, yet agency critics contend that growing throngs of ex-troops waiting for injury compensation in America’s biggest cities show the VA is “over-promising and under-delivering.”

Amid scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the White House, a top VA official reaffirmed last week the agency will meet its goal to process all disability-benefit claims within 125 days by 2015. Three of the VA’s 56 regional offices — St. Paul, Minn., Sioux Falls, S.D., and Providence, R.I. — have achieved that threshold, and VA officials told NBC News they will pluck lessons from those “pockets of success.”

“We can get those best practices, (and) shine the light on some of our problem areas,” said Beth McCoy, who oversees 14 VA regional offices in the country’s midsection, including St. Paul, where benefit claims are typically processed in 100 days. 

But those “problem areas” — where some duty-injured veterans wait 16 to 19 months for disability checks to stay financially afloat — are coloring the national mood regarding the VA.

Jonathan Goodman, 29, a Marine veteran from Tulsa, Okla., and his wife, Shannon, say the delay in his disability-benefit claim has been putting a strain on their finances.

“It's sad to see so many veterans come back and apply for this, and it just takes so long. It can send a lot of guys into a downward spiral,” said Jonathan Goodman, 29, a Marine veteran from Tulsa, Okla. who earned a Purple Heart Medal for wounds sustained in a 2004 suicide-bomb blast. He's been waiting 11 months for the VA to process his disability-benefit claim.

“I just want to see guys get the (financial) help they've earned. I don’t want to see veterans put on the back burner," he added.

Veterans in 12 cities now face delays of more than 400 days, on average, for their regional VA offices to handle their disability claims. One year ago, no cities posted VA backlogs surpassing 400 days, according to the agency’s online benefits dashboard.

As of May 30 this year, the average backlog wait for veterans in New York City was 496 days, up 34 percent from a year ago, the dashboard shows. In Los Angeles, the average wait is now 568 days, up 63 percent since last year.

In May 2012, the VA reported a national “rating claims processing time” of 250 days. As of May 30 this year, that national average was 302 days. 

“VA has been over-promising and under-delivering for decades under both Democrat and Republican administrations,” said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “While VA leaders seem confident they’re on track to break the backlog by 2015, they haven’t provided us with any evidence to support that projection. That’s why the closer we get to 2015, the more I’m convinced that ending the backlog by then will require a commitment from the only person with the power to ensure VA lives up to its word: President Obama.”

And veterans are challenging President Barack Obama to act. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), which represents more than 200,000 men and women, posed five questions about the backlog to Obama on June 5. They asked, for example, how the White House is coordinating efforts between the Department of Defense and the VA to slash wait times.

Other VA watchdogs want to know: Does the quick work executed at VA regional offices in St. Paul, Sioux Falls (where it typically takes 115 days to process claims) and Providence (117 days) foreshadow the dawn of a larger fix?

“It’s worth looking at the leadership climate and the procedures used at those regional offices to see what they are doing differently,” said Tom Tarantino, IAVA's chief policy officer. “You also have to consider ... you only have 831 claims pending at the Sioux Falls office. When we solve those problems in L.A., then we will see progress.” 

In Tulsa, where Marine veteran Goodman waits on a disability claim he filed with the VA in July 2012, life means managing wounds and ailments he sustained during two Iraq tours: a traumatic brain injury, back problems, and migraines plus memory and anxiety issues — all of which make working and going to school difficult, he said.

While he appreciates the medical treatment he gets from his local VA hospital, he said, the job that best suits his symptoms is night bartending: dark and calm.

The benefit-compensation delay, meanwhile, forced his wife, Shannon, to pull extra work hours. Goodman had to grab additional bar shifts.

“It’s put a lot of stress on our marriage. It’s been rough financially. She works full time. I work nights. We spend a lot of time just seeing each other in passing,” Goodman said, adding that tax-free VA compensation for his combat wounds “would help us actually enjoy a normal life."

As 30,000-plus troops return from Afghanistan by 2014, the VA is completing a wholesale transformation.

Workflow is being redistributed to cities with available hands and reorganized from an “assembly-line system” to a network of “express lanes” for simple claims and “special-operations lanes” for complex claims like brain injuries, said VA’s McCoy. New employees are being trained to work more efficiently.

And the biggest overhaul: VA is switching to digitized benefits claims, replacing “thousands of tons of paper on shelves,” McCoy said. The electronic system is considered the lynchpin to reducing all backlog waits to 125 days or less. Meanwhile, the VA says it has processed more than 1 million disability claims during each of the past three years. 

“We have a sense of urgency,” McCoy said. “We don’t have the luxury of shutting down the shop, building a great system then opening the doors back up,” McCoy said. “We’re flying the plane as we’re changing it.” 

Related: 

• Unmasking the agony: combat troops turn to art therapy
• Obama urged to step in to fix VA backlog
• As VA backlog grows, Congress, veterans grow weary of excuses 

Ian Horn / for NBC News

New York National Guard Spc. Kyle Chen, center, meets potential employer Amrit Singh during the Hiring Our Heroes military job fair held in March in New York City.

Younger veterans who served during the recent wartime era posted a 7.3 percent unemployment rate in May — down from the 12.7 percent rate recorded during the same month in 2012 — better news for a group that has struggled to find work since coming home, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. 

"This is an extremely positive step," said Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), which has more than 200,000 members. "It's the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people both in and out of the government. But this isn't the time to take our eye off the ball." 

The promising May figures follow a federal report that showed the April jobless rate among post-9/11 veterans stood at a 7.5 percent — down from the 9.2 percent rate that group posted in April 2012.

And far more telling: two straight months of welcome workforce news for younger veterans come on the heels of a comprehensive annual assessment by the Labor Department, released in March, that showed a steady downward dip in the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans between 2011 (12.1 percent) and 2012 (9.9 percent). 

When viewed in sum, experts say, the chronically icy job market for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finally may be showing signs of a thaw. Overall, the pace of younger veterans on the job trail remained only slightly higher than the 7.0 percent unemployment rate in May for non-veterans, according to the latest labor figures. 

"The good news is corporate America is improving its effort to educate itself. Businesses are training their hiring managers how to read a military resume. They're consulting veterans who are already on staff about hiring new veterans," Tarantino said.

"This just reinforces that with a little bit of concerted effort by the public sector and private sector, we can fix the immediate problem," he added. "But it's going to take a much larger effort to solve all the structural problems that caused this in the first place: We still have to shore up how to translate military skills (into civilian jobs), and we still have to make sure that we're training veterans to enter the workforce properly."

Ian Horn / for NBC News

Ruty Rutenberg, a former U.S. Army medic, has two part-time jobs to pay the bills as he searches for his "mainstay career."

A warmer reception among U.S. hiring managers coincides with a bevy of aggressive, veteran-employment initiatives launched during recent years within the private sector, the nonprofit world, and at the federal level. That includes first lady Michelle Obama's "Joining Forces" campaign, which has helped escort nearly 300,000 ex-military members from careers in uniform to civilian jobs, the White House reported April 30.

"This is good. It's a positive trend," said Kevin M. Schmiegel, founder and executive director of the Hiring Our Heroes program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Through hundreds of jobs fairs, that push has helped more than 18,400 veterans and military spouses find work. Schmiegel also lauds both Joining Forces and the JPMorgan Chase "100,000 Jobs Mission" for helping reduce the number of unemployed veterans. 

"We have had a positive effect over the last couple of years. People should emphasize that," added Schmiegel, who served 20 years in the Marine Corps, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. 

But winning the job war at home remains far from a rout for tens of thousands of veterans, especially for many who served in combat zones — like Ruty Rutenberg, an Army medic in Iraq. He's been searching for his "mainstay" career for about a year.

Presently, Rutenberg fills his workweeks through a pair of part-time jobs: one hosting media events, the other doing outreach through a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program called "Make the Connection", which encourages veterans who need mental-health care to come forward and get it. 

"I've got multiple outlets of part-time work that's helping me pay the bills but still nothing permanent," Rutenberg said. 

"I do know a lot of veterans I've talked to are having a hard time getting work, especially if there's any type of medical situation attached," he added. "Even if it's a small injury. Or, let's say it's (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) but it's a manageable amount: Employers are still afraid to take the initiative to hire those people. PTSD is very manageable if the veteran is actively getting counseling, taking meds, or if it's just not that high an amount (of anxiety symptoms)."

Among veterans who served during the post-9/11 era and who have a service-connected disability, the unemployment during 2012 was 8.0 percent, the Labor Department reported in March. 

But the veteran group scuffling hardest to land steady paychecks: men and women between the ages of 18 and 24 who, during 2012, posted an unemployment rate of 20.4 percent, according to federal figures. 

And their ranks are about to swell exponentially, particularly as American troops exit Afghanistan by 2014. 

"The fact is there are another million service members and their families who are getting ready to leave the armed forces over the next five years," Schmiegel said. "Many of them are going to be 24 and under, and many of them will have military spouses who also face high unemployment.

"So even though we see positive trends year to year, we need to remain vigilant," he added. "We really need to push the programs that are working."

Related:

• White House-backed jobs-for-vets program crushes goals
• Unemployment among post-9/11 veterans still running heavy
• Companies honored for hiring and supporting veterans
• Pentagon looks to cut up to 50,000 civilians over 5 years
• Hiring Our Heroes job fair part of week-long, national hiring push

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 12:01 PM EDT

Brendan Hoffman / for NBC News

Frank Stultz, a 91-year-old veteran of World War II, poses for a portrait at his home on Friday in New Carrollton, Md.

On the day America remembers lost heroes, the memories of many of those who survived combat remain forever laced with the harrowing sights, sounds and smells of war — recollections still crisp and vivid many decades after the fight.

For some, like Vietnam veteran John Hamilton, sensory triggers from past skirmishes can never be shaken, no matter how much he’d like to forget. When night falls, he sees the blackness as “a bad time, Charlie’s time,” a reference to his enemy 45 years ago, North Vietnamese communists. 

For others, like World War II veteran Frank Stultz, the close calls in the South Pacific are recollections he refuses to surrender. He can close his eyes and put himself back inside his turret aboard the USS Biloxi, a Navy light cruiser, nearly 70 years ago, as Kamikaze pilots buzz above and his hands vibrate from the shells he’s firing into the blue sky.

“I forget a lot of things, or so my wife tells me. But I don’t forget those things,” said Stultz, 91, from his home in New Carrollton, Md. “It was rough, in a way. I got through it. We did our job.”

Whether it's 20-something Afghanistan veterans scratching out the progression of 2011 firefights in the dirt or men more than four times their age recounting battles in the South Pacific from 1945, there are stark parallels in their tales — similar noises, scents and visions, kindred feelings and emotions. War has a way of getting tattooed onto the brains of troops, no matter the conflict or the era, scientists say.

John Hamilton/VFW

John Hamilton served as a Marine Corps rifleman from 1968 to 1970, including a tour of Vietnam. Today, he is Commander-in-Chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. At left, Hamilton in Vietnam where he earned a Purple Heart medal.

“There are commonalities with guys from World War II and Korea, or Afghanistan or Iraq, with what we saw and heard. They affect us all — forever. They affect your soul — forever,” said Hamilton, 62, a Marine rifleman from 1968 to 1970 who earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam.

“To this day, if I’m walking through a city and see a tree line, I’m thinking: Don’t go that way; there are bad guys hiding there,” added Hamilton, who today heads the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Such permanent memories — and sensory triggers — are pure biology. The most indelible images usually are retained from our most horrific experiences or from our happiest days, said Dr. Sydney Savion, a Texas-based behavioral scientist and Air Force veteran who studies post-traumatic stress disorder.

The centerfold in our mental scrapbook is the amygdala, an almond-shaped portion of the brain tasked with processing unique moments into long-term memory and choosing which emotional events get stored away for good.

“When the brain experiences something, whether it’s beloved events or bad events, it assigns an emotional value to it. Those memories are imprinted,” Savion said.  

The most gruesome or most beautiful moments we experience cause the brain to become “awash with adrenaline,” she said. “That intensity over time, whether it’s graphic memories of the war or the birth of child, continues to self-perpetuate in memory.  

“In these combat instances — in part because the veterans' brains have assigned such a high emotional value to them, they just can’t ever get these experiences off of their minds.” 

Or, like nonagenarian Stultz, they simply don’t want to lose them.

Even if they were downright frightful.

There was the night be opened fire unknowingly on an American plane, which he was ordered to do because it was flying in from the direction of the enemy. A fellow sailor had to pound on Stultz's turret with a hammer to tell him to stop shooting. The plane and pilot were spared. 

Brendan Hoffman / for NBC News

A photo of Frank Stultz from his days in the U.S. Navy, as well as a diary he kept during World War II and a souvenir booklet from USS Biloxi, the ship on which he served.

There was the day a shell dropped from a plane onto the Biloxi’s fantail. It struck 50 feet from Stultz’s turret. But it was a dud. Stultz and his shipmates were saved.

There were days when Japanese suicide planes circled above, some hurtling down and crashing into nearby U.S. ships, including the USS West Virginia near Okinawa, killing four sailors. 

"I could see them from the parascope in my turret. We were just shooting, shooting, shooting. They were all around our ship. We were just trying to put a shell right in front of them so they would hit it," Stultz said. "It was a good education for me. But I was young. 

"When you're young, you don't worry about those things. I like to remember because we were taught to do the right thing and I think we did. If worst came to worst, well, that's the way it was." 

Slideshow: Art therapy helps soldiers coping with trauma

Courtesy of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence

For soldiers suffering from traumatic brain injury and the psychological effects of war, a Department of Defense art therapy program hopes to provide relief.

Launch slideshow

The skull’s left corner is gone, leaving a jagged, diagonal edge drenched in red. The eyes are black and frantic. All of it resembles the Iraqi man who, in his final minute alive, stared up at Maj. Jeff Hall.

For five years, that face tortured Hall, once a sharp Army leader later shoved to his own ragged edge. Not long ago, a woman handed Hall a blank mask, brushes and paints. She asked him to see what may emerge on the surface.

“That image, seared into my mind, began leaking out of me,” said Hall, one of hundreds of active-duty troops who have created masks as part of an art therapy program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. “I almost needed to regurgitate it. To be honest, it helped me let it go.”

Many more masks, some resembling Hall’s violent creation, some depicting abstract demons, adorn walls at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICOE) on the Walter Reed campus.

They reveal scars once carried and cloaked inside the minds of men and women back from war — troops diagnosed with mild brain injuries and secondary psychological issues, including post-combat stress.

Hall, 43, who titled his mask “The Shock of Death,” served a pair of year-long tours in Iraq spanning 2003 to 2005. Ultimately haunted by violent events he saw and survived in Iraq, including the loss of friends, Hall eventually contemplated suicide and became more isolated. His commander noticed Hall's behavioral changes and guided him into counseling in 2008. Two years later, Hall was invited to seek treatment for a traumatic brain injury at then-new NICOE, a Department of Defense facility offering research, education and treatment focused on TBIs and psychological health. 

When service members initially enter the art-therapy studio, their faces often are blank and unyielding, hiding unwelcome war souvenirs within — the mental cargo they’ve lugged home but can’t shake. On their masks, they expose that secret turmoil: vulnerabilities, anger, grief or, often, fragmented identities.

“It’s intense. They get really invested in this. It becomes very meaningful for them,” said Melissa Walker, an art therapist who coordinates the masks program at NICOE.

Participants at NICOE must be active-duty troops who are dealing with a combination of TBI and psychological health concerns. Typically, they are referred by their primary health care provider or their commander. A designated team at NICOE determines which service members are most appropriate to receive treatment there. Attendees participate for four weeks. Art therapy is just one of the tools offered and the service members usually make one mask — done during their first week at the center. 

“I tell them: ‘Don’t worry about the finished product; worry about what you are symbolizing in the mask.’ That makes it more powerful to them. It gives them a way to express to us, visually, what they’re going through,” Walker said. “It’s a little less intimidating then handing them a blank piece of paper.”

Art therapy has become a staple in the treatment of a wide array of traumas, from child abuse to PTSD. Making art can help people unlock dark emotions or memories that they can't yet vocalize, pulling those buried anxieties from their subconscious and placing them onto a canvass or into a lump of clay, said Donna Betts, a professor in the art therapy program at George Washington University.

As a patients' pieces are taking shape, art therapists help them talk about what they believe they are trying to express in their creations, Betts said.   

"It's especially effective in the treatment of trauma in service members. When trauma is experienced, it tends to be stored in the nonverbal part of the brain," Betts said. "This is why so many of them can't even put into words what they've been through. Art therapy helps them retell their story through art. It translate that trauma from the nonverbal part of the brain to the verbal part so they can start dealing with it.

"They then become more aware of the trauma. This is where that healing starts to take place."

After the paint is dabbed and stroked at NICOE, many of those papier-mache masks offer chilling accounts of what it is like to live inside the minds of combat veterans.

One brown face with the mouth agape and with bloodshot eyes upturned is squeezed by a metal clamp that reads “TBI” on the left and “PTSD” on the right.

Another mask is coated by small chunks of amber bark — two tiny holes remain for eyes — symbolizing the outer camouflage the maker felt is necessary to blend back into the civilian world.

Some masks show mouths locked or sewn closed, whispering of an inability to speak of what they’ve witnessed. Many are divided down the middle — for example, one displays part of an American flag on the left and a skull on the right.

“There is a split sense of self. They feel like they’re one person when they’re deployed and one person when they return home,” Walker said. “Or, they do a really strong, warrior exterior with a vulnerable inside but they don’t feel like they can express that.”

The troops who come to NICOE for therapy can take their masks home. But many purposely leave them to hang from the walls to speak to — and perhaps even soothe — incoming troops trying to cope with the same thoughts and impulses.

The creations give service members a format “to say what they can’t say out loud — because it’s too painful or because we just don’t feel like anybody really wants to hear it,” said Hall, who remains on active duty, stationed at Rock Island Arsenal in northwestern Illinois.

“I absolutely believe it is a method to calm your mind.”

Jessica Rinaldi / Russell family via Reuters, file

Sgt. John Russell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing five fellow service members at a base in Iraq in 2009.

An Army sergeant was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2009 killings of five fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

A military judge, Army Col. David Conn, found Sgt. John Russell guilty of premeditated murder on Monday and imposed the sentence Thursday morning. The only other possible penalty for Russell would have been life in prison with the possibility of release.

Russell will be transferred within the next several days to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said late Thursday.

The 14-year veteran from Sherman, Texas, had previously pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. Under the agreement, prosecutors were allowed to try to prove to an Army judge at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state that the killings were premeditated. A streamlined court-martial ended Saturday.

The shooting was one of the worst instances of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war and raised questions about the mental stresses of serving repeated tours of duty.

Killed in the 2009 shooting in Baghdad were Navy Cmdr. Charles Springle, of Wilmington, N.C., and four Army personnel: Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr., of Federalsburg, Md.; Dr. Matthew Houseal, of Amarillo, Texas; Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, of Paterson, N.J.; and Spc. Jacob D. Barton, of Lenox, Mo.

Russell's lawyers argued that he was deluded by depression and despair at the time. An Army mental health board found that Russell suffered from severe depression with psychotic features and post-combat stress.

Russell had long sought help with sleep troubles and was stammering and crying for help in the days before the shooting. His commanders were so alarmed that they disarmed him and sent him for repeated visits to mental health clinics, said attorney James Culp.

However, prosecutors argued that Russell was trying to paint himself as mentally ill in an attempt to win early retirement — just as he was facing a sexual harassment complaint that could derail his career and his benefits.

The day before the killings, psychiatrist Michael Jones told him that a mental disability retirement would require "some kind of suicidal psychotic crisis," Maj. Daniel Mazzone said during closing arguments, according to the Los Angeles Times.

But when Russell saw Jones again the next day, the psychiatrist said he had no intention of giving him "a golden ticket" out of the Army.

When Russell returned about an hour later, prosecutors say, he was looking for Jones, but wound up killing two patients, a bystander and two other mental health workers, including Navy Cmdr. Springle, who had also briefly treated Russell in the days before the shootings. Jones escaped injury by jumping out a window.

The Associated Press

Related:

• 'An evil chuckle': Survivor recalls shooting spree
• Father says Army 'broke' his son
• Doctor says soldier who killed 5 was 'psychotic'

Vincent Elkaim / AP via The Canadian Press

Iraq war resister Kimberly Rivera speaks at a press conference in Toronto in August. Rivera, who is pregnant with her fifth child, returned to to the U.S. in September and on Tuesday was sentenced to 10 months in prison for desertion.

DENVER -- An Army private believed to be the first female U.S. soldier to seek refuge in Canada rather than return to duty in Iraq was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to desertion, military officials in Colorado said on Tuesday.

Kimberly Rivera, who said she grew opposed to the war during a three-month tour of duty in Iraq, pleaded guilty at a court-martial proceeding in Fort Carson, Colo., on Monday and was sentenced immediately.

In addition to the prison time, the 30-year-old private was reduced in rank, ordered to forfeit pay and benefits and given a bad-conduct discharge, base spokeswoman Meghan Williams said.

Rivera fled to Toronto in 2007 while on leave after serving in Iraq with Fort Carson's 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, in Baghdad, according to her lawyer, James Branum.

She surrendered to authorities at the U.S. border in upstate New York last September after a Canadian court ordered her deported to the United States, capping several years spent by Rivera unsuccessfully seeking asylum in Canada.

Branum said Rivera was the first and, as far as he knows, the only female U.S. military deserter to flee to Canada during the Iraq war. The advocacy group War Resisters Support Campaign has said Rivera was the first U.S. female soldier to seek asylum in Canada to avoid redeployment to Iraq.

Rivera, who had been living in Toronto with her partner and four children, deserted because she developed an opposition to the U.S. military mission in Iraq based on her experience there, the group said.

Her case had drawn attention of such international human rights advocates as retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who urged Canadian authorities to allow Rivera to stay.

Under a deal struck with military prosecutors, Rivera agreed to plead guilty in exchange for having her prison term limited to 10 months. Rivera faced a maximum five-year sentence and a dishonorable discharge had she been convicted at trial, military authorities said.

Rivera approached a U.S. military chaplain in Iraq to express her moral reservations about continuing to serve in the conflict but was not informed of her right to seek conscientious objector status, a move that might have headed off prosecution for desertion, her lawyer said.

Rivera will remain at a county jail in Colorado for seven to 10 days before she will be transferred to a military prison, mostly likely the brig at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California, Branum said.

Rivera is pregnant with her fifth child, and Branum said he will appeal to an Army judge for clemency on "humanitarian grounds."

Related:

10 years after Iraq invasion, troops ask: 'Was it worth it?'

Did invasion bring 'hope and progress' as Bush vowed?

Full Iraq coverage from NBC News

David Friedman / NBC News

Oumama Kabli, center, celebrates becoming a U.S. citizen during a naturalization ceremony on April 15 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Kabli, 19, is a private in the Army National Guard and entitled to become a citizen without the normal five-year residency requirement because of her military service.

This story is part of NBC News’ series “Immigration Nation,” an in-depth examination of immigration in America.

Launched via a 2002 executive order by President George W. Bush, the program lets green-card holders who enlist in the U.S. armed services bypass the typical five-year residency rule and apply immediately for citizenship at no fee. More than 10 percent of such naturalization ceremonies have taken place in 28 countries abroad, including 3,412 in Iraq, 2,102 in Japan and 1,134 in South Korea, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, which administers the process.

In 2008, a one-year pilot program – called Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI) – was approved. The program allowed the armed services to tap non-citizens without green cards — here on temporary visas or under refugee or asylum status — to naturalize to help bolster branch needs for specific language or medical skills. “The initial pilot program ran through December 31, 2009 and had a cap of 1,000 total recruits for all services,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen told NBC News.

Last May, the program was brought back for an additional two years with a cap of 1,500, he said. Thus far, the Army has enlisted fewer than 600 soldiers, and no other branch has used the MAVNI authority.

“I feel like I’m living the American dream,” said Oumama Kabli, 19, who was naturalized April 15 during a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Born to a Moroccan mother and raised in Canada, she moved with her mom to Virginia to finish high school and attend college. She’s now an Army National Guard private with plans to enter officer training. (Only U.S. citizens are eligible to become commissioned officers). A Muslim, Kabli believes “it’s an advantage for the Army to have people familiar with the religion or the culture” when troops deploy to predominantly Muslim nations.

'Citizenship meant everything'
Just as her Moroccan stepfather did in 2004.

“I actually left (Army) basic training, got my naturalization on Friday and was on the plane to Iraq on Saturday morning,” said Youssef Mandour, 31, who worked as a translator, reaching the rank of sergeant. He pulled a second tour of Iraq from 2009 to 2011, working on reconstruction efforts for the State Department.

“Citizenship meant everything. At that point, I was ready to die for my new country,” added Mandour, who arrived from Morocco on a tourist visa at age 17. Today, he owns a defense contracting company in Virginia. “I’m so proud of Oumama. By making her a U.S. citizen it’s going to create that diversity we’re missing in Iraq and Afghanistan. She will be more received by (Muslim) nations than the normal officers from, say, Alabama.”

Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Ending the current naturalization-through-service program would require a new White House executive order, said USCIS spokesman Daniel Cosgrove. All military candidates must pass brief civics and English language tests and then undergo background checks for serious criminal histories or possible affiliations with terrorist groups.

“The thing I’m concerned about is not what’s happening now in the military but what could happen if the Pentagon and politicians get too enamored of this idea of non-citizens joining the military,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington, D.C., that advocates tighter immigration policies.

The White House won’t rescind the 11-year program, Krikorian predicts, even after the scheduled 2014 pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, and “it will become a de facto feature of military life.” Further, that immigrant pipeline may be enlarged, he added, “if we open up the officer corps to non-citizens.” In that scenario, he foresees many foreign students joining in order to stay in America permanently.

Slideshow: Your newest fellow Americans

John Moore / Getty Images

Nearly 700,000 immigrants take the step to U.S. citizenship each year. Meet some of those who have just become part of that select group: Americans.

Launch slideshow

'All bad things can start small'
But if global events transpire that compel the branches to rapidly expand their ranks, he also can imagine a scenario in which the military perhaps further loosens the rules, allowing foreigners abroad to enlist and serve by dangling citizenship as “their compensation.”

"You have the real possibility of soldiering becoming a job that Americans won’t do — just like the Roman empire, not to get too melodramatic about it," Krikorian said. "That’s not something that’s around the corner. But all bad things can start small."

An armed force composed of a far higher share of noncitizens also could boost the security risks for all soldiers and intelligence officers, he added. 

"Being an immigrant or from a recent-immigrant family just adds an additional layer of concern, as we saw with Maj. Nidal (Hasan), the Fort Hood shooter, or Army veteran Ali Mohamed, one of the leaders of the (1998) African embassy bomb attacks," Krikorian said. "The vulnerability to blackmail also increases if the target has family members outside the U.S. who can be threatened — drug cartels have used this tactic to compromise Customs or Immigration agents with relatives in Mexico.

"For the ordinary soldier, my main concern is still numbers. The question is: How many noncitizens are being recruited by the military, and are there any restrictions” on how many green-card holders and temporary visa holders can the armed forces approach in a given year?  

'The U.S. is my new home'
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Erik Brine responded: “We have no restrictions or limits on the recruitment of foreign nationals who are lawfully admitted for permanent residence.”

Today, about 35,000 formerly foreign troops span active-duty, National Guard and reserve units, according to the Department of Defense. (That equates to 1.3 percent of the total force strength). The policy was first used during the Revolutionary War when the federal government allowed noncitizens to enlist and it was revived during the War of 1812, the Civil War and both World Wars.

New U.S. citizens serve the modern branches in a variety of roles, including health care, languages, aviation, logistics and infantry. Christensen, the Pentagon's spokesman, said they "will continue to play a vital role in the U.S. Military."

David Friedman / NBC News

Oumama Kabli, right, celebrates with her mother, Sanaa Mandour, after becoming a U.S. citizen during a naturalization ceremony on Monday, April 15, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

“I am excited that I get to be part of a nation that I’m serving,” said Oumama Kabli. “I’ll always be a Canadian at heart. But the U.S. is my new home, my new adoptive country. It has taken me under its wing. This is where I’m going to live my life.”

“She got to see the process I went through. I’ve told her, ‘I used to be like you but I joined the service,’” added Mandour. “It’s like the iron that shines you up. She wants to help people. I told her that’s the best way that you can help people.”

Related stories:

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• Through the obstacle course of immigration, many paths to citizenship 
• To get green cards, these immigrants must prove they are extraordinary
• By the numbers: How America tallies its 11.1 million undocumented immigrants 
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• For asylum seekers, path to citizenship is paved with peril

The specter of the bogus claims that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction — used to justify war —  hangs over the debate on how world leaders will respond to the possibility that Syria deployed chemical weapons.

Obama administration officials say they know they have to deal with the Iraq WMD legacy and will need definitive proof to persuade Russia, Syria’s only remaining ally in the U.N. Security Council, that Bashir Assad’s regime used deadly sarin gas against the opposition in the country’s bloody two-year civil war.

One senior U.S. defense official told reporters Thursday, "We have seen very bad movies before" — referring to previous instances where initial intelligence was proven wrong.

President Barack Obama has called the use of chemical weapons by Assad, a "red line" that if crossed would be a "game-changer" in the U.S. response to Syrian aggression.

The White House said Thursday that the U.S. believes "with some degree of varying confidence" that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons — specifically the nerve agent sarin — against its own people.

A letter from the White House to members of Congress said the assessment was based on "physiological samples" but called for a United Nations probe to corroborate it and nail down when and how they were used.

"We are continuing to do further work to establish a definitive judgment as to whether or not the red line has been crossed and to inform our decision-making about what we'll do next," a White House official said.

"All options are on the table in terms of our response," the official added.

U.S. intelligence agencies say that blood samples from two attacks last month in Aleppo tested positive for sarin.

Still, those sources say there is “no absolute proof” deadly agents were deployed by Assad's troops.

Administration sources tell NBC News they still have not been able to connect all the dots to prove who actually used the chemical weapons, whom they used them against, or when or where they were used. 

Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Syria with his Russian counterpart in Brussels last week, but the Russians remain unpersuaded to take action against the Syrian government, and the international community is demanding hard evidence to prove Syria is using chemical agents.

The proof, however, could be difficult to obtain.

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said that the United Nations can't take action based on intelligence from one country, said a team of experts assembled to investigate chemical weapons in Syria remains "grounded" in Cyprus because the Assad regime has blocked it from entering the country.

The U.N. has repeatedly called on Syria to let its inspection team in.

"The fact-finding team is on standby and ready to deploy in 24-48 hours," the U.N. spokesman said. 

Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zoubi, said in an interview with Russian TV that the government has not and will not use chemical weapons and blamed potential evidence of their existence on "armed terrorist groups," the state news agency reported.

The chemical weapons investigation and counterclaims recall the experience in Iraq, where U.N. inspection teams were hampered in their effort to find weapons of mass destruction amid U.S. intelligence reports suggesting they were being hidden by Saddam.

It was the alleged existence of the so-called WMD the George W. Bush administration used to justify war in Iraq.

Despite a massive search by U.S. forces, no weapons of mass destruction ever turned up.

Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz.,  was swift to react to the latest reports that Syria used chemical weapons, saying, “I think it's pretty obvious that red line has been crossed." He said the administration should now consider a military approach in Syria he has been advocating for two years that falls short of boots on the ground.

“That is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate and  to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons to the people in the resistance who we trust,” McCain said.

A White House official called for a high level of scrutiny, but also caution.

"Given our own history with intelligence assessments, including intelligence assessments related to weapons of mass destruction, it's very important that we are able to establish this with certainty and that we are able to present information in a way that is airtight," the official said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related: White House: US believes Syrian regime used chemical weapons

Courtesy of Pete Damon

Pete Damon and one of his many works, a depiction of a wounded warrior on a monoski.

An open letter from an armless Iraq War veteran to the amputee victims of the Boston Marathon bombing has gone viral thanks to his succinct, stirring words which offer a crisp portrait of post-injury life and unbridled hope.

His written depiction of human resilience is entirely within character: without arms, hands or fingers, Pete Damon, a Boston-area resident, later became a painter whose works have been displayed in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.

“Although it's undeniably tragic, you will recover,” Pete Damon posted on his Facebook page this week. “In fact, this will be a defining moment in your life. In the coming days, weeks, and months, you will find a strength and resilience you never knew you had.”

That sentiment was shared by his Facebook friends, ultimately landing on a military website, picking up fresh social traction from there.

“I just want to make sure they know this isn’t a life-ending event for them. This may be something that brings out the best in them,” Damon said in a phone interview from his home in Middleborough, Mass., about 40 minutes south of Boston. “I'm sure many of them are having doubts and worries about the future. But they can look to us, to the veterans like me, for strength and that everything is going to be fine.”

Courtesy of Pete Damon

An oil painting by Pete Damon called "A Time for Honoring."

A former Massachusetts Army National Guard sergeant who grew up in the Boston area, Damon was inflating Black Hawk helicopter tire at a base in Balad, Iraq in 2003 when the wheel and its rim exploded. The blast severed his left wrist and right arm above the elbow. The accident killed Alabama Army National Guard Specialist Paul Bueche, who was 19 at the time.

An amateur sketch artist whose wife once shipped him colored pencils to help fill the lulls of war, Damon later taught himself how to paint in oil and watercolor — with his remaining left arm and a prosthesis. That craft initially made him feel normal, and then became tranquil therapy. His images are peaceful: moonlit harbors, autumn shadows on a white, New England home, a man fishing a rocky point. His pieces do not reflect the ugliness of combat.

“Watching the scene unfold on the streets of Boston Monday afternoon shook me to the core,” Damon said. “In particular, seeing the graphic images of the wounded. Even though I had been through the experience of seeing my own limbs torn to shreds, those images of other victims weren't easy to process. I immediately felt a sense of kinship with those people."

Courtesy of Pete Damon

A view of East Boston, in oil, by Pete Damon

He immediately flashed back on a hospital visit he'd received weeks after his horrific injury from a Vietnam veteran without arms, Jerry Miserandino. He watched a video of that same man climbing a rock wall using prosthetics. Damon realized anything was possible in his new body.

“That attitude lit a great fire of hope inside me,” Damon said. “I want to let (the Boston victims) see all the other great examples of veterans who have suffered similar wounds and have gone on to excel at many things. I want them to experience that same hope."