Monday, January 14, 2008
TRAIL OF DEATH
The New York Times reports:
Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.
Via Alan R.M. Jones, who emails: “Undoubtedly some service men and women returning from combat areas suffer mentally – as is the case in every war. Stars and Stripes has already pointed out the numbers seeking and receiving counseling. Some of these people had serious problems well before they entered the armed forces. However, 121 cases from a pool of 1.6 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans does not support the Taxi Driver Vietnam Hollywood narrative the NYT is trying on. Department of Justice homicide stats bear this out. Moreover, the ‘killings’ cited by the Times also include accidental homicides, e.g. vehicular.”
The NYT piece also ran in Melbourne’s Age. It’s only a matter of time - possibly a century or so - before the Iraq vets I keep recklessly associating with eventually add me to their deadly “patchwork”.