Are those DoJ statistics you're quoting for males, or for males + females ? It seems highly unlikley that troops deployed in Iraq have the same male/female ratio as the general population, so a proper comparison should be broken down by sex.

It would also be helpful to know this about the DOD figures for deployed troops:

Does their figure represent the number of individual, different human beings who have deployed to combat zones, or.

Does the figure represent the total of troops who were listed on unit rolls when the units deployed?

We have a lot of troops who have been or Iraq of A'stan multiple times. Were they double (or triple or quadruple) counted as deployed in the Pentagon's numbers?

Anyway, these same sort of allegations were made about Vietnam vets, but the reality has been that Vietnam vets have been either better off than their non-service peers or no worse - and that in every category, crime rate, unemployments, etc. See here (near bottom).

You've shown that the murder rate of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is almost certainly way lower than for non-veterans in the same age group. If you adjust for gender, the disparity should be even larger. I don't have the specific numbers, but I'm quite sure that men are far more likely to commit murder than women, and that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are far more likely to be male than female. They would therefore have to kill at considerably higher rates than 26.5/100k for the 18-24s and 13.5/100k for the 25-34s, if they wanted to match the equivalent civilian population. (I love a fortiori arguments.)

I guess I should have typed faster: Lee Moore beat me to my point by one minute.

I agree strongly with the need for base rate information to put these anecdotes in context.

However, the denominator that seems to make the most sense is the number of veterans who served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and are now civilians. I spent some time trolling for that number, and found it surprisingly difficult to find. Can someone else dig it up?

Even without the data, we can do some sensitivity analysis.

Let N be the number of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans.

The murder rates would be identical if

121/N = 26.5/100,000

That is, if N is approximately 457,000. If N is greater than 457,000, then the murder rate among I/A veterans is less than the general population (age 18-24), and if it is less, the murder rate is greater.

If all veterans were in the 25-34 age range, then the break-even point becomes about 896,000. We can be pretty confident that the actual break-even point is somewhere in between.

Bottom line: If we can be reasonably confident that the number of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans currently in civilian life is more than about 500,000, then AL is right.

The military is 13 males : 1 female. I assure you that if you adjust your general population murder statistic to match the sex ratio of the military, that you will find the military is actually much, much, much better behaved than society.

This sex issue was also reflected in the recent story saying that soldiers kill themselves more than the gen population. When adjusted by sex, it was actually less than half the general population rate.

The NYT also had that story saying rape of female troops was rampant, citing this one gal who claimed to have been raped in Iraq, but had never actually been in Iraq. They didn't bother to check anything.

The NYT has a bizarre agenda of smearing our amazing military. It's never been so noble and professional. IT is much more educated than the general populace, it is more likely to succeed and less likely to become homeless or suffer mental illness. Does drugs less and goes to jail less. But 75% republican, so the NYT thinks they are freaking aliens.

And the NYT is actually a great newspaper. I know they get a lot of grief, but they are the most interesting paper to read at least half the time, and it's so frustrating that they also have problems like this. I don't want to cancel my subscription, and frankly I'm not going to, but this has been ridiculous for a long time.

NYT: the troops are not monsters. They are a protected class because they are often treated poorly. Reconsider your stories as though they are about blacks. Did you check your info out well enough to run these stories if they showed a racial problem? Do you come across as a racist or a kook? Then fix your story.

And adjust for gender, too.

[Content deleted due to included spurious and / or sp*m links such as those for "free image hosting". Please review the WoC comment policy. Future posts of a similar nature may result in a ban. --NM]

Beard, your reasoning is all wrong. There's nothing in this story about civilian veterans. The assumption that all these murders were committed by veterans who had already mustered out is incorrect. Therefore your logic about the numbers is incorrect as well.

I am quite confident that the murder rate for ex-military is lower than the population as a whole. However, that means very little without proper controls. Gender (as mentioned), but also Income? Race? Education? I would not want to speculate about how controlling for those factors would affect the conclusions, but I am pretty confident the rates would vary quite widely in the general population depending on them.

Setting that aside for the moment, I am not even sure that is the real issue. What I want to know is whether deploying to Iraq/Afghanistan (heck, deploying at all) changes the murder rate for veterans. Even if the murder rate for veterans tends to be lower than the population as a whole, there might still be an increase related to the war, which would be interesting. Wouldn't change much in the calculation of the cost/benefit of going to war, but still interesting.

Don't forget to correct for age and gender. Young men, which are the majority of our armed forces, are also the modal category for criminals. So... vets are probably even less likely to murder anyone.

Journalism majors (as well as other communication-based majors) typically require their students to take 3 credits in a math course. That's it. Basic college algebra is probably what most of these people took. So can you expect them to successfully understand group population stats? Or even think about it?

I have students in my chemistry classes who have passed calculus and still wouldn't understand the relevance of the misrepresentation of statistical relevance here. Can we expect people with lesser math background to truly grasp how these numbers are different?

There should be a mathematical ombudsman at every news outlet that can discover these types of miscarriages of mathematics and correct them.

Beard - since the Salon piece I cite says there were over 1,000,000 combat veterans in 2005...

A.L.

Good work A.L., these kind of slanders have to be vigorously debunked when found. Looks like the old Vietnam era book of tricks is still on the shelf at NYT.

Defamation is illegal. Therefore this behavior will stop when the DOD sues NYT. I'm angry that my suggestion is so novel.

When calculating the number of servicemen and women who have served in OIF or OEF, you need to take into account that many of us did multiple tours. So a division like 4th ID (roughly 20k soldiers) doing two tours, does not mean 40k soldiers served in OIF with 4th ID. I was with 4th ID on the division's second tour and most of the soldiers I served with were on their second tour. I was on my third.
I'm not disputing your general thesis, that the NYT editors and reporters are scum-sucking dirtbags. I'm just saying that any numbers you get from DoD may simply be number of tours, which will be greater than the number of soldiers who did those tours.

My letter to the Times Public Editor:

I strongly object to The War Torn series. The link is...

First of all, the percentage of murderers among returning servicemen is lower than the percentage for all men of their ages, as is demonstrated at link

Your series gives the impression that returning servicemen are more likely to be murderers, which is the opposite of the truth.

Even if returning servicemen were committing murders at a higher rate, your series tars all returning servicemen. For example, black men commit murders at a higher than average rate. Yet, the Times would never run a series focusing on murders committed by black men. To do so would unfairly incriminate all black men.

I wish you would show the same courtesy to our brave volunteer soldiers.

[Mr Skurnick: Please don't post bare URLs here; it confuses the Movable Type blog engine and messes up the layout. Guidelines for posting live links are presented immediately above the comment entry field. Thanks. --NM]

I think your NYT link is broken above.

I have emailed the Public Editor about this, hopefully they'll be able to add context.

But AL, those full population numbers include the higher rate urban areas. I've seen reasonable statistics that most of the forces (active and recently discharged) tend to live outside of those areas, tending more towards small urban, suburbs and rural. I'll assume this is a reasonable assumption for now(no link).
Looking at a further breakdown shows a much lower rate than national for these areas, though I can't get age groups down with more work. If anyone can get something useful from age/population, please do .

Once you look for non-urban, and discount for Gang/Robbery/Drug - the drop from national numbers is between a half and a quarter, and I'd guess for the age groups' drop would follow. At this, it's not looking as good. I would still bet on better than representative population, especially with gender included.

I do hope they can put something in regarding statistics though.

Thank you for doing the sums and not letting the New York Times get away with this.

Unfortunately, as an Aussie, I can tell you that the MSM has already picked up the NYT "facts" via Reuters and are broadcasting them as gospel truth. For instance, our national broadcaster the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC): Rise in homicides by US Iraq war vets (I hope I did that link right; sorry if I break your page)

Please keep up the good work.

Setting that aside for the moment, I am not even sure that is the real issue. What I want to know is whether deploying to Iraq/Afghanistan (heck, deploying at all) changes the murder rate for veterans. Even if the murder rate for veterans tends to be lower than the population as a whole, there might still be an increase related to the war, which would be interesting.

I'd be surprised if troops who've been through a stressful situation involving killing don't commit murder at a somewhat higher rate than their colleagues who spent two years in Germany polishing the humvees.

I'd be surprised if accountants who have stressful jobs don't commit murder at a higher rates than those who take it easy, too. In other words, I don't think that would mean a whole lot about the military per se. Ratchet up the stress on any group of human beings, you get a little more trouble.

The point of the NYT article was to suggest that soldiers are going batshit on a regular basis. In fact they seem to be more stable than the average kid of their age. Why am I not surprised by that? Why am I not surprised by the sleazy NYT's failure to do the most obvious and basic comparison?

Shap (#10) hit the nail on the head. The interesting question is whether active duty in a war zone raises the murder rate for veterans. The article purports to address this question:

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

It will likely be difficult to fact check them here - the research they did looks to be expensive and involved. Perhaps they can be persuaded to release the raw data.

As questionable as the numbers they provide are the numbers they do not:

Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality. On a less scientific level, such links have long been known.

This seems to directly contradict the data which Donald Sensing posted. If indeed there are "decades of studies" then perhaps the public editor can persuade the authors to, you know, cite some.

I'd suggest people read the whole article. Certainly there are some terrible stories and compelling anecdotes, but for a nine page story with seven authors, the data is light and opaque at best.

"I have emailed the Public Editor about this, hopefully they'll be able to add context. "

Wanna bet?

The NYT and all media bow to the religion of PC. All wars are like Vietnam, and of course US Vietnam vets all became murderous monsters (Rambo) while for some unexplained reason (perhaps the "righteousness of their cause") NVA Veterans became "peaceful guardians of the planet" with new-agey music chiming in.

Proof positive, PC makes you stupid. And the media are nothing but PC.

-----
"I have emailed the Public Editor about this, hopefully they'll be able to add context. "

Wanna bet?
-----

They are able. They just aren't willing.

But they support the troops! (As the rope supports the hanged man...)

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me like the numbers being compared are apples and oranges? That 121 figure is total murders over a period of years since returning from Iraq. I'm not sure which, but the DoJ homicide rate is either the rate per year (how many murders someone in this age group committed this year) or the rate over a lifetime (how many murders someone in this age group committed over their lifetime). Either way, that's a very different number.

However, the denominator that seems to make the most sense is the number of veterans who served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and are now civilians.

Why now civilians? The quote from the story says a soldier killed his wife. Not a Vet. Even if it referred to a former solder it seems to me that any comparison should be those who served in Iraq/Afgahistan period. Not only those who've since gotten out... but it's BS from the get-go. As has been pointed out they said the same things about Vietnam Vets. The tag stuck. This one will too I'm afraid.

OK, a couple of things and then I'll post an update.

The the error Sol raises in #26 isn't one - I account for the fact that the murders took place over six years by comparing them to the serving troop population over the same period.

The point Dave makes in #18 is also interesting - correcting for demographics would be the best way to do this - but the DoJ numbers suggest that medium-sized cities have pretty high rates too, so you'd want to correct for gender (increasing the NYT error), race (probably decreasing it), and location (probably decreasing it again).

The next one is the point made by Digg in #16 - yes, the key number is the number of people, not the number of tours. The best # I could find for that is the one cited, but I'll reach out to DoD tomorrow and see if I can get a stronger one.

Finally, I don't question - either - that the rate of murder committed by post-combat troops is likely to be higher than for noncombat troops, nor that better resources need to be put into counseling and assisting troops. If the NYT story had made this point andput the murder rate into context - thereby taking away the impression that this is common - I'd be lauding it instead of slamming it.

A.L.

Why would troops involved in combat be more likely to commit murder on their return. They return from a very stressful envirnment into a less stressfull environment. Surely, the opposite should be true?

AL, Yes, you have to control for age and gender and for race. The statistics show that there is a significantly higher murder rate among young black males. So ethnicity is a factor. Actually, you'd probably have to control for socio-economic status and educational attainment as these are also known factors that appear strong in any regression analysis pertaining to violent crime. Thus, I think that a sound analysis is proably beyond the resources available to you as a blogger.

That being said, the NYT has proven, once again, what we already know; that the press is populated by effette pukes with little interest in anything other than selling their particular brand of sensationalism. In the case of the NYT this tends toward a limp wristed Eastern Sea Board elitism.

This type of gratuitous and cowardly smearing of US service personnel must stop.

davod, I think the theory is based on the myth that a trained killer, having killed in combat, has less reservations about applying the skill and experience to situations in civilian life. This is then combined with the more real issue of PTSD. So it goes like this; although in a less stressful environment the vet's nerves are shot and something sets him off - a car backfiring, a fight with a spouse or boss or obnoxious person at the bar...... He reacts emotionally and physiologically (as in adrenaline pump, ect) as if he is still in combat because that is what he has become conditioned to. He experiences a temporary break with civilian reality and deals with perceived threats as if they were in a combat situation.

I think there is little doubt that PTSD is a real syndrome, but stretching that fact to build the kind of myths behind the NYT's innuendos is a buch of BS from the effette ivory tower East Coast liberal mindset and Hollywood and, occasionally, defense attornees making excuses for criminal behavior on the part of a vet.

This is nothing more then the next round of demonizing the troops in order to assure a dhimmi President. Since the news out of Iraq is more positive than negative these days, the lame ass media will do anything and everything to keep their agenda alive. They are traitors and seditious scum. Perhaps the First Amendment should be given the same scrutiny the Second Amendment gets. After all, the federal government and liberal cowards are never afraid to reinterpret the Second Amendment when it fits their socialist narrative to keep the unwashed masses in check. What passes as "legitimate journalism" in this country has been corrupted by big money and anti-American power mad socialists like george sorros. Well, unlike their beloved Vietnam, we the people are better informed and those of us who have served more determined than ever to keep the stain of THEIR anti-American cowardice off our Warriors.

Theresa, while I appreciate your comment in this context (troop bashing) I would observe that there is a counter balance to "....corrupted by big money and anti-American power mad socialists like george sorros." coming from Rupert Murdoch, et al.

Media are all lying sensationalizing scum. Some of these senasationalize from a liberal perspective and some from a rightwing perspective...........snots from different nostrils of the same nose.

"figures dont lie but liars figure"

there are NOT 1,000,000 individual soldiers deeployed to Iraq /Afghanistan!

mutliple tours ! d'oh

I think the New York Times' central thesis about soldiers returning from foreign wars, Vietnam, Iraq, or any other, is fairly simple:

A. Our soldiers been trained to kill by the fascist military and then given one or more years of on the job training killing the harmless citizens of some innocent third world country.

B. Surely, most if not all of them must have acquired a taste for killing there that is bound to resurface here when they return to this country after their tour of duty.

Bulls#!t.

I would venture to say that the average combat veteran who knows in his gut exactly what it feels like to kill another human being has seen enough death to last him a lifetime.

Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, WWII Germany or the Pacific, place and time don't matter, wars are all the same. Any soldier back from a tour in a war zone is a hell of a lot less likely to murder someone than some Gangsta RAP wannabe street thug and AL's statistics seem to bear this out.

otpu

It was the New York Times' understanding that there would be no math.

avedis

George Sorros was the first name which came to mind simply because he has just been exposed as having given more than 50,000 pounds to fund the "independent" lancet study which claimed, falsely, that over 300,000 +/- Iraqi civilians were killed by US and coalition forces. As far as I'm concerned, all big media is corrupt regardless how they "swing".

Docattheautopsy wants to know about math in J-school. I was at NYU J-school in the 80s. I transferred in with trig and never had to take a class in math at NYU, but I did learn this and use it as a rule to this day--numbers put readers to sleep or drive them away. That goes double for stats any deeper than the stuff the use in the Enquirer: 54% of college students are cannibals!

So we don't use numbers, generally,. or when we do we know we're losing readers fast. In what I write it never matters. In this, it matters. But we also learned something else--that whatever one set of numbers says, another set somewhere else will say the exact opposite. Microscopes may not lie, but the guy with the eye will.

"If the NYT story had made this point andput the murder rate into context - thereby taking away the impression that this is common - I'd be lauding it instead of slamming it."

You're still going too easy on them. The point is they put this article on page 1, above the fold. This trumps any statistical disclaimers they might have had, or may put out in the future if they respond to these criticisms.

They don't care about the statistics for two reasons. First, it would destroy their narrative of evil US armed forces under Bushitler, which is the unmistakable reason this article was developed and given such prominence. Second, they are too stupid to understand the statistics. I went to high school with NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger, but it was only for a year because he flunked out. Trust me, if he hadn't inherited his job he wouldn't have gotten as far in journalism as Jimmy Olsen.

I don't understand the NYT's article's figures.

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... Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing... Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

So "killing" extends from first-degree murder to manslaughter. Fitting that criterion, 121 homicides, about 91 charged to currently-serving individuals, and about 30 charged to discharged veterans. Over what time period? From the end of 2001 through the present?

The article also says

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

So late 2001 to the end of 2007(?), the Times identified 349 homicides (committed in the US) for which active-duty military and new vets were charged. About 262 of these cases were charged to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What, then, do 121 and 262 refer to? Why aren't these numbers identical?

Because it's not part of the narrative of how our soldiers are either depraved or damaged. [em mine]

The word you are looking for is meta-narrative, i.e; the thing you started out to prove and then disingenuously raped the evidence to provide. Just sayin'...

Dag gum tags.
[ Fixed. -- M.F. ]

I don't see why everyone is so incensed about this article....in reading it, it is, to me, an effort to paint a sympathetic picture of returning war vets as they try to go back to their normal lives after experiencing the trauma of war. I'll wager that most commenters here haven't even bothered to read the article in full, as I did...rather, I guess it suits their "Anti-Liberal Media" crusade better to just take AL's reactionary misrepresentation of the article and join the mob in bashing the Times. Pathetic, really.

But as usual, I keep asking the simple question - well, what does it mean? How do these 121 murderers compare with the base rate of murderers in the population?

What this means is that you have a problem understanding what other's say or write when you think it is in opposition to your views...the article has NOTHING to do with what you seem to think it does (although I'm sure we'll all be treated to the twisted logic that you will....maybe....offer in reply that is meant to justify your tirade).

Alan, you're being a tool. Picture, instead an article like this that talked about schoolteachers who seduce or rape their students. Is it a thoughtful, sympathetic look at them, or an alarmist take?

You see it as sympathetic; Intel Dump's Phil Carter - one of the most liberal vets I know, and someone who I've knocked heads with on political issues, was offended enough to call the article bullshit.

Step out of your kind of boring desire to challenge everything I say - is it dark or light out? - and read the article as the average person would.

A.L.

Alan, your "sympathy" would not be well received in my VFW post.

Alan, you're being a tool.

Nice comeback....I stand by what I say, regardless of how pro-war and vets see it....I'm neither, so that makes me a hell of a lot more "average" than either of you.

Well I read the article, and see two main points.

• Anecdotal -- "These 121 (or however-many) homicides were committed by Iraq and Afghanistan vets, and each one is terrible." I don't see any dissent on that. Each is, indeed, an awful thing, and it would have been better if that number was 120, or 60, or zero.

• Statistical -- "These 121 (or however-many) homicides are a much-higher number than would have been committed in a world where traumatized PTSD-ravaged vets weren't primed powder kegs, waiting to explode in murderous rages." Seems only sensible to me that some proportion of vets have suffered from PTSD, and some proportion of them have done violent things that they wouldn't have in the absence of their service in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The question that remains is, what, exactly, is the NYT charging, and on what basis? The 121 anecdotes support an ill-defined meta-narrative, but what, exactly, is the actual narrative the NYT is propounding? 121 (or 262) homicides compared to what, and by what methodology?

As has been pointed out upstream, the MSM wouldn't be so bold as to tar other groups with this sort of broad-brush generalization. And if they did, would they not bother to specifiy what that characterization is? The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data."

As a person who works in the news division at one of the major TV networks I can tell you that most people with whom I work know little about the military. Their default position is that service members are victims (the poor kid who just wanted money for college and was aghast when someone put a gun in their hand and expected them to fight) or criminals (hence the relentless coverage of Abu Ghraib). An article like this enables them to roll both their stereotypes into one!

Alan, I'll stick with it. I have survived two teenagers (and one 11 year old who thinks he's a teenager), and the style of argument you're making is all too familiar.

You're welcome to step up to the table and make real arguments - or to step away, as I've suggested in the past. Otherwise you're wasting electrons - but they're cheap and small, so keep right on going.

I'm working on a post regarding what I want from these discussions, and your style will certainly be a topic.

A.L.

I have survived two teenagers (and one 11 year old who thinks he's a teenager), and the style of argument you're making is all too familiar.

You mean like calling people a "tool"....please, you're a joke.

avedis, sorry you don't see it the way I do, but to me the article is sympathetic to vets and is intended to point out the kind of problems they face after coming back from a war zone, and as such they raise an important social concern that the government seems unequipped (or unwilling) to deal with, and which I, as a member of this society, have a right to know. Whether they have a sinister "lefty" agenda is an argument that I cannot engage in here reasonably with people (I have tried), so there's no sense trying to dispel that notion around these parts.

Here are some of the key paragraphs that illustrate that have informed my interpretation:

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 Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department.

Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, veterans groups have long deplored the attention paid to the minority of soldiers who fail to readjust to civilian life.

Clearly, committing homicide is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans, many of whom struggle in quieter ways, with crumbling marriages, mounting debt, deepening alcohol dependence or more-minor tangles with the law.

But these killings provide a kind of echo sounding for the profound depths to which some veterans have fallen, whether at the bottom of a downward spiral or in a sudden burst of violence.

When they’ve been in combat, you have to suspect immediately that combat has had some effect, especially with people who haven’t shown these tendencies in the past,” said Robert Jay Lifton, a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance who used to run “rap groups” for Vietnam veterans and fought to earn recognition for what became known as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"Everything is multicausational, of course,” Dr. Lifton continued. “But combat, especially in a counterinsurgency war, is such a powerful experience that to discount it would be artificial.”

Few of these 121 war veterans received more than a cursory mental health screening at the end of their deployments, according to interviews with the veterans, lawyers, relatives and prosecutors. Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, those interviews show, but they were not evaluated for or received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides.
What is clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Falluja shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Tex., and Edwardsville, Ill.

In earlier eras, various labels attached to the psychological injuries of war: soldier’s heart, shell shock, Vietnam disorder. Today the focus is on PTSD, but military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, with an estimated half of the returning National Guard members, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines reporting mental health problems, according to a Pentagon task force.
Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality. On a less scientific level, such links have long been known.

"To truly support our troops, we need to apply our lessons from history and newfound knowledge about PTSD to help the most troubled of our returning veterans,” Mr. Hunter said. “To deny the frequent connection between combat trauma and subsequent criminal behavior is to deny one of the direct societal costs of war and to discard another generation of troubled heroes.”

Unlike during the Vietnam War, the current military has made a concerted effort, through screenings and research, to gauge the mental health needs of returning veterans. But gauging and addressing needs are different, and a Pentagon task force last year described the military mental health system as overburdened, “woefully” understaffed, inadequately financed and undermined by the stigma attached to PTSD.

Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of... ...gun ownership...

Wow, watch that one whiz right on by.

It seems there is a major break in logic between what the story said and what many of you are saying.

Basically, you are trying to analyze a statistic which the source itself admitted was likely inaccurate because there is no official tracking of any such statistic and because they had to dig through a large volume of other newspapers and police reports, not something that can be fully accurate considering the size and scope of such publications in a nation of 300 million people. The article read:

The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department.

To compile and analyze its list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families, the victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.

This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges.

My gut feeling is that this number is likely more and that accurate record keeping and reporting would bolster a much higher number.

Furthermore, you are missing the main thrust of the argument. A number of these murders have some connection to PTSD, a common effect of warfare. While you can disagree with it existing, or the extent to which it exists, it is ovious that war changes some people. Some people just can't take the pressures of war. The story is more pointing to a distrust of the military establishment and its well-documented cavalier treatment of the troops. Of course, the military has improved by leaps and bounds from when it was testing the effects of radiation on soldiers in the forties and fifties, but this has the same kind of implications that the investigation of Walter Reed revealed - the government is ill-prepared to deal with the long-term consequences of warfare.

Also, since I have noticed some people referring to the Vietnam War veteran statistics, I like to give a warning about these statistics. I have heard people spout out how successful many Vietnam War veterans are, which is true, as well as the group having the highest literacy rate of any military force in U.S. history. At the same time, I've seen statistics that show Vietnam War Vets had a relatively high rate of people who became unemployed, homeless, or criminals. I think this shows how war and the military affect people in different ways, and that a number of people break down when morality becomes obscured in high-stress situations.

And one final dig at the argument - while I will grant everyone that this story does overblow the issue, and needs better context, I think the bloggers posting here, A.L. included, have far exaggerated the story. No where did the NYT say that people coming out of war are immediately turned to Rambo. It did not counter the notion either, which I would agree is a mistake. The article was really a discussion of how war CAN affect an individual and not some story of how the military turns people into killing machines.

Also, A.L., in response to your reply to Alan, you sound like the average military-supporting tool who defends our troops no matter what. The fact that you would attack the statistical aspect of the article, which the article itself says is flawed, is bad enough. Then you take the statistic out of context. Nowhere does it say "This number is higher than in the regular population." Rather, it is saying that a portion of these murders were caused by PTSD or otherwise related to psychological stress. That is all. In fact, I think that is how a "normal person" would read it, as you charged Alan with trying to do. You have rewritten the article with your own context, leaving out most of what the article says and only repeating the bit that bolsters your argument, which seems a blanket denial that soldiers could do anything wrong.

Also, your comment about school teachers seducing or raping children has nothing to do with the article, nor can it be portrayed as sympathetic. Were these teachers suffering from PTSD? Were they somehow abused as a child? Under what context could this group be seen as sympathetic? It is a stretch at best, and a far stretch. The affects warfare and violence can have on people is well documented. It does not affect everyone, but it seems much more likely to cause mental disturbance than being a third-grade teacher.

I highly encourage everyone to read through the cases the NY Times includes in their homicide numbers. They included incidents that clearly had nothing to do with whether these people deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan or not.

They included people in their tally who were acquitted of charges, they included people that killed someone in self defense, they included a guy that was charged with manslaughter because he lost control of his car during a drag race and many more incidents that has nothing to do with whether the person deployed or not.

Their tally is highly dubious and offensive. Imagine if the NY Times made a list of African-American killers and included incidents like I mentioned above as part of their tally to create a perception of out of control African-American killers. There would be rightfully be outrage and their should be outrage when the target is soldiers as well.

Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality.

Gun ownership?

It may be worse than the NYT imagines - there is evidence to suggest that people who like to run over things with tanks tend to be fond of classical music.

Actually, what decades of studies have established is that popular culture created a stereotypical crazed Vietnam veteran that had no basis in fact. Those studies often involved people who were not veterans at all, or who were never in Vietnam, or who never saw a shot fired in anger while they were in Vietnam.

Bill Mauldin, the great WWII cartoonist, observed that people got nicer the closer you got to the front line. It was always in the rear that you found the guys who walked around looking for a fight. There are obvious psychological reasons why that is so.

It does not diminish the plight of people who truly suffer from the aftereffects of violence to point out that there is a tremendous amount of purest horse manure going by the name of PTSD. Most of it involving civilians, BTW.

Most people who commit violent crimes give some sort of excuse for it, and often these excuses are accepted at face value. It is a rare serial killer who admits that his crimes were motivated by sex or blood lust - "Sam the Invisible Dog told me to do it" is the more standard explanation.

Exploding powder kegs, my ass. The world is full of people who would explode into violence if they had the ability or the opportunity to do so. Some of them sell greeting cards for a living. David Wayne Chapman was inspired to kill John Lennon by reading Catcher in the Rye.

The relationship between life experience and propensity for violence is extremely complex. Much too complex for the New York Times, which (John Hinderaker said) "operates at too low a level of information to be useful to knowledgeable news consumers."

I work at a large private homeless shelter for Veterans (I am a 6 year Army Veteran myself).

In the time I have been involved there (five years), there have been a grand total of two murders by the men from this facility, out of a population resident across that time of about 4,000.

What with all of the life issues that collective total has - and they're a bit more serious than "my bills are too high," or "I hate my job" - you would expect them to be far more prone to violent acts, including murder, and at a higher rate than the "average" Veteran. Or the Civilian rate, for that matter.

Do the math, and you'll see the lie behind the NYT article. Even homeless Veterans murder at a rate far lower than the "average" murder rate.

Note that of the 4,000 total, it more-or-less conforms to the proportion of Veterans who have served in a combat Theatre, and those who have not, that was stated in the NYT article. Further, we have intaked many OIF and OEF Veterans, almost right from the beginning; many of them are or were in our PTSD or Mental Health programs.

Care to guess how many of these OIF and OEF Veterans have committed or been accused of murder since the GWOT began?

ZERO.

Further, although our population of clients at any given time will include around 30% having served prison time (across the spectrum of crimes - only a few for manslaughter or murder that I have seen), the two murders mentioned by me were committed by Veterans who had never served in a Combat Theatre. Nor prison time.

What a farce the NYT is.

(Sorry if that was so turgid. Needless to say I am a very incensed first-time poster here.)

Matthew Hensley writes "Also, since I have noticed some people referring to the Vietnam War veteran statistics, I like to give a warning about these statistics. I have heard people spout out how successful many Vietnam War veterans are, which is true, as well as the group having the highest literacy rate of any military force in U.S. history. At the same time, I've seen statistics that show Vietnam War Vets had a relatively high rate of people who became unemployed, homeless, or criminals. I think this shows how war and the military affect people in different ways, and that a number of people break down when morality becomes obscured in high-stress situations."

Spare us your pity, Matthew. We're quite familiar with what people like you believe about us. We're well aware that you think that "morality is obscured" for us in high stress situations. Trust me, it isn't. The American solider knows exactly what our duty is, knows what the rules of engagement are and cares a great deal about who we kill and who we don't kill.

I don't expect you to understand that. You clearly won't. But real morality recognizes that some people must be killed in order to save many others.

Antimedia,

First off, no where in my post did I say that I pity the troops or that I could ever fathom what it is like to be in a combat situation. I assure you, I have no delusions of that. I was saying that not everyone can take stressful situations, and it causes some people to snap. I think it is pretty well recorded that some people come out of war worse-off than when they came in.

Also, from someone who has gathered the insights of me from comment on a blog, I don't see how you can say "people like you" about me. You have said nothing to dispute what I said. You probably can't.

I am guessing that you are a soldier, based on your speaking for them as a group, but I wonder how you can so absolutely say "The American solider knows exactly what our duty is, knows what the rules of engagement are and cares a great deal about who we kill and who we don't kill" when in war after war, soldiers have either acted on illegal orders, such as in Abu Ghraib, or have disobeyed orders. While I am not saying the majority of soldiers do disobey orders or do illegal acts in the name of duty, as I am sure most do not, I think it is absurd that you think you can speak for an entire group of people with such absolute clarity. That would be like me saying "The American Citizen loves God" or "The American educator serves children." Well, I know the majority of Americans love a God of some sort, but what about the atheists? I know most teachers work hard to serve children, but what about those that rape, molest, or have sex with their students? The average American soldier is an admirable human being who contributes greatly to society and defends freedom, but what about those who aren't average? Every group has someone who’s not average. For you to assume that there is not is you allowing your allegiance to the military to obstruct your ability to think clearly on this issue.

I also have trouble believing that morality was never obscured in a war like Vietnam, where it was nearly impossible to distinguish friendly Vietnamese from Viet Cong. I was talking about Vietnam, after all. I think Iraq is a much more clear war, though I am sure there are still moral quandaries that arise. Personally, I don't think the gentleman in the NYT article did anything wrong when he accidentally bombed the wrong house. He was under the impression that it was an enemy target. He, however, seems to disagree. Morality is personal, and to a number of people, it is not an issue of black-and-white but differing shades of gray. But I digress.

So, outside of inserting an opinion I did not give, attempting to fit me into a nice neat group, and attempt to speak for millions of individuals, what did you say? Nothing.

Matthew Hensley:

(Antimedia, I am brand new - hope you don't mind me jumping in here)

I see. You are committing what Philosophers know as a "Category Error" - you are "misframing the question."

There's a popular misconception that Veterans are killer automata, due to training and experience. No Sir, we are not. We are conscious and professional about what we do at all times. Haven't you ever heard of the term "Situational Awareness?" Clearly you have not.

There's a major difference between combat-wary in a professional sense, and some mythical murderous delusional paranoia.

For every Veteran you can point to, for whom their experience was somehow surreal to them and hence affecting some expressive violent behavior, I can point to 99 or 999 for whom it has not. However, the exception has been artificially portrayed as the rule.

And this has been the lie since the height of the Vietnam War.

As GI at 54 says, look at the "killings". First, these are people who were CHARGED, not convicted, and the killings include accidents and self-defense. Also, any survey is worthless if demographics aren't accounted for.

When I saw this story yesterday, the first thing I did was try to find a figure for how many individuals had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for how long, and like the rest of you, I was disappointed that I couldn't find any trustworthy figures. It would be nice if the Pentagon would provide some useful numbers.

For the sake of the troops we need to know what the numbers are, and the innumerate journalists only make things worse by comparing apples to watermelons.

Angry Bastard,

I never said it was the rule. I thought my use of the word "some" and "not average" should have made that clear. I don't think that veterans instantly become Rambo on their homecoming. I don't think the NYT says that either, though they should have tried being more clear on this. I just think that some people have difficulty adjusting to civilian life after warfare. I know people who are having trouble adjusting to various issues. I work at the local literacy council and most of the people we see are displaced workers that dropped out of school because they didn't need a diploma thirty years ago. Some have trouble adjusting to change. Others get their GED with ease and have no problem. Many more never need to come to us and do it on their own. That does not mean this group, which is the exception, does not exist.

Matthew Hensley:

Well, yes you did. You talked about the aspect of dehumanization while serving in a war zone, as if it set up some sort of psychological condition that led to extreme sociopathic behavior.

This is one of the things a professional military is specifically designed to prevent.

In point of fact, military service teaches you to be a bit more focussed and a bit more calculating in any given stressful situation. I'd say based on frequent news reports and my personal and professional experience, that a Veteran that had to terminate a person would "wait for the moment" (and not a moment before), whereas an average person will kill out of passion far more easily.

Sorry, Matthew I don't see the gap you're suggesting.

If the story was a feature on one soldier who, due to PT stress acted criminally, and was simply a personal story about his or her tragedy, you might have an argument.

But the story is explicitly about a pattern which the authors claim is developing in returning veterans. If that's the case - and they say it is when they say:

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.

Then it's more than legitimate - it's necessary - to examine the pattern in the population as a whole, and the tools you use to do that are statistical analysis.

On its face, their claim - that there's an emerging pattern of violent behavior - doesn't begin stand up to preliminary analysis. There are better analyses which can be done - and someone with the resources of the Times or the DoD ought to be doing it. I'll take a stab at improving my analysis over the next few days.

I have a certain affection for the troops, don't "blindly support them no matter what". I do expect that they - like anyone else -ought to be treated in a way free of prejudice, and I see a lot of prejudice in the way that the troops are being treated - by you, among others.

A.L.

Mathew Henesy, "It seems there is a major break in logic between what the story said and what many of you are saying.

Basically, you are trying to analyze a statistic which the source itself admitted was likely inaccurate because there is no official tracking of any such statistic and because they had to dig through a large volume of other newspapers and police reports, not something that can be fully accurate considering the size and scope of such publications in a nation of 300 million people."

Exactly. The statistic is without frame of reference and is inaccurate anyhow and is therefore without meaning. So why does the NYT even bring in up? The reason is that they are trying, through innuendo, to imply that the civilian killings are somehow tied to combat experience and that veterans are somehow more prone than the general populace to be "ticking time bombs" because of that experience.

This is yellow journalism of the worst order. The NYT is behaving like some scurilous rag.

Some here have been trying to be fair a reasonably discuss the NYT piece in a scientific manner; i.e. does the number really point to veterans being more prone to civilian killing than the population at large because this is the thrust of the reason such a reference would be included in the article. I don't know why you can't see this.

ah, what AL said.

A question for those who are puzzled by criticism of the NYT article. Suppose that I made the following claim:

If the policies I outline are implemented, the homicide rate of vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will be only 50% greater than the comparable rate.

Based on the article, would my "50% greater" rate represent an improvement to the current situation, or would it mean my policies have made things worse?

I think the answer is clear: from reading the article, it is impossible to tell. The frequent and awful misdeeds of returning soldiers are compared to ... well, basically, they aren't. There is only this:

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

But the meaningful number is homicides committed 'per 100,000 persons per year.' Then we'd have to work on finding the appropriate "comparable" populations.

Why on earth would journalists avoid these obvious points in a Page 1 story?

Is the plan to stir up a hornet's nest on day one, and then play "gotcha!" with a later installment?

Here's another thought experiment.

Edit the story, and replace the identifying factor of military experience with that of being black.

So we have the stories of a dozen African-Americans who have murdered others.

If that story ran with this kind of insinuation, without any framework of verifiable fact to back it up - how would you react?

A.L.

Alan:

"it is, to me, an effort to paint a sympathetic picture of returning war vets"

Yeah, how sympathetic can you get, emphasizing a tiny, and possibly statisticallly below-average, percentage of "returning war vets" who have been charged with murder in a page one, above the fold article?

You're lucky a "tool" is all you're being called.

George McGovern is a combat vet. As nasty a war as you could wish for. Why isn't he a man with a record of going berserk? Or WWII Vets in general for that matter?

"it is, to me, an effort to paint a sympathetic picture of returning war vets"

Just a moment ago there was a story on the local evening news citing the NY Times story as evidence of a "disturbing trend". Do you have the honesty and guts to admit just how dead wrong you were, Alan?

Angry Bastard,

First off, I never said that the military did not work hard to counter the possible negative effects of cmobat. They do. I think there is a much better system in place now than there ever was in the past to screen people before entering the military, prepare soldiers for combat, and deal with the after affects of combat. All I said was some people snap. I also think that they are generally the exception. I know a number of veterans from Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. They aren't rabid killing machines. That doesn't mean that some people don't snap. Some people are more prone in our society based on upbringing and genetics to psychological disorders and it is impossible to weed out all of them.

Second, never use the word "terminate" when you are arguing that there is not some degree of dehumanization in the military. Someone is not "terminated," they are "killed." The word is used to achieve moral absolvement. I am not saying that killing is definitively wrong - I think there are many occasions when it is both just and morally sound to kill someone.

A.L.,

I fail to see how the number of soldiers killing outside of a combat zone that show some sign of mental anguish must corrolate to broader statistics on the murder rate. If their argument was "veterans are more likely to kill than average Joe," then I would say you have a point. It is not their argument, merely the argument you wrote into it. All it is saying is that some veterans are adversely affected by combat situations, which they are, and that some of these soldiers commit crimes, which they also do.

Also, I do not see how I have ever treated soldiers with prejudice. I support them in a number of ways, such as paying my taxes and voting for people that I think will be the best for them. My main contention with the Iraq War, for instance, has never been that I did not think that the war was a bad idea but rather because I thought we should concentrate more resources in Afghanistan so we wouldn't have troops there a decade after the fact (a point that we are rapidly approaching) and because I did not trust this administration to adequately manage the war. I still feel I am right on both counts. In the end, you are making unsubstantiated assumptions about me and my views.

Also, your posed question about changing it to black people lacks context. Is it saying that blacks are adversely affected by something? I am sure you could look at economic indicators and the history of cultural exclusion going back to slavery and write an article that is true and that won't offend most African Amereicans. Heck, the NYT HAS done this story. It went over rather well. This argument, again, is without merit. Yes, some soldiers, after serving in the military, kill people as a result of mental problems they face. Is it the majority of veterans? No. Do they say it is the majority of soldiers? No.

avedis said: "The reason is that they are trying, through innuendo, to imply that the civilian killings are somehow tied to combat experience and that veterans are somehow more prone than the general populace to be "ticking time bombs" because of that experience."

You know, I am the pretty average NYT reader, and I would assume that it is more to go with one of the other themes that the NYT produces. Something along the line, perhaps, of a general mistrust of the government, as they showed by pointing out that the Pentagon did not track these statistics and that testing of soldiers failed this group of people, or by demonstrating that the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have costs taht aren't written to the budget in long-term costs to society in the form of supporting our vets and dealing with the long-term foreign policy ramifications of a misguided war, which also plays into the first theme I mentioned. I do agree that they should have more carefully framed their discussion, but the inference seems a stretch at best for me.

avedis said: "Some here have been trying to be fair a reasonably discuss the NYT piece in a scientific manner; i.e. does the number really point to veterans being more prone to civilian killing than the population at large because this is the thrust of the reason such a reference would be included in the article."

The comparison is not scientific; it is absurd. The article does not say "Veterans are more likely to kill people," it says that some veterans kill people as a result of their experiences in war, which is true. Some people do snap. Do most people? No. The fact that they mention a few hundred people seems to indicate that they don't even think the majority of people do.

avedis said: "This is yellow journalism of the worst order. The NYT is behaving like some scurilous rag."

Another unsubstantiated claim about the NYT. You know, I am hard on the NYT a lot because they do have a bias in what they cover and how they cover it. This story shows that in several ways. But not the ways you guys are reading it.

I wonder if anyone else noticed this sleazy sentence, quoted by Alan in comment 51: "Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, . . ."

Shouldn't "many" be "most" or even "the vast majority of"? The NYT apparently thinks not rebounding successfully from military service is the default. Or at least they don't mind implying that.

Matthew, I'll try one more time, and then throw up my hands and see if someone else can explain it to you.

If, for example, returning combat veterans had a lower incidence of murder - which appears to be the case - than the general population, it might be a valid statement to say -in contrast to your claim that "some veterans are adversely affected by combat situations" that veterans appear, in aggregate, to be positively affected.

So their and your claim - without a lot of additional number crunching - doesn't hold water.

The problem is that when stories like this are told, it's important to understand how they will be taken. Note the TV lede that Gary Rosen cited above.

The reason you provide context is because it's important to allow the reader not to pull out a meaning you don't intend - i.e. that we're damaging our combat vets and they are all ticking time bombs.

Studies of Vietnam vets in fact show lower rates of homelessness and substance of abuse than post-Vietnam veterans (Encyclopedia of Homelessness ),and a negative correlation is found between verifiable combat experience and homelessness.

A.L.

"Also, your posed question about changing it to black people lacks context"

Quite so. Thats the point. And that story would NEVER be run in the NYT without loads of context. Because the NYT would be extremely sensitive about inadvertently making it appear that blacks are more likely to commit murder than the general population. ALs point is that they demonstrably arent concerned about making it appear that veterans are more likely to murder. And this is especially egregious because the veteran meme is factually false.

The problem is that when stories like this are told, it's important to understand how they will be taken.

Why is that an issue? Don't you trust people who read this article to draw their own varied conclusions, right or wrong?

The reason you provide context is because it's important to allow the reader not to pull out a meaning you don't intend - i.e. that we're damaging our combat vets and they are all ticking time bombs.

"The reader"? Why do you think your specific perspective on this article is universal? Is it so hard for you to see that not everyone sees it as you do...as some of us here have demonstrated? Shouldn't that be enough evidence to assuage your worries that people will ONLY draw the wrong conclusions? That's always going to be the case. Are you asking for censorship or reports tailored to avoid even the hint of offending anyone? Or does this have to do with your grand theory of "public support for war" and the role of propaganda in its shaping? Because if you're arguing for propaganda, our discussion is over, since that is an admission that facts must be fixed around the message.

And I've got a strong feeling that, even with inclusion of the statistic that you think would give the article the proper "context" (although I agree it is not relevant to the point of the article, making it non-contextual, actually) that you'd easily find something else to complain about....as a lot of folks here have shown.

Finally, taking your view to it's conclusion, if you are asking that combat vets' crimes be viewed in the context of the population at large, does that also mean they should be treated by the criminal justice system with equal impunity? Shouldn't their unique situations be taken into account when meting out punishment or prescriptions for treatment or rehabilitation? I say yes, of course, and studies like the Times' help lay the foundation for that. That is why to me it is sympathetic and potentially beneficial to their lives....but perhaps not the Great War Effort of Our Times...

If you hadn't approached this issue so confrontationally, then perhaps the conversation could have evolved along a common ground between maintaining sensitivity to the public's perception of veterans and their unique needs and circumstances as they integrate back into society...but you aren't interested in that, clearly. For example, rather than getting all frothed up and aggressive, a much more productive approach would have been to encourage readers to politely point out the statistic that you believe would give the piece "context" and "balance" while complimenting the Times on bringing this important issue to the public's attention. I'd love to see the letters that were sent by your readers to the public editor....my bets are that if they were as angry and intolerant as the comments above, they were ignored as the product of an unhinged, Pro-war fringe/

I haven't read all of the comments here, but you seem to be missing an important point, Armed Liberal. That NY Times article notes:

"This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges."

Given that qualification, I don't think they could have used the 121 number as a jumping-off point for detailed statistical analyses. I do agree with you, though, that they have qualified their finding by noting that 121 is low-ish considering murder rates in the general population.

Alex

"Shouldn't their unique situations be taken into account when meting out punishment or prescriptions for treatment or rehabilitation? I say yes, of course, and studies like the Times' help lay the foundation for that. That is why to me it is sympathetic and potentially beneficial to their lives....but perhaps not the Great War Effort of Our Times..."

Of course, if the statistics show that military service is correlated with a decreased likelihood of committing such crimes, shouldn't we be less sympathetic?

Face it, Alan, the Times piece is simply propaganda which supports the cause you prefer.

Of course, if the statistics show that military service is correlated with a decreased likelihood of committing such crimes, shouldn't we be less sympathetic?

No, Mark, because it does not require comparison to other situations, only an appreciation of the one being considered.

And what is the "cause I prefer", Mark? This thread is so suffused with such baseless accusations I can't help but to think that it is nothing more than everyone indulging in the pleasure of being offended.

Face it, Mark, you simply cannot understand how anyone can interpret this article differently than you or AL or many others here....this is a serious, major personal flaw that you are doing a nice job exhibiting to everyone...and it certainly places disagreements with you in a new light.

How should this treatment by the Times of our Veterans be any different than any of their other slams against them? Did you people honestly expect a fair analysis?

While its a valiant and noble thing to do, to point out the errors. Don't hold your breath for any form of retraction or correction. These are the same people who still cling to the Lancet study on Iraqi deaths.

Let's stipulate that 121 (or 260; see comment #40) is indeed an accurate number, as far as homicides committed by vets returned from Iraq or Afghanistan in the relevant time period (2001-2007?).

OK, now estimate the homicide rate based on the Times' tally. Is it lower-than-expected or higher-than-expected, when compared to the homicide rate of a similar population? How much lower or higher?

Can't be answered. The article gives the reader no basis for understanding the context of the story.

Here's an idea for a balancing story: "[Some unknown number of] Returning Vets donated $25 million to charities [over some unstated time period]! How generous they are!"

Would that be good journalism?

I wonder if other nations troops have the same "problem". Has anyone checked numbers with British troops? French? Italian? Polish? Etc. If wars horrors turn those who have been involved in it, into rabid killers, wouldn't we see the same effect elsewhere?

That's a good question, gabriel, I'd be interested in seeing any available data on this.

AMac, Let's say that 121 (out of several hundred thousand) Iraq veterans died of a particular disease that they may have contracted while in Iraq. Let's say the NYT does an article about how the US Military has a) a screening process based on early-warning symptoms of the disease and b) has a treatment that is about 50% effective, and c) many of the 121 Vets who contracted the disease did not go through the screening process because there is a stigma attached to having the disease. What difference would it make to the article to know if 121 was a lower or higher number than expected, or how it compared to the prevalence of the disease among the general population?

Obviously, 121 (or 260) out of the hundreds of thousands of Iraq veterans is a tiny, almost immeasurably small percentage. This rather obvious and blunt fact seems to be ignored throughout this thread and in its place has been substituted the belief that the NYT is somehow implying or suggesting that this is widespread or rampant throughout the ranks of returning vets. (The NYT "quiet phenomenon" becomes in A.L's characterization a "pattern.") But however small the percentage of the whole, to the few to whom this has happened the consequences are enormous. Sadly, not everyone comes back feeling like a hero. That to me was the central gist of the article. There are those who, for whatever purposes, prefer that these few miserable souls not receive serious attention in the media lest readers who are really really really bad at math develop the misguided belief that war, in general, and the Iraq war, in particular, creates whole brigades of killers and that these mathematically challenged readers will then, as a consequence, fail in their duty of supporting the Iraq war. These imagined dimwits need their hands held, heads stroked and to be provide with "context."

I recognize that I approached the article from a different vantage point than A.L. I read the entire article well before I saw that there was post about it on WoC. I had a vastly different reaction to it than did A.L. I would argue that his interpretation is dependent upon a very particular point of view. You have to be a supporter of the Iraq war and believe that public support of the war is critical for its proper execution and believe that the NYT is deliberately trying to sway public support away from supporting the war and believe that people who read the NYT are really stupid, in order to come up with the conclusion that this article suggests that "our soldiers are coming home and becoming murders." My reaction to the article, on the other hand, -- that it was feature on one of the hidden human costs of war, using real examples from a current conflict -- doesn't really require any particular point of view. I felt very badly for the soldiers and for the victims. I applaud the army's and vet's organization's efforts to diagnose and treat PTST and I hope the stigma attached to it goes away. Judging from many of the comments in this thread, however, that doesn't appear very likely.

How 121 compares with anything else doesn't matter to the stories of these individuals, which deserve to be told. We are all adults. We can accept that there are down-sides for some people who go to war on our behalf.

I've been googling around, and not found anything of significance yet. That of course draws me to the immediate and premature conclusion that it's not an issue. When one starts tearing apart the Times horrid math skills, one realizes that there is neither smoke or fire to be found.

There are those who, for whatever purposes, prefer that these few miserable souls not receive serious attention in the media lest readers who are really really really bad at math develop the misguided belief that war, in general, and the Iraq war, in particular, creates whole brigades of killers and that these mathematically challenged readers will then, as a consequence, fail in their duty of supporting the Iraq war. These imagined dimwits need their hands held, heads stroked and to be provide with "context."

LMAO! Well put...as was the rest of the post...they echo my sentiments precisely.

Alan, I figured you might be lonely in here. We can take turns drawing from the same "liberal narrative." That way we can each spending more time hating the troops, hating freedom, speaking french, using leaves to wipe our butts, riding our bicycles to elite Ivy League journalism schools that teach us to support the terrorists, engage in sodomy and have monkeys for grandparents.

"What difference would it make to the article to know if 121 was a lower or higher number than expected, or how it compared to the prevalence of the disease among the general population?"

mark, it would make a huge difference. That story can't be interpreted as 'soldiers are dying at unprecedented numbers from this disease' if you add that comparison.

As I've noted - several times - if this was a story about individual tragedy, or about the gaps in the DoD programs to help troubled vets, I'd be waving flags in favor of it. But it - clearly, based on the kind of secondary headlines I'm seeing in my RSS feeds - is becoming a narrative about 'killer soldiers'.

All they had to do was firewall what they wrote against that erroneous narrative, and I'd have blogged my enthusiasm for the story.

I do have kind of a personal stake in the care of the troops, no?

A.L.

Oh, and mark - when you say "There are those who, for whatever purposes, prefer that these few miserable souls not receive serious attention in the media lest readers who are really really really bad at math develop the misguided belief that war, in general, and the Iraq war, in particular, creates whole brigades of killers and that these mathematically challenged readers will then, as a consequence, fail in their duty of supporting the Iraq war." you're kind of full of it.

My issue with this - based largely on my reading of Grossman's 'On Combat', which I suggest you read - is that it creates in large part a self-perpetuating myth in which troubled veterans believe they are supposed to act out.

And because it paints the troops as victims, which they assuredly are not.

A.L.

AL, I don't think the story can be interpreted as "soldiers are dying at unprecedented numbers" however you slice it. 121. One hundred and twenty-one. Out of hundreds of thousands. On its very face it is a very low number. You have a better chance of being killed by an animal in the US than by an Iraq veteran. The article wasn't selling a "run for your life the streets are dangerous with Iraqi vets" story. I'm sure there are plenty of idiots out there who are going to use this story improperly to denounce the war, but you really can't hold the NYT responsible for that, can you? There's no firewall that's going to protect against all and every erroneous narrative.

Seriously, A.L., you have to believe me that I had the paper delivered, as every morning, to my apartment here, sat with my coffee and scanned the headlines. I got caught up in the story and read the whole thing (unusual for me). Never once did I feel or think it was pushing the kind of story you are saying it did. Honestly. 121 jumped out immediately as a very low number. This was a human interest story....not a war makes killers story. I think your antenea is just a little over-calibrated on these things. I thought so, too, about the suicide thing awhile back.

All the context necessary was inherent in the numbers. 121 across the entire country over 6 years. I'm not a news junkie, this is the only blog I ever read, and I suck at math. But even I know that we have about 150,000 troops right now in Iraq, that we've been there for about 4 years, and 121 is a microscopic---almost invisible--portion of the whole. The NYT didn't need to spell that out. It was obvious. Now, I'm just repeating myself, as is my custom...so I'll shut up (to the delight, no doubt, of many).

AL,

"And because it paints the troops as victims, which they assuredly are not." Respectfully disagree. It paints 121 particular troops as victims, not "the" troops. This distinction is quickly and easily made. 121 does not equal 150,000.

"you're kind of full of it." Can't really argue that. Not my fault. Lenient parents.

"troubled veterans believe they are supposed to act out."...doesn't this presume at the very least the EXISTENCE of troubled veterans (at least 121 of them). This is all the NYT article was really saying, except that it was giving a deeper voice to a couple of them.

Matthew:

You said, Second, never use the word "terminate" when you are arguing that there is not some degree of dehumanization in the military. Someone is not "terminated," they are "killed."

This presupposes that each and every serviceman (meaning both sexes, of course) are not aware of the meaning of "terminate" in place of "killed."

Frankly, all of these platitudes came into popular usage not for the benefit of Servicemen - who after all, have a complete understanding of what their job is; they were used by Civilians and for Civilians, because of their inability to hear the blunt truth about Wars and the events occur within them.

In point of fact, it's really interesting to me that those who state this to me have been, in my experience, always Civilians. As if they have some monopoly on defining how we describe what we do (when you do not do our potentially lethal dirty work - we do). In many subtle ways, it's as if a Taxi driver is lecturing a Surgeon on proper Aseptic techniques.

Attempting to teach your Granny to suck eggs, as it were.

Much is overblown as to "dehumanization." We are essentially not taught to "dehumanize" our opponents. We are taught to understand their ways. Quite the opposite of the popular belief that the average Soldier or Marine is a mindless machine that will kill at the drop of a hat, because their enemy are merely "things."

Robot-like troops are not a benefit, they are a detriment. And this is and has been well understood by our deep thinkers and planners in the military realm.

"The NYT didn't need to spell that out. It was obvious"

So why was it a story? How is it news? The ONLY reason it is news is if their is some causation between war service and violence at home. Do they write stories about veterans who come home and get married and have babies? Or stories about veterans who get in car accidents? Or stories about veterans who do any other of the millions of things the population does? No, of course not. Thats not news.

Maybe we have a different definition of what news is. This see no evil, hear no evil act is thin. There is a paradox here. If veteran murder rates arent being reported on because they are statistically meaningful, why then are they being reported on?

Mark B. It isn't news. It's a feature, i.e. a human interest story. NYT (& others do it all the time). NYT did a human interest story on every single person who was killed on 9/11. None of it was news, but it was all appreciated. Front page of NYT is filled with non-news stories...at least one a day...Sundays especially are notable for lengthy features. Common enough practice. As I said above, I read the piece when it came out and was quite moved by it.

I'm going to use this comment, if you don't mind, to put in this excerpt from the article in question (on 2nd page of 9 pages) that might help to cool a lot of people down:

"Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, veterans groups have long deplored the attention paid to the minority of soldiers who fail to readjust to civilian life."

I'll call shenanigans on this bit from the NYTimes article:

Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, those interviews show, but they were not evaluated for or received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides. What is clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Falluja shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Tex., and Edwardsville, Ill.

The Edwardsville incident is about Jon Trevino, an air-force medic who served at least two tours in Iraq. He was recently separated from his wife with whom he had a nine-year old son. One night he kicked in the door of the house and shot his wife and then himself. He left a suicide note to his son explaining his reasonsm attaching e-mails between his wife and another man.

Horrible, but stating or insinuating that such incidents arise from some sort of PTSD or combat trauma is misleading. Severe depression? Certainly. He was having marital problems, he appears to have believed his wife had taken up with another man and he was afraid of losing his son. I've reviewed the public reporting on NEXIS and found no suggestion that he was ever in combat, though its unquestionable traveling away from home for long periods of time in a demanding job is certainly stressful enough.

People about to be deployed have access to government-paid marital and family counseling. To over-characterize these issues as simply combat-induced is harmful if it discourages people from seeking such assistance beforehand.

Mark B, I think the question is whether the New York Times sees fit to run stories about governors that illegally circumvent veterans-hiring preferences in order to illegally award jobs to Democratic cronies. I mean if veterans do have employment trouble, this type of fraud would deserve a lot of attention.

Shenanigans indeed.

Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, those interviews show, but they were not evaluated for or received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides. What is clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Falluja shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Tex., and Edwardsville, Ill.

This is blatantly untrue. Servicemen are screened when they deploy to a theater, and when they redeploy. The latter is known as a "postdeployment health assessment," and all Servicemen are screened for both medical mental and physical issues.

One or two may fall beneath the radar, but stating that people are just "not evaluated" is absurd.

IMO, most of the homicides by vets were probably justifiable: i.e., mouthy liberals. ;)

Cool it, mark...don't forget, Libruls aren't supposed to have a sense of humor either....

Dang, I said "Medical and Physical." I meant "Mental and Physical."

[Corrected. --NM]

[Driveby, possibly sarcastic, possibly ironic. Deleted. --NM]

A.L.,

I really don't think you understand what I am trying to say at all. I mean, you never real legitimize your analysis of the statistics when even the paper says they are probably not all there. Instead, you try to make poor analogies. Let’s take a look at your current one:

If, for example, returning combat veterans had a lower incidence of murder - which appears to be the case - than the general population, it might be a valid statement to say -in contrast to your claim that "some veterans are adversely affected by combat situations" that veterans appear, in aggregate, to be positively affected.

So their and your claim - without a lot of additional number crunching - doesn't hold water.

The first thing wrong with this statement is that you go back to the statistics. I don't think there is anything solid enough for an argument one way or the other, and neither does the NYT, who presented the statistic.

The second thing wrong with this statement is that you are some how saying that "some veterans are adversely affected by the war" is an unsubstantiated claim. It is difficult for me to believe that anyone can honestly believe that war does not have the ability to affect lives.

The third thing is that somehow, by using the mix between your first and second problematic statements, is that you think it shows there could be argued to be a positive affect, negating the ability for little affect. That makes even less sense.

Then, after spitting out intellectual gibberish, you claim that it insubstantiates the NYT's claim (that one that they never really made) and my claim (the fact that out there, somewhere, someone was adversely affected by warfare). If I was going on some idealistic rant, I could understand such harsh misgivings about my words, but they are fairly moderate accounts of the effects of warfare. I have already given credit to the military on reducing the overall effects of warfare, and I have already said that I think this a