Over the weekend the New York Times published an in-depth look at murders committed by current war veterans in the United States. In what the article called a "quiet phenomenon" many of these crimes were said to be in part the result of emotional trauma caused by the veterans' wartime experiences. Through it's investigation the Times reported 121 confirmed murders committed by veterans, while also saying there were probably more. There's no central database that keeps track of such figures.
Here are some of the major facts presented by the Times:
-Three quarters of the 121 cases studied by the Times involved the veterans committing murder while still in the military.
-More than half of the killings involved guns.
-About one third of the victims were "spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives."
-About one quarter of the victims were fellow service members.
-Murders committed by active-duty military personnel rose 89 percent from the pre-war period to present day (184 cases to 349) - three quarters of these cases involved Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
-13 of the 121 veterans committed suicide after committing the murders.
-Of the 121 veterans only one was a woman.
The article approaches its statistical findings as thus:
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.
In the short amount of time since the article was published there's been a strong backlash against the paper, citing worry that it perpetuated the stigma of veterans returning home as crazed and unstable. The first criticisms of the paper's investigation seemed to come from the article itself, as it quoted the Pentagon's reaction to the reporters' findings:
The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research. Further, Colonel Melnyk questioned the validity of comparing prewar and wartime numbers based on news media reports, saying that the current increase might be explained by “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” He also questioned the value of “lumping together different crimes such as involuntary manslaughter with first-degree homicide.”
Many online criticisms of the article are pointing to this post by Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:
...I worry about the larger narrative of this story. It seems like we've been down this road before — casting veterans in the role of crazed, violent, disturbed young men who come home from war to become homeless or criminal (or both). America needs to wrap its arms around its sons and daughters who go to war, not alienate them and push them away with this kind of narrative. We sent these men and women to fight; we have a sacred trust to ensure they're taken care of when they come home. Irresponsible journalism like this impedes that effort by giving people the wrong impression about combat veterans.
In counterpoint to such criticisms Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org characterized the Times article as "stunning" and "well researched." Writing for the Huffington Post he used the article as a launching pad for highlighting the continued issue of PTSD among veterans. He expressed no concern over any negative characterizations of returning vets:
The trend of our newest veterans being involved in killings on the homefront can be largely attributed to four letters -- PTSD. Our failure to properly screen for and treat this mental injury is the source of so many problems our newest veterans face -- from drug and alcohol abuse, to homelessness, to joblessness, to spousal abuse, to suicide, and now, to murders.
At the military blog Blackfive one reader's email to the website described the experience of greeting vets returning from overseas shortly before the Times article was published:
Our men and women came home last night to a happy, welcoming crowd, who were more than pleased to see them and thank them for their service to our beloved country. And this morning, those same men and women will see a local paper with a prominent headline implying they are murdering criminals let loose in our society.
Is the New York Times guilty of cursory reporting, or does the article simply highlight a truth that's hard to swallow? It's clear many veterans (at least those with an online presence) are outraged, but for others it's yet another wake up call that the war is never simply left on the battlefield for returning vets. One thing is certain: the dialog over this article has already gone way past the actual focus of murder to now include the very way veterans are seen in our society.
