Fucked Up Times

“ '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.' ”

Today, the NY Times published Part I of an amazing, though totally heart-breaking, piece on the 121 Iraq veterans known to have been charged with murder or manslaughter since their return home. Kudos to the contributors of the article for their thoughtful coverage, as well as their investigative reporting--as they point out, the government keeps no such record of PTSD-induced violence, so Times reporters did the fact-finding themselves...the stories (the article features an interactive archive of all 121 cases) are some that, as much as they are difficult to read, cry out to be told.

"...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..."

If the rate of violence among veterans has increased by nearly 90%, even with so many soldiers stationed overseas, how high will that rate rise when and if the others ever make it home? How many others will go the "Sam Stone" route and kill themselves slowly with drugs or alcohol? What other costs will these poor bastards pay out over the years?

Ten more years might be easy for Bush to imagine, but much of the ever-growing cost of this conflict won't be reflected in the billions we've spent.