New York Times Special Report: 121 Veterans Of Iraq And Afghanistan Charged With Killing Upon Returning Home

New York Times:

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.

This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, "like Falluja."

Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame -- and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Rianna]

Sadly, this is the result of a disasterous decision made by war criminals, who just did not care about the consequences of attacking another country, for no obvious reason.
We can only imagine how horrible it must be for the poor Iraqi people, who are being killed by the dozens, because of a bunch of lunatics running the US.

[cheneyhasawarmachine]

you libs spit on the troops and their mission

[Subj2Chng]

Oh my God, Bush has created a bunch of traumatized, deranged war veterans who go around defending themselves from nice, innocent armed gang bangers who stick guns in their faces. Who'd a thunk?

[Norge]

It is only the tip of the iceberg. It is vastly more terrible than than report.

[Tator]

This bogus story will be ripped to shreds by Monday afternoon.

See earlier post where this story is trumped up because the murder rate for Iraq vets is normal for the American population.

[abbiehoffmansghost]

Support the troops by giving them a boat or plane ride to deadly combat areas. After that they're on their own; no proper equipment, no training in the ways of other cultures, and danger from highly paid mercenaries hired by their own government. When they get home ignore them, cut their benefits, and pretend they don't exist. Oh, it's o.k. as long as you have a little magnetic yellow ribbon on your huge SUV. Then at least China will have made a buck.

[Purple Girl]

Another aspect of war this admin has failed to grasp- due to ignorance, but more likely total disregard. VIETNAM!!! Remember the psychological problems that were inflicted on our soldier then??? Homelessness, violence, drug addiction.­.
Add it to the list of crimes against our nation- further proof of lack of services after service to your country- disgusting!
They should bring a Class Action Suit agins tthis admin for neglegence and Malice with forethought, and/or any other law they can go after them- demands Billions for settlement- perhaps then they can get the treatment they so deserve for their sacrificing body and mind to this Corporate OIL war.

[abbiehoffmansghost]

Tip of the iceberg.

[foreffectivegovernment]

If you truly want to try to do something about this, go to this website:

http://www.wexlerforcongress.com/

At least someone is concerned. There are other sites concerning impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Those who made fun of these men can:

GET SCREWED.

[Ammobob]

Since HuffPo must 'feed' it's WHINING masses often, I'm not surprised at all by the headline or the WHINER comments.

1). Since no such study has ever been done before on returning soldiers, this is easily 'hyped' as being unprecedented.

2). During the same time-frame there were 34 Midgets killed by other 'little people'. Another underreported epidemic, eh?

[withowlseyewatch]

Men in the military who murdered are not made in Iraq. They are made in American with tax payer dollars. They are told they must hate their enemy then they are turned loose in Iraq. And when they truly believe it is their duty to hate their enemy, they are unleashed back into the US.

[SEQUOIABISON]

We basically have a strong army not to protect America but to protect the overseas investments of our corporations.

The country would be better off if we did not allow corporations to exploit foreign countries.

When foreign countries want to take their country back the corporations call in the American army to protect their exploitation, as was the case in Vietnam and Iraq.

So in the interest of protecting corporations and their investments, we sacrifice our youth.

We train our young men and women to kill on command then we act surprised when they come home and continue to be violent.

Instead of teaching them to help others like the peace corp we train them to hate, they always refer to a countries citizens as the enemy, never as Iraqis or whatever country we happen to invade.

Why are we surprised by their violent Pavlov conditioning behavior when they come home?

[Tator]

This is one of those NYT stories written to tell you moonbats what you what to hear.

The 121 out of all those that have gone to Iraq is actually about the same as than the normal public and it is dramatically lower than the murder rate among blacks in America.

If you want to get upset about something and fix it Liberals you should address why blacks have much higher murder rate than our solders...­..it is not a racial thing it is a cultural thing .. a LIBERAL cultural thing.

Spend some time over at the Bureau of Justice Statistics on Homicide and you will see this is a bogus story.

Be warned Liberals you will also see data that reflects in the cities where yo have gun control you have more gun crime but, out in the country where everyone has guns the gun crime is dramatically LOWER which means;
More gun control laws=more gun crime
few gun control laws=less gun crime.

[thepeoplechoose]

I'm a Vietnam vet and by comparison the brutality of the Iraq war seems greater. In addition to that, Iraq is more apparently a war of choice that is difficult to justify in whole or in part. There are also overtones of the Iraq war that have a religious basis in which we haven't had to deal with in prior conflicts. And finally there is the very pronounced and indiscriminate slaughter of non-combatants. I'm inclined to think these circumstances take a heavy toll on our forces in general and on combat troops in particular. Many of our military members ultimately realize there are serious moral and ethical problems with this war and I've no doubt these things can really mess with your head. Our troops bear the full visual brunt of this misguided affair and weighing that very emotional vision with the idea that we may be there under a false pretense introduces the possibility of having to deal with tremendous personal guilt. I don't think you can predict what individual behaviors all this may end with except to say they will be anormal. I think from the perspective of many vets this is very disturbing to watch. I think most know it is worse than Vietnam.

[ethnobotanist]

these are children, most of them.

kids are less mature in this generation than in ours and we were not fully equipped for Viet Nam either...t­hese economical wars...rui­n these young men and woman, their lives here at home, and the real chances they should be taking in schools - not on battlegrounds.

what have we taught them...now we must help them. every last one of them.