Army: Soldiers In Slayings Faced Intense Combat

Two Soldiers from 3rd Platoon, Company A, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division move a simulated casualty to a covered and concealed area during a platoon situation training exercise near Camp Red Devil.(U.S. Army photo by Maj. T. G. Taylor, 4th BCT PAO, 4th Inf. Div.)

From Yahoo News/AP:

FORT CARSON, Colo. – Soldiers from a Colorado unit accused in nearly a dozen slayings since returning home — including a couple gunned down as they put up a garage sale sign — could be showing a hostility fueled by intense combat in Iraq, where the troops suffered heavy losses and told of witnessing war crimes, the military said Wednesday.

The Army launched an investigation after soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division — nicknamed the Lethal Warriors — were accused in a spate of five killings around Colorado Springs, home to Fort Carson, in 2007 and 2008.

Six other slayings involving unit soldiers occurred in Colorado and other states since 2005.

Read more ....

My Comment: A million plus U.S. men and women have served in Iraq .... and now we know that some of them may have committed crimes (including murder).

This is news?

My father served with the Russian Army in the Second World War from the fall of 1941 to the end of 1945 in Germany. He was witness to atrocities that probably the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division would relate to if they had served on the Russian front for 4 years.

But throughout his life my father was a law abiding and honest man, who would not even hurt a fly.

Crimes are not committed solely because of experiences in combat .... crimes are usually committed by people who are simply just bad folks. If a combat veteran commits a crime that is related to his war experience, it is usually because of post traumatic stress .... and even then these cases are usually the exception and not the rule.

AP is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill with these cases. What the AP should focus on is the problem that veterans have with homelessness and employment .... this is the problem that impacts far more veterans than some of the bad apples who commit despicable crimes.