Op-Ed: New York Times Casts Aspersions On The Troops

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In the now infamous "Testimony" Kerry gave before the Fulbright Commission back in 1971, we were told of returning Viet Nam Veterans,

“The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence… men who have returned With a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal…”

as well as,

“…there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America…..”

Now, under the title, “War Torn,” the New York Times, long known for its opposition to the current war, explains the series as, “A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.”

Part one, titled Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles informs us “121 Veterans are linked to killings since their return.” The Times article also tells us,

“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 authors of the article inform us,

“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,”

meaning they actively sought out only reports of Veterans involved in crimes.

Mirroring the claims made in 1971 by Kerry, the article speaks of one Veteran who

“spent the majority of 2003 to 2005 in Iraq solving very dangerous problems by using violence and the threat of violence as his main tools. He was congratulated and given awards for these actions. This builds in a person the propensity to deal with life’s problems through violence and the threat of violence.”

They go on to say,

“veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than non-veterans,”

adding,

“In the mid-1980s … veterans made up a fifth of the nation’s inmate population.”

In a speech given at the Washington, DC Hilton Hotel on July 5th, 1986, General William C. Westmoreland stated

“only 1/2 of one percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.”

In that particular claim, there is no distinction made of what Veterans were allegedly jailed for nor if they were actual Combat Veterans, not even if they had served outside the U.S. during peacetime or war or had obtained less than Honorable Discharges or not.

Chapter 10 of the book, “Stolen Valor,” by B.G. Burkett, chronicles several claiming either Veteran or Combat Veteran status and seeking forgiveness of their crime by claiming PTSD. Requests made by Burkett under the Freedom of Information Act, revealed several either had not served in the Military at all, or did not endure the Combat maladies claimed.

Analyzing the claim of the 121 claimed crimes, Media Lies, doing some quick calculations, comes up with,

“From the October 1, 2001 start of the Afghanistan war, that's about 26,000 troops/month. To date (Jan 2008) that would give about 1.99 million. That means that the NY Times 121 murders represent about a 7.08/100,000 rate.”

Allowing for an even larger rate and rounding up, they said,

“…let's call the rate 10/100,000, about 40% higher than the calculated one.”

Comparing that to U.S. National Crime rates, they state,

“We see that the US offender rate for homicide in the 18 - 24 year old range is 26.5/100,000. For 25 - 34, it's 13.5/100,000.”

Interpreted that means that homicides are more than twice as likely to be committed by non-Veterans of that young age than by returning Veterans, the article is raising concern over.

Attempting to mask their slur against our Troops as caring for them, the article quotes a criminal defense lawyer in Minneapolis, Brockton D. Hunter,

“To deny the frequent connection between combat trauma [PTSD] and subsequent criminal behavior is to deny one of the direct societal costs of war and to discard another generation of troubled heroes.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), once known as “Shell Shock,” is real for some of our returning Heroes, as it always has been in past wars. Yet, in August of 2006, it was the same New York Times than ran an article debunking the high incidence of PTSD related to Viet Nam Veterans.

Surely the rate of PTSD today can’t be higher than for the returning Viet Nam Veteran, who also faced not only an elusive enemy, but also faced the despising and anger of a nation opposed not only the war, but the Troops themselves?

While we do need to reach out and help those few returning Veterans who need it, publishing articles focusing only on a narrow group as Veterans, while ignoring far greater incidences of heinous crimes is a grave disservice, not only to our returning Troops but to society as a whole.

So too would be the diversion of much needed funds, benefits and treatments to phonies and liars seeking easy money instead of to these few that are really in need of it.

In an email response to Reuters concerning this issue, Paul Boyce, spokesman for the U.S. Army said,

“Army statistics show little or no increases in positive drug use, driving under the influence crimes or domestic abuse in the past years among the more than 300,000 soldiers who have deployed in this war."

He continued with,

“the statistics appear to be based on a basic review of American newspaper crime stories from 2004 to 2006, rather than statistics provided by the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense, or even any interviews with military medical or judicial professionals,"

ending with,

“Such methodology would make it nearly impossible for reporters to determine the extent of highly personal mental-health assistance provided to individual members of the Armed Forces."

One need not think too long and hard to imagine the indignation and outrage editors of the New York Times would be publishing had a more conservative media source commissioned and published such a study in regards to similar statistics related to crimes of illegal immigrants, Black or Hispanic Gang or Drug related crimes.