Current and former soldiers should have a much lower rate of violence and psychological problems, because, first of all, they are selected to be stable to begin with. It someone is at risk of serious psychological problems, is a serious drug-abuser, etc, they don’t get hired by the army to begin with. Simply put, the army doesn’t hire people who start out crazy.

Secondly, they are coming from a fairly well-paying job with benefits, have educational opportunities, and have a lot of support from superiors and comrades while they are in the service. I don’t know the truth about that, but that’s what I saw in all of the recruiting ads when I was in high school (and I went to a blue collar high school with a high drop-out rate, so I have an idea as to how bad things can get for a young person on their own in America).

So former soldiers should be a group that has less risk of problems and should have a much lower crime rate.

Violence is psychologically very bad for everyone involved, and as an expatriate in Korea I have an idea of how difficult it is to leave your family behind and take a radically new job someplace far away. These are extraordinary circumstances that cause extraordinary stress.

Tangents aside, their isn’t really a demographic to which American soldiers can be compared to in a meaningful fashion in America. I would be interested to see how the rates of problems compare to veterans of other conflicts, in other countries. That would give a much better comparison of how the US government is doing to take care of returning soldiers.

It’s not about “scary John Rambo”s so much as it is about evaluating the current system. And, it must be admitted, in weighing the costs and benefits of US involvement in the conflict.

As a liberal, I’m always shocked by how conservative the newspapers in America are. The the liberals call it conservative, and the conservatives call it liberal, maybe we should admit it’s somewhere around the center.

This is just more of the same old, same old from the biased left wing MSM. I remember last year it was about the “increase” in suicides amongst returning troops. Well, they didn’t find it newsworthy that the suicide rate of Iraq vets is LESS than the national suicide rate for all Americans of that age group. So, I guess serving in Iraq makes one LESS likely to commit suicide, right?

Anyway, Armed Liberal has a good post on this topic at Winds of Change. Even taking the NYT’s skewed numbers, it turns out that the “murder” rate of returning vets is significantly lower than the national rate for 18-25 year olds. Geez, why wasn’t that the headline?

Here’s the link: http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/the_media_does_it_again.php

i do not think i will understand the left ever

as for the article it is clearly misleading and manipulative and for anyone to argue other wise goes right into the blissfully ignorant category!

I updated the posting above with links to Powerline as well who has picked up this story.

So, no matter what the spin you try to put on a story, the article drips of anti-soldier rhetoric. I agree with GIKorea when he says that if you printed a story like this about Black killers (I refuse to use the PC term) in the USA you’d have Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and a whole bunch of others down on your case. Funny we’ve not heard any comments from anyone denouncing this article huh?

Tim in Angeles sendzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If there are so many GIs going nuts and killing people why the need to inflate the statistics? Maybe it is because there isn’t a whole lot of GIs going out and killing people like the statistics show isn’t true. The perception is being driven by the media like the NY Times and defense lawyers who tell their clients to claim PTSD every time they get in trouble. That is why I say how do you know the guy that committed a crime wasn’t a mail clerk for a year in Iraq but is claiming PTSD to get off.

I already said that the military at first did not handle the PTSD issue well but like with everything I have ever seen with the military it identifies problems and begins creating systems to deal with them. When I came back from Iraq from OIF1 the mental health guy gave us a questionaire about PTSD which we all filled out. We then received endless lectures and briefings about beating our wives, drunk driving, chaplain brifing etc that would over lap things that should be discussed in a more extensive PTSD check. In my opinion the training was adequate and has only gotten better today.

Now the military actually has programs to enroll people into extensive two week in house treatment at the hospital which I did with one of my soldiers who had PTSD after coming back from Afghanistan. It helped him a lot. This was something not available after OIF1 that is now. The military has been working hard to tackle the PTSD problem which was no way conveyed in the article. Plus something else to remember is that the military cannot make ex-GIs go to counseling like it can active duty soldiers.

The whole Walter Reed reporting was sensationalized and had nothing to do with funding by the way and everything to do with leadership in that part of the hospital which a lot of people were relieved for. Walter Reid is quality hospital. The VA hospitals on the otherhand are a mess and that does have everything to do with funding which is not the military’s problem but Congress. Congress has been horrible in properly funding the VA for years.

Also I did not say everyone critical of the war is anti-troops, I said the NY Times is anti-troops which is clearly the case.

And to be fair, the NYT reporters were very clear from the jump about the context they wanted to be taken in, the fact that their research for the story was not scientific nor exhaustive, as well as the fact that they went to great lengths to interview talking heads who point out that PTSD is one of many factors that lead to problems back home, but to say PTSD is not worth looking at unto itself is a problem, especially given the stigma that exists about the subject even (and especially) within the military itself.

One might disagree with aspects of their take on the story, but that article struck me as honest – certainly not “anti-troops.”

And major newspapers (The Washington Post is a recent example, in their series on black men) and the print publishing media has done a great deal of good, responsible work on the problems endemic to certain parts of the black community (black men in particular), and dealt with the problem of violence and drugs in particular.

I don’t and didn’t have a problem with that being pointed out, as long as it’s done responsibly and with an eye to context, as I think the NYT story was.

Combined with a very good story done by NPR recently on PTSD, involving both a civilian and official Army psychologist, veteran representatives, vets from Vietnam and Iraq, which looked at the complex issues involved in coming home and the difficulties in getting help sometimes, or identifying the problem, I don’t think the so-called “liberal” media is troop bashing at ALL, but on the contrary, taking a nuanced take through good journalism on a difficult and emotional subject.

Kudos for the NYT tackling this issue. When I read this as a civvie leftie, I didn’t think “damn troops!” but I sympathized with the hell that soldiers are going through in war. And I really think most of the readers of the NYT are with me on that, since that’s the spirit in which this is written, tone, context – all of that.

If any criticism is being leveled in the direction of the “military” it’s for failing to recognize the problem and help its soldiers get treatment, as expressed through pending suits against the government, not just the NYT’s alleged agenda or hatred of “troops.” I think this is real news, and an issue worth looking at, just as the Walter Reid issue is and was.

This kind of journalism is about as “anti-troops” as saying that a failing health care system is “anti-patient” or pointing out the collapse of public education as “anti-student.”

I don’t find the content, tone, or context of these articles “anti-troop” at all. I think, as a self-avowed right-of-center guy and as a member of the military yourself, you might just be taking this in much more of a sensitive way than need be, which is understandable, given the emotions running high about this war.

Still, I maintain that it has become quite politically possible to be anti-war and have no animosity towards “the troops” and in fact, anti-war protest has always been such, even and especially in Vietnam. Even the ever-present spectre of the “spitting on troops” image is quite overblown, as peace/anti-war/free speech activists in the late 1960’s worked quite closely with veteran groups against the war. A man I heard on NPR, and a book I want to read and has been quite talked about:

The Spitting Image
http://www.amazon.com/Spitting-Image-Memory-Legacy-Vietnam/dp/0814751474

He makes a very compelling case that even the “fact” of troops being spit upon as a rule back in Vietnam is mostly a media creation and more of a function of post-Vietnam war movies than something grounded in reality, or much more than urban myth amongst vets who did in fact face some negativity towards them, but rarely, if any spitting or other pattern of obvious derision.

Personally, I think the “anti-troops” myth right now is a big one, because I don’t know anyone on my side of the fence who has anything against soldiers, and this includes activists and other active anti-war people. Just like the NYT piece, whenever a liberal speaks out against the war, or against even one of the government’s institutions in the NAME of saving American lives and getting our men and women 1) back home, 2) the proper equipment, as in criticizing Rumsfeld for not getting the proper armor on Humvees, or 3) help and treatment upon returning from war - we get slapped with this “anti-troops” thing and dismissed as disrespecting men and women in uniform.

I don’t believe this is happening, nor is that the intent. And I just wanted to extend that to the present NYT piece as well. I think some very good and helpful work is being done to help soldiers. And as a person with family members presently in the military, as well as a father, uncle, and other family members 20 years retired, I am certainly not “anti-troops.” And one of the reasons my Dad got such good hospice care in his fight against colon cancer (lost in 2001) was because he lived near the UMich hospital and was able to receive care through them, as opposed to the Dayton, OH VA hospital that I wouldn’t want to wish on anyone fighting for their lives in a hospital bed. Which is where the heart of the Walter Reed reporting was, and where I think – for what it’s worth – is where the heart of the present NYT article is.

That’s where I’m coming from, in any case. I just think it’s kind of a cheap shot to lump everything critical of the war or the military as “anti-troops” when there’s much more complexity and carefulness in the reporting than you imply here.