That is what the headline in the New York Times hit piece trashing returning veterans as crazed murderers should have said according to Ralph Peters:

A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that’s not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty).

Now consider the Justice Department’s numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their peers, our troops would’ve had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007.

In other words, the Times unwittingly makes the case that military service reduces the likelihood of a young man or woman committing a murder by 80 percent.

Yes, the young Americans who join our military are (by self- selection) superior by far to the average stay-at-home. Still, these numbers are pretty impressive, when you consider that we’re speaking of men and women trained in the tools of war, who’ve endured the acute stresses of fighting insurgencies and who are physically robust (rather unlike the stick-limbed weanies the Times prefers).

All in all, the Times’ own data proves my long-time contention that we have the best behaved and most ethical military in history.  [New York Post]

Ralph Peters also found out that in the 18-34 year old demographic that composes most of our military members that just in 2005, 8,718 of these young Americans were killed in America.  This number is over twice as many soldiers killed in six years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Military service not only reduces murder rates, but it can keep you alive as well. 

So when is the New York Times going to run a front page article that we currently have the most well behaved and ethical military history?  

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