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Army: Violence by GIs at Home Tied to Combat
Colorado-based veterans accused or convicted in 11 slayings
DENVER - 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 hostility fueled by intense combat in Iraq, where the troops suffered heavy losses and told of witnessing war crimes, the military said Wednesday.
Iraqi securitymen stand guard at a checkpoint in central Baghdad, January 2009. 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 hostility fueled by intense combat in Iraq, where the troops suffered heavy losses and told of witnessing war crimes, the military said Wednesday. (AFP/File/Ahmad al-Rubaye) In what was billed as its most
comprehensive study to date of violent crimes and combat exposure, the
Army looked at soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry
Division - nicknamed the Lethal Warriors - who 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.
"This investigation suggest a possible association between increasing levels of combat exposure and risk for negative behavioral outcomes," the study said.
Army investigators compared the Fort Carson unit of about 3,700 soldiers with a similarly sized unit and found it suffered more combat deaths in Iraq and was deployed there longer.
"This deployment experienced higher levels of combat intensity," the report said, adding that the soldiers also faced "significant disruptions in family-social support."
At risk of violence Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army's surgeon general, said Wednesday the unit's crime cluster appeared to be unique among Army bases and that its combat exposure and length of deployments are just two factor officials are looking at.
"We're starting to look into the deployments and ... how it's related with attitudes and behavior," Schoomaker said.
The accused soldiers also were at risk of violence because of prior criminal activity, drug and alcohol abuse, and mental health issues, according to Schoomaker, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, the Army's deputy chief of staff, and Army West Division Commander Maj. Gen. Mark Graham.
Task force members suggested the Army find a way to identify soldiers who have been exposed to fierce combat. But in a bid to put the cluster in perspective, Rochelle stressed that, between 2004 and 2008, 2,726 Army soldiers (.2 percent) were involved in violent crimes, out of a population of 1.1 million.
Nationally, at least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing in the United States or been charged in one.
They also recommended better training for commissioned and noncommissioned officers to manage soldiers with behavioral problems and ensure soldiers who seek help aren't humiliated or belittled.
Stress of war Investigators focused on the cases of 14 soldiers accused of murder, manslaughter, attempted murder and aggravated assault, mostly with firearms.
Two of those 14 soldiers were not deployed. Among the 12 who were, investigators found the accused had experienced heavy combat in Iraq and that half of those interviewed reported witnessing war crimes, including the killing of civilians.
Schoomaker stressed Wednesday that an Army probe did not substantiate the soldiers' reports of war crimes.
Back home, the soldiers carried weapons with them because they felt "naked" and unsafe and had difficulty transitioning to civilian life. Some said they felt "weird" and didn't fit in, the Army report said.
"There, we were the law; here, the cops are the law," one of the accused told investigators.
High combat death rate The Army report says the accused claimed their commanders and fellow soldiers did not encourage them to seek help at home.
The 4th BCT experienced a combat death rate of 8.9 per 1,000 soldiers during a first Iraq deployment and 9.6 per 1,000 on a second deployment. In comparison, the other, unidentified unit had death rates of 0.4 and 2.1 per 1,000, respectively.
The Colorado slayings include the June 6, 2008, deaths of a man and a woman gunned down by a man with AK-47 assault rifle as they put up garage sale signs on a street.
Pfc. Jomar Dionisio Falu-Vives faces first-degree murder charges in the shootings. He lived nearby and told friends he liked hearing the sirens as authorities raced to the scene, according to the Army report.
In May, Thomas Woolly, a Fort Carson soldier and Purple Heart recipient, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in the slaying of a 19-year-old woman. Woolly was in Fort Carson's Warrior Transition Unit, which provides support for soldiers returning from combat who were injured or have psychiatric disorders.
PTSD symptoms The spate of killings prompted then-U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, now interior secretary, to ask the Army last year to investigate the killings.
Wednesday's study comes as the Army struggles with other combat-related issues, including increased rates of post-traumatic stress syndrome and soldier suicides.
A study last year by the RAND Corp. research organization estimated nearly 20 percent of returning veterans, or 300,000 people, have symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
Army suicides have increased yearly since 2004 as soldiers deal with longer and repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight soldiers at Fort Campbell, Ky., have killed themselves this year, and the Army has made suicide prevention training mandatory for soldiers and leaders.
24 Comments so far
Show AllI find it odd, chilling to be frank, that no one is making a comment regards our Military who come home after a very long, dangerous journey in the War zones of Iraq and Afghanistan and many have signs of not having the ability to adjust to society in the US.
Compound the fact that the Southern Poverty LawCenter, has issued proof that some in our Military have been associated to Skinhead Racism and involvement with rightwing extremist views. This added to the "normal" PTSD symptoms of returing members of the military, should be a source of concern for all of us.
Agreed. As a people, we can't hire these folk to be paid killers, train them, drop them in a place where killing happens every freakin' day and then expect them to be model citizens when they return. Of course, killing by proxy is an ancient and hallowed Amerikan tradition. As a veteran, I feel for these guys. More importantly, I feel for their current and future victims. As they said, in 'insert place name here', they were the law. They come home and have to live under different laws. When you give anyone that much power and take it away, it's a letdown for an ego boosted by years of training and 'hooah' mind manipulation.
...and then expect them to be model citizens when they return.
Many civilized societies have a 'de-programming' richual for their returning soldiers.
Corporate America however uses our youngsters to plunder the world and then disposes of them.
Our endless wars and endless prisons are both corporate rackets. Revolting? Yes we can!
Gee, who would have thought that you could use every psychological trick in the book to turn children who are men and women in size only into murdering, screaming killing machines (show me your war face) and that then they would murder and torture others and be terrified out of their wits for their own safety for two or three tours of duty, and then not be model citizens.
There is nothing to say except that the rich not only want to break our backs earning their wealth, they can get richer still if we die, lose limbs, and go insane for them.
Those who do return with bodies in tact have no sense of identity. Their still developing brains know only to do as they are told. They are easy prey for quasi-military bigots who tell them what heroes they are.
Uncle Sam has no money for psychological debriefing. He got everything he wanted out of them.
Maybe instead of parades we told them the truth about how they were used and then discarded the ten year-olds watching wouldn't be in such a hurry to earn a chest full of medals on their eighteenth birthday.
This is an outrage. I understand the greedy bastards who run the government, I try to understand the veterans, I understand the ten year-olds. What I don't understand is why we ordinary citizens say 'thank you' instead of 'I'm sorry'.
Is it possible some of US don't know what is going on here? Are we blind or just choose not to see?
"What I don't understand is why we ordinary citizens say 'thank you' instead of 'I'm sorry'."
Instead of saying "I'm sorry" (For what? Their lethal ignorance? Who else is allowed that excuse? Not common criminals) They should be asked "do you understand that what you did was wrong?" Simply saying "I'm sorry" allows them to act like victims instead of aggressors, or worse, they could feel like mistreated heroes.
I believe they are victims.
A myth constantly reinforced in this culture is personal responsibility, free will, the possession of complete freedom.
It's not true for adults and it is far less true for eighteen year olds who will do absolutely nothing without the approval-no, permission- of some role model: parent, movie hero, older brother, recruitment officer.
The old model of competition, you have to lose for me to win, is a lie. We have lived by it for a hundred years and now it has come to this---complete economic meltdown.
The truth is that I win only if you win. We rise and fall together if at all. Nobody is going to go marching off to war to kill people he doesn't even know without the approval, encouragement, sometimes force of law, of his family, community, society, and the promise of an exciting adventure while serving and the assurance of being called a hero when he returns.
OK what they did was wrong, but you can't convince me that they would have gotten it into their own heads to buy a gun, fly to Iraq alone, and start shooting people.
I think we are MORE guilty than they both because of their ages and because we have allowed this society to become so sick that joining the military of THIS country seems like a good idea to anybody.
Most people in America are victims of propaganda. How much "free will" we have, (or how much intellectual capability) is a philosophical debate. But an individual's actions can be looked at more objectively. How a soldier came to be in the military is less important then telling them that their choice was a grave mistake.
For example, we might understand the contributing factors that led someone to become a murder or rapist. But first and foremost, we make no excuses for the crime itself. We might understand that there are mitigating circumstances for why the crime was committed. But it must be communicated that does not make them innocent of their crimes. Perhaps they are guilty by reason of insanity, or in the case of soldiers, indoctrination. But if the criminal offers no remorse, or isn't expected to, isn't that an indication they might re-offend?
Also think how many ways the status of victims could be employed with the logic you are using. Since the state supported their actions, were the Nazis victims of their own crimes?
Were the perpetrators of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims because they were brainwashed by the KKK?
Was Scott Roeder a victim for murdering Dr. Tiller simply because he had been brainwashed by various pro-life groups?
Was George W. Bush brainwashed by his upbringing and therefore a victim?
It seems like you are saying that if you are sufficiently indoctrinated you are absolved from any responsibility for your actions. I think it becomes too muddled sorting out who is responsible for their actions and who isn't. In some cases it's clear, and in others, not at all. But even so, why not strongly condemn the war to the person directly fighting it? If they are brainwashed, why not attempt to deprogram them? Obviously, you can't do that without condemning their choice to join the military in the first place.
If you want to tell a soldier "you're sorry" for the contributing factors that led to their behavior, then I don't object. It's merciful to say that to any criminal. But the next sentence must be "do you understand what you did is wrong and that you are responsible for your own behavior?" or else I think you have become a "contributing factor".
"I think we are MORE guilty"
As to who is more guilty, the anti-war left or the military, this is absurd. For your statement to make sense the people on the left would have to have the means to stop the war and simply be too apathetic to do it. America has 300 million people, yet we become a warring empire by the choice of 2 million people to join the military. Without the service of that tiny fraction of the US population, we would have no empire.
For the majority - we are contributing factors. To be military or anti-war, is to be a contributing factor; my estimation is .01% of the population live in peace, and .01% of those are engaged in activism. While this .01% of .01% is a sparse number, it does show that humans have a behavioral capacity to stop war as a means of daily commerce and for settling disputes. Not having found this behavioral capacity makes one a contributing factor.
Until the day comes that I am part of the ".01 of .01" I will be sorry...sorry for missing out on a tremendously better world in which to live. When the day comes that I am part of the ".01", I will invite others to join me in the pleasantries and pleasures and grand creation that only peace offers (yes, I've had glimpses). Those who don't join into the peace community I'll look at with pity, while maintaining a place at the table for them. Until that day I'll consider myself and the 99.999% as contributing factors, looking (aware or unaware) for a way out of our collective catastrophic mess of war behavior; not labeling with shame or guilt (though certainly there are those who need to be quarantined to safe gaurd the peace), but a looking at the present and the future, with considerations of the past, in a light of what is and can be best in human behavior. A "best" that lingers in the heart of every human.
Thank you for your logical presentation, certainly helps with the human qualities within the argument.
I believe it was Joe Biden, although I could be mistaken, who recently stated that we need to be aware that our military vets who have been through this monstrosity of Iraq and Afghanistan could well be our own home-grown "terrorists". Of course he was laughed at and ridiculed, but this article points out that he was right. Terrorists need not be rabid Muslims, they can be once good kids from next door that have been through Hell and don't know how to get out. And no one...or just a few Americans...seem to care.
Bush, in his leadup to his own private war, talked of "collateral damage". I have wondered for the past 4-5 years if in his thinking about this, if he ever stopped to think that part of that "collateral damage" would be our own young men and women. Somehow I don't believe he or his White House cabal either never considered it at all or just didn't give a rip.
I just hope that the current administration can get going on the mental health...as well as the physical care...of these young people. But I'm not holding my breath on that.
I don't recall who it was that said it, but there is a quote out there that says that war is the greatest way that man has ever discovered to remove his brain from his ass. The ancient Hebrews would make their soldiers stay outside of general society for 30 days after a battle, cleansing themselves and getting their heads back into civilian mode.
We put these people through psychological horrors and no matter how much we say it doesn't bother people, one cannot view and participate in such inhuman behaviors without it affecting your mind. The training itself is enough to change one's mental functions dramatically. To be involved in such death and inhumanity after a prior training to NOT kill, to NOT be inhuman, to NOT treat life so lightly puts strains and stresses on the human mind that cannot be easily dealt with.
I knew guys who went through Nam and came back with serious issues that last to this day. I have known WWII vets who still wake up every night sweating, reliving their battles in their dreams. These things happened 3-6 DECADES ago, and they are just as fresh as they were the day they happened. You NEVER get over such thing, regardless of what the generals and the senators say. The generals are psychotic and the senators (with VERY few exceptions) have never seen basic training, let alone actual combat, so they don't have a clue.
"I have known WWII vets who still wake up every night sweating, reliving their battles in their dreams. These things happened 3-6 DECADES ago, and they are just as fresh as they were the day they happened."
After WWII it was called "shell shock". Now its called "PTSD". It never ends.
Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan are WAR CRIMES. Every act committed in those endeavors is a war crime, every single one. These are not constitutionally declared wars. Therefore they are illegal. Passing an "Authorization to Use Military Force" by the president at his discretion is NOT a declaration of war. Bad precedents were allowed in Korea and Vietnam. No matter. Without a formal, constitutional declaration of war by Congress, these are illegal actions. The presidential decision to invade a country under these circumstances is illegal. Every order following, from those issued by the president to those issued by the lowliest corporal ARE ILLEGAL ORDERS. All must be disobeyed or else the those carrying out the orders are war criminals. I'm sorry, there is no way around it. Every single returning veteran is a war criminal. You may not be able to handle this truth. Well, then you better get your head out of your ass and do something to STOP these continuing war crimes, or else YOU, as a compliant citizen ARE A WAR CRIMINAL. WE ARE ALL WAR CRIMINALS AT THIS POINT IN TIME.
First I must say I am not a vet and can not speak for any of the veteran's war and military related issues. However it seems to make very good sense to me that with single payer health care our soldiers would have access to the health care that all Americans would have and NOT be dependent on the care that the military provides that from friends who are vets find burdensome and not addressing their needs well at all.
Certainly the news stories about veteran hospitals and their care shows little of the respect they deserve and the growth of non military groups set up to help them point to the disregard of the military for their own.
Fairly or unfairly, the rest of the world judges America on the basis of its envoys. And, believe me, the picture is not pretty.
Hope you all are still going to "support the troops" when they get home again. They'll certainly need much sympathy. On the other hand, so will you.
During Viet-Nam, drafted men were jailed rather than kill.
These guys volunteered to kill. Were proud to be "Lethal," murderers, killers, shooters. These enthusiastic Volunteers.
I think they were creeps to kill Iraqi's, then doubly so to come murder more innocent people.
They are victims? I cannot pictures the huge pile of corpses they created.....and feel these volunteers are victims.
Right from Wrong? We know it. We KNEW it in the schoolyards, much LESS in Killing Fields.
Draft resisters did.
And the solution to this problem is what, exactly? Does your being right and not being a creep change one damn thing? Your post smacks of a childish moral superiority that brings no new or constructive ideas to the table. And it is clear in your justifiable rage toward our culture of war that you have focused that rage on the pawns in the game. And yes, as pawns they too are victims. That they are very literally the chickens of our aggression coming home to roost is not anything new, as other posters here have noted. Did shaming, marginilizing, or even incarcerating GIs of the Vietnam era ever solve any of the problems they brought back home with them? Will it do so now?
drift, so you say they did not know right from wrong? Then I guess they would not think it was wrong if guys their age traveled from the other side of the world to their hometowns and murdered their mothers and little sisters.
The solution to this problem is THIS EXACTLY: We value life, we cherish it. We embody morality. I've talked to plenty of kids that joined, and their attitude about killing OTHERS was pretty damned ambivalent.
But they damn sure knew hurting THEMSELVES was wrong-hurt one of these little babies and they cry cry cry. But were HAPPY to VOLUNTEER to shoot a brown skinned child. No? You think only adults died in Iraq?
At what age did you know right from wrong?
That shooting people is wrong?
For those right-wing, pro-life, war-mongering "christians" among us, what do you not understand about "Thou shalt not kill"? It's a rather plain directive. It does not go on to say "unless ordered to do so by some government". A Christian, killing in war, is doomed to spend eternity in hell. You Christian soldiers may want to consider this next time you pull the trigger to "light up" that old beat to shit car packed full of kids approaching your checkpoint, not stopping because you don't even bother to learn to speak their language. Kill another human being and go to Hell. The circumstances do not matter. You have killed. You will go to Hell.
These are not MY agnostic beliefs, they are YOU'RE stated Christian beliefs.
It would be better not to programme them at all. Better not to have wars. Better not to support a cult of violence in our civilian societies that idolises those who kill and torture and constantly fictionalises their crimes as heroic adventures.
"Violence by GIs at Home Tied to Combat"
"This investigation suggest a possible association between increasing levels of combat exposure and risk for negative behavioral outcomes,"
How surprising.
Any more hot Vietnam-era news?
*
This shows how military aggression toward fairly random countries carries the price of importing the violence home with the returning soldiers (over a million only from Iraq).
They continue to wage "aggressive" war and "pre-emptive attacks", now on their own country - from not being able to reconcile the harsh US double standards of pretence to seek peace while making war, projected abroad and manifested there as murderous "peacemaking".
Such is the "manifest destiny" for these soldiers.
Like Saddam was only to be disarmed, right? And when he didn't have those arms, the US tore off his head instead (happened when Saddam was hanged).
Peacemakers... Peace starts at home, not abroad. Eager warring abroad ensures there's no peace at home either.
Can anyone think the thought of the USA NOT attacking other countries, taking care of the needs of the country's own people instead? - Difficult to imagine, I know.
Maybe the returning GIs are carrying a message. Like: war isn't good for people and other living things.
I think it's troubling that the study described in this article does not take into account domestic violence and rape offenses committed by returning vets as 'violent crimes'. It irks me that their definition of "violent crime" does not include crimes disproportionally targeting women.
Especially in the case of domestic violence, I have read several times about how female spouses (no data on male) literally suffer their returning husband's trauma through elevated levels of domestic violence among vets (and army/marine families in general btw). Also, FYI - the Army's global television network, AFN, regularly runs advertisements advising viewers of the pitfalls of domestic violence. The advert clearly takes a position that assumes the domestic violence occurs among viewers (army and marine personnel). I have seen it myself, it's horrifying.
What a world we'd have if we drafted nurses instead of soldiers, huh?
1st sentence is misleading. These guys did not endure "intense combat," their enemy was ieds, they were in one way shootouts.
Remember. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. Half a million.
5,000 American Heroes did. You get those numbers by bombing and one-way shoot outs.
These are called massacres.
So for every One American Hero who died, Volunteers Killed about a hundred Iraqis.
Similiar to the ratio the IDF enjoyed in Gaza.
True, real, "Intense combat," w/ a force that fights back, causes much closer parity in casualties. We were putting bullets behind their ears.
I just can't wait until some of these twisted head cases (not their fault) wind up in our police forces. Oh yeah.
Raised in a culture of violence, these soldiers are sent to do violence. And you expect them to come home and resume "normal" life? That's crazy!