For the past 6 or 7 years, I’ve kept an increasingly fat folder labelled “Atrocities.” It contained reports of abuses by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan so egregious that even the military couldn’t ignore them. I retitled it “A Few Bad Apples” when it became clear that those who got caught had to be portrayed as anomalies so as to avoid the central question of what the hell they’re doing there in the first place.


Thursday, March 17, 2011

soldiers killing each other

I've compiled a list of 17 instances of soldier-on-soldier killing, including a case of friendly fire (Pat Tillman), a case of harassment leading to suicide (Adrian Wilhelm), and a case reported as suicide, but believed by her family to be murder after rape (Lavena Johnson).  That comes to 39 dead and 35 severely wounded (most of the wounded and many of the deaths were at Fort Hood in Nov. 2009).  Twenty service members have been charged in the crimes.  The majority of instances seemed to be eruptions of violence fueled by drink or drugs, though a few had ideological implications.  I have no idea how this stacks up statistically with murders in a similar demographic, nor how many cases have gone unreported), but I do know that most of those charged were stationed in or had recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and all had ready access to weapons.  I'll post the chart with details soon.