War Torn – part 1

The New York Times, Sunday 1-13-08, has an ‘Eye Opening’ Report, Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles with this one only being Part 1 !!

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.

I’m only about halfway through it, tough reading, and memories flowing back of the reports of some, not so long ago, of my brothers of ‘Nam!

These Reports, Articles, Discussions…………. need to get the Traffic this form of Communication brings forth, so Others will Pickup these Extremely Important Subjects and Do More investigating and reporting!!

If we had todays technology yesterday, PTSD and other Results of War, would be right up there Alongside the ‘War Is An Absolute Last Resort’, and Wars of Choice wouldn’t occur, at least by this Nation!!

These Conflicts will have Even More Devestating Results felt for even longer than any previous conflicts, for those Hatreds we are creating will be followed with destructive behavior, others are now striking back for our failed policies of the past as we add more in the present!

A Snippit of this report:

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, 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 New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment – along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems – appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

Audio Interview: Dr. Jonathan Shay on Returning Veterans and Combat Trauma (January 13, 2008) There is four seperate, short, parts of this interview at site.

Book Excerpt: Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (January 13, 2008)

Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web

This is a nine page report with more to follow, This Is The Reality Of Man’s  War’s of Choice, and Not Only For The Combat Veterans but For Those Who Are Invaded and Occupied!!

Follow the link above to Learn More, for we have been Apathedic for Too Long!!

The following has nothing to do with the above, but is possibly another sad result of the divisions within this Country as a further result of our Failed Policies and our Loss of Control of our Government, the People’s Democracy.

This bus was totaled by fire, around 9:30 pm, Friday night, 1/11/08

It could have been machanical but Owner~Operator~Driver ( and Veteran ) Jim Goodnow who pulled into a South Jersey Truck Stop, to catch a 3 or 4 hour nap. In retrospect, remembers some suspicious activity outside the bus, and about 20 minutes later, the entire engine compartment, and back of the bus was engulfed in flames.

I received an e-mail about this yesterday with little information as none was really known at the time, Jim reportedly planned to notify the ATF Arson Squad on Saturday morning.

There is nothing up at the IVAW website as yet about the incident.

I did a few searches and couldn’t find much, yesterday, except a couple of Veterans Yahoo Groups that had short reports w/pics that didn’t post, about it. llbear found ,this short report at the Postland Indie Media site.

And this morning I found a report over at the Yellow Rose of Texas blogspot site titled “The YELLOW ROSE PEACE BUS DESTROYED BY FIRE!” with a few photo’s

This bus, often mired in controversy since the IVAW “Dirty South” tour that left Philly in June, and had Active Duty BBQ’s @ Ft Meade, Ft Jackson, Camp Lejeune, Ft Benning, and other Southern Military Posts (Including an IVAW benefit by Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, and AudioSlave, in Virginia) as well as backdrop for many a Demonstration, and Ft Drum, NY, organizing parties, has finally died.

Again, this could have been a result of something mechanical causing the fire in the engine compartment. But as many of us Pro-Peace Activist know there are a few groups out there, no names or links need be placed, who are reportly being funded and have ramped up their so called ‘Super Patriotic’ rethoric, starting negative rumours about upcoming Peaceful Demonstrations, that are and have been welllllllll Peaceful, no matter the number of participants, from a handful to Tens Of Thousands! They also have become more violent in their speach and even actions towards the Peaceful Demonstrators, and they certainly haven’t been peaceful themselves.

There is also this Video of the fire

Blip TV

over at the Yellow Rose of Texas Blogspot site.

The ’embedded link’ and the ‘url link’, for the photobucket video, didn’t work so I put it up on my Blip TV site and Google Video.