It took a generation before we fixed the rotten way we labeled Vietnam vets as crazed misfits who get on drugs, kill people, or become homeless. Just when I thought we were over that, along comes the New York Times with a "study" showing 121 troops were involved in homicide. The AP picks up the story, and the Sacramento Bee splashes it on the front page: "Horrors of war brought home: At least 121 veterans of Afghan, Iraq wars accused of homicides after return, newspaper finds."
Bloggers are weighing in. TigerHawk wonders if the journalists who wrote the story understand statistics. Winds of Change says the article is deliberately heavy on acecdotes and short on context, to show how our soldiers are either depraved or damaged. PowerLine says the rate of alleged homicide by US troops works out to a rate of 17 per 100,000--quite a bit lower than the overall national rate of around 27.
By far the best takedown is from Phillip Carter at Intel Dump:
The article makes no attempt to produce a statistically valid comparison of homicide rates among vets to rates among the general population. Nor does it rely at all on Pentagon data about post-deployment incidents of violence among veterans. It basically just generalizes from this small sample (121 out of 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan vets, not including civilians and contractors) to conclude that today's generation of veterans are coming home full of rage and ready to kill.
