Dear Friends and Family,
Please don't let the length of this POST run you off. This is a VERY, VERY serious issue and I sincerely feel this worthy of sharing with all of you. Going back to earlier BLOGs, I'm sure that you have all realized my distaste for the US Media, however, nothing has ever quite hit home and angered me to this extent. I cannot begin to express my horror and disgust at this latest piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
The New York Times recently ran an ongoing series about Vets returning home. Their message: American Vets are coming home and committing atrocities at home; can't cope with PTSD or TBI. The opening reads like this:
"Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles
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."
So I started doing some research: According to one contradictory report I read, there are 25 million registered drivers in the US and 25,000 are charged in vehicular homicides annually (I haven't researched these statistics specifically to verify the numbers...). That is ONE accidental death per ONE thousand drivers, however there were only 25 cases of US Vets being charged out of those 25,000 - so that means Vets only account for ONE in TEN thousand vehicular related deaths (murders). That means Vets are TEN times LESS likely to be involved in a vehicular death. Yet somehow, the NY Times twists this into a negative and attempts to make our vets look bad. Again I ask, WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS?
This doesn't even account for the fact that I believe those 25 vehicular homicides occurred over the entire period of time that Vets have been coming home. If you consider that there are roughly 25K vehicular homicides a year, during the timeframe from 2002 until present means there were approximately 125,000 vehicular related deaths. So it's possible that Vets have only accounted for ONE in 50,000 occurrances. Yet does the NY Times fairly and accurately report this? Of course not, it doesn't support their Anti-Servicemember agenda!
Less than 10% of our country serves in the Armed Forces in defense of our country and most of them do so out of a deep Patriotic sense. And this is the thanks we get? Sure, I support free speech, and I will fight to defend it. But I have to seriously question the motive and rationale behind a Newspaper that would publish this - during a time of War - and attempt to deliberately and falsely slander and defame the US Servicemember. Does the author of this article take into consideration that there are men and women serving in foreign countries, some making the ultimate sacrifice, so that he has the RIGHT to publish such drivel?
So, then I went to the FBI statistics page and found out that between 2002 and 2006 (2007 #s are not confirmed yet) there were roughly 17,000 murders per year. Or, over the five years that the NY Times is accounting for all the Veteran's "atrocities" about 82,700 murders. Veterans were only charged in 121 of these. 96, if you account for the 25 Vehicular related charges. I was unable to determine if the FBI data included Vehicular homicides, so assuming it did, our SAVAGE Veterans only account for POINT ONE PERCENT or one in 1000 (actually 861) murders.
Let's look at this another way: 1.3 million vets have returned from service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course MY numbers are slightly skewed, as many of our vets have had to serve multiple tours overseas. But I've seen reports of 1.3 and 1.4 million vets returning home over the same time period [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100759_pf.html and http://www.epsusa.org/events/aea2007papers/bilmes.htm] What this means to me is that 121 out of 1.3 million servicemembers were charged with murder. That is 1 in 10,743. There are approximately 300 million people in the US, and there were approximately 82,700 murders in the five year period from Jan 2002 thru Dec 2006 or 1 murder for every 3627 citizens. This is not meant to miscompare, as not every murder was committed by a different person. However, I still believe that one can reasonable see that despite the Times best efforts to misrepresent our heroes, I think it is relatively safe to say that a VET is MUCH less likely to commit murder than the AVERAGE citizen - despite their PTSD and TBI for which the Times appears to blame all of our horrific attrocities...
The NY Times also explains "to compile and analyze its list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families, the victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.
This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges." First of all, although they openly admit that they're data collection is flawed, what grossly offends me is the language "most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases" - the implication being that there are many, many more such heinous murders committed by US Vets. Well, I contend, then they should've done better research, if they are going to make these kinds of claims!
The same Media that demand their freedoms (e.g. of speech, of press, from religion) criticize, defame and ridicule those that fight to protect those rights. This is a greater hypocracy than I can possibly fathom. The purpose, of course, is another underhanded attempt by the media to turn public opinion against this war. I guess they realize that the average American is either too busy or too naive to bother to do their own research and will simply "ACCEPT" the lies and mistruths they are spoonfed. Please don't allow yourselves to be lied to and misled by our media.
Don't take my word for it, here are two more articles with similar rational and FAIR comparison of the statistics: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080114134026.aspx or http://www.moveamericaforward.org/index.php/MAF/FullNewsItem/breaking_news_maf_exposes_new_york_times_for_erroneous_killer_vet_report/
Please don't accept MEDIA PROPOGANDA!
Michael
