Here is an article in a military-town newspaper — a paper that generally misses no opportunity to bash the town’s biggest employer. They ran the Times piece and faced a subscriber and advertiser revolution. Then, somewhat belatedly and under pressure, they did what no one else has done: compare GI crimes in the years since 9/11 with GI crimes in the years before.

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=283595

“Twelve Fort Bragg soldiers have been accused of killing 13 people in the six-plus years since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Observer records. In the six years before the terrorist attacks, 16 Fort Bragg soldiers were accused of killing 18 people.”

Fort Bragg is the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, the Special Forces command and school and two SF Groups, and various other special operations units.

These elements probably have been more deployed and in more actual fighting than anybody else in the military. They’ve lost more lives and friends and arms and legs than anybody. They’ve definitely killed more enemies than anybody (unless you’re Pinch, who sees these things in reverse). So they ought, if the Times’s theory is solid, to be nuttier and more violent than anybody.

Every homicide is a multidimensional human tragedy, but the Times’s attempt to label me and every other GWOT vet a murderer is a crime.

I can only assume that their advertisers, too, hate us, and are determined not to take any of our blood money.