Myth of the 'Murderous' War Veteran

It is high time that something is done to debunk the fiction-as-fact theory that ‘war veterans are freakish killers’

By ALAN DAWSON

Late at night, no longer able to stand the haunting flashback visions of his demeaning wartime experiences, a young man dons his old combat camouflage shirt, picks up a kitchen knife, walks gently to the bedside of his sleeping children… In the movies, that is.

And once again in the press, where the facts have never been allowed to get in the way of the great story that _ beginning 40 years ago _ unpopular wars turned US military veterans pretty much into mushy-brained victims of brutal wars that left them just a clock-tick away from violence.

Hollywood has bought that and enthusiastically fed two generations with the most appalling visions of ex-GIs, dedicated to bloodshed on themselves, their families and random passers-by.

In the horror movie Blood of Ghastly Horror aka The Fiend With the Electronic Brain, a brain chip inserted to make Vietnam veteran Joe Corey normal (because the war made him so abnormal) ends up turning him into a homicidal killer. The coming back monster, beginning shortly after the Vietnam War ended _ in the late 1970s _ became a Hollywood staple…

Eventually, last September to be exact, academics got hold of the issue and made it into sort of a joke as they always do. At a British seminar on ”Monsters and the Monstrous” at Oxford last year, Amaya Muruzabal of the Spanish University of Navarra, argued about such films that ”the fear the veteran incites is closely related to his condition of witness and actor in the ineffable experience of the evil”, meaning the war.

But all joking aside, anti-veteran films have become a major Hollywood genre. The male support for Oscar-winning Charlize Theron in Monster is pathetic vet Bruce Dern. Tim Robbins’ character in Jacob’s Ladder is a mental case because of all that Vietnam war service he did. And _ are you talking to me? _ Taxi Driver Travis, the brilliant character created by Robert De Niro, is deranged on account of the Vietnam War and capitalism.

The press and the movies have fed each other the tasty bits of the enraged, post-traumatic, stressed and murderous veteran until it seems they actually believe one of the most heinous of all stereotypes of the 20th century. Even the pro-Vietnam veteran movie The Deer Hunter of 1978 is most remembered for the lunatic GI Nick (Christopher Walken) who blew off his head in a Russian roulette gambling den. (As an aside, people still ask me how realistic that totally made-up movie was.)

So many segments of the US and other populations wanted so much that the Iraq and anti-terrorist wars be another Vietnam conflict that it was no surprise that The New York Times opened another sub-plot in the ”veterans are freakish killers” story line of this continuing fiction.

The world’s press bought right into the Times’ Sunday piece that its reporters ”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”. The story was so important it ran 7,000 words, about 900% longer than this column, and it had two bylines, the ultimate proof of importance and reliability.

The only problem was this piece on the random actions of some young Americans was not at all reliable, no more significant than the late-night actions of the young, American Spears sisters, and not nearly so entertaining as John Rambo’s ex-commander explaining to the local yokels that ”You’re goddamn lucky he didn’t kill all of you” because, after all, Rambo was a Vietnam vet.

Monday morning headlines in newspapers around the world parroted the Times’ smear. ”Veterans relive the trauma of war in [their] home streets,” was the way the Sydney Morning Herald put it. ”Veterans are killing at home after combat,” was the typical headline on a US TV station, and the Reuters news agency headlined to the world that there has been a ”Rise in homicides by US Iraq war vets” _ which wasn’t really even what the silly Times’ story said.

Tragic victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome got the boots in with newspaper columns and blogs headlined like: ”Plight of America’s soldiers doesn’t concern Bush.”

Well… Some claim that the Times had 7,000 words of fluff. That is far too kind. The story was nothing less than another major smear against US war veterans, based on nothing more than preconceptions by the reporters, newspaper editors or both, and illustrated with anecdotes of the most misleading sort.

The bottom line on this shameful story is that if every fact cited holds up, the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war have committed fewer violent crimes than any other group of their peers, meaning military-aged Americans and legal immigrants to the United States. For example, official figures of the US Department of Justice on homicides in the United States by year show that about 12.65 people between 18 and 24 and 13.5 people between 25 and 34 commit a murder out of every 100,000 Americans. Those are the ages of the US military.

But about 2 million Americans have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres. The 120 murders by male veterans and one by a female veteran cited by the newspaper report works out to about 6 out of every 100,000.

Of course there is no chance at all of seeing this headline: ”Newspaper study indicates military service reduces murder rates by combat veterans by 50%.” That wouldn’t make news, any more than a page full of stories about how Vietnam and Iraq veterans became bankers, airline pilots and newspaper reporters.

It would, however, be a start to ending the undeserved stereotype of monstrous US combat veterans, a stereotype begun, and nowadays largely fostered, simply to back up and justify political prejudices.

It could focus attention on the tiny minority of veterans who are truly troubled, and work on ways to ameliorate and eventually prevent extreme cases of post-traumatic stress from the battlefields.

And here’s a thought for the news media: It would also be more accurate.

Alan Dawson served in the US Army in Vietnam and reported from that war zone for nine years.

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