Radical Cross Stitch

And not just for all the usual reasons like the immorality of the concept, and the fact that it’s about a bunch of rich guys sending in poor guys to be fodder over their resource wars.  But lately war seems to be REALLY messing up the soldiers.  Sure there was a lot of depression after the 20th century wars and there’s been some nasty shit happen after the Agent Orange revoltingness.  But I just don’t get why it’s so much worse for the US troops in Iraq.  Aside from the fact that 1/4 of them have either committed/attempted or seriously contemplated suicide since returning home.  Get this story:

A survey of public records by the New York Times found at least 121 US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing or were charged with one after returning home from duty. The Times said the numbers indicated a nearly 90 per cent increase in homicides involving active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the period since 2001. Saying its research was likely to have uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, the Times found three-quarters of the veterans charged were still in the military at the time of the killings, more than half of which involved guns. Twenty-five of the offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving. The Times said about one-third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, while 25 per cent were fellow service members.

Jesus.

I have a cross stitch on this subject in process.  Stay tuned.