Reporters are crazy on the subject of people who serve in the military.
I don't mean that they're rabid, soldier hating libruls; I just mean that their logic circuits seem to be utterly short-circuited by the news that people were soldiers once, and young. The name "Vietnam", (and increasingly, Iraq) is like the secret brainwashing code word in a bad forties movie; it causes reporters to print, without questioning them, awful statistics.
I noticed this in 2005, when it came to my attention that the UPI had uncritically passed along the news that 300,000 of the homeless were veterans, half of them Vietnam-era veterans.
Let's unpack this number. About 2 million people in America are though to be homeless, but the overwhelming majority of them--about 90%--are not actually what we think about when we think of homelessness, which is to say someone living on the street. They're people living in long-term shelters, with relatives or friends--in far from ideal housing situations that the government wants to get them out of. Unsurprisingly, these tend to be single mothers with children; the government is far less predisposed to care if a 25 year old man has to crash on a friend's couch for weeks at a time.
Then you have the hard core: the chronic, or streeted homeless. These are the overwhelmingly male cadre that most of us associate with homelessness: the panhandlers, the crazy guy who talks to himself and walks around in a t-shirt in January. There are 200-300K of them total.
Next time someone panhandles you, take a careful look at him. Is he in his fifties or sixties? You'll notice he is not. That is because, tragically, homeless people who live on the street tend to die very young. Almost all of them have severe mental illnesses, drug/alchohol problems, or both. Even if they weren't living on the street, these things would kill them young, but sleeping outside tends to bring on pneumonia, and the homeless are very frequently victims of violence.
But Vietnam ended in 1975. Since it took about a year to get shipped to Vietnam, and the youngest you could enlist was 17 (the draft started at 18) the very youngest any Vietnam vet could possibly have been was 47. But that isn't the likely age, because most vets were older than 17, and the conflict peaked in 1967. Most Vietnam era vets are now in their late fifties. It should have taken ten minutes to dismiss this claim as ludicrous claptrap from an overeager advocacy group. Instead, the innumerate reporter with a poor grasp of history printed it on a newswire service. It's still showing up on liberal blogs.
The New York Times is apparently not content with passing along those sorts of silly numbers; it wants to make up its own. I'm just sort of flabbergasted. Did the reporters really not realize that they should, um, check the murder rate among the general population, and see if it was, like, lower than the rate among returning Iraq veterans, before they, um, published a story claiming that war is turning Our Fine Boys and Girls into Psychotic Killers?
I went into the article thinking no, the conservative bloggers must be being unfair. But it's not only that bad; it's worse. More than 20% of these psychotic murders are . . . drunken driving incidents. Yes, the New York Times has discovered, with great fanfare, that military-aged males like to consume alchohol and then drive home. The one thing it apparently wasn't able to discover is how many people have served in Iraq/Afghanistan--or at least, I can't find that number in the article. Nor did they take the seemingly blindingly obvious step of using that number to generate a homicide rate and then comparing that against the general population. I mean, it's possible that the rate is higher--I would assume that, ceteris paribus, people in the military are less likely to commit homicide, so maybe service is turning them into gun-crazed lunatics. But the New York Times article certainly doesn't offer any evidence to convince me that it is so.
I don't, by the way, think that this is some sort of liberal media conspiracy, before the commenters start in. I think that reporters are often innumerate, and too willing to believe bizarre things about combat troops because they've never actually met any.
Look, what you're saying has a lot of merit. I think the question, though, isn't just whether the murder rate is lower or higher than the general population, but check it against other people of similar demographic makeup to the troops. Our vets, for example, are overwhelmingly high school graduates; they are (by the numbers) not among the poorest Americans; they attend college at a higher rate than the general population. How does the murder rate among our recently returned vets compare to those demographic groups? Simply comparing their murder rate to the general murder rate, I think you'll agree, is insufficient.
Now, this: I think that reporters are often innumerate, and too willing to believe bizarre things about combat troops because they've never actually met any.
That's simply unfair, and beneath you. The ability to be snookered by evidence from anecdote (or evidence from too small a sample size, etc.) is hardly a failing only found among the left. And, by the way, I am quite certain that the New York Times has many combat reporters who know many, many more of our troops than you. This, really, isn't just a smear of the reporters at the New York Times (and not a particularly coherent one, at that.) It's another in the long line of unfounded and cruel attempts to paint a broad stereotype, of the clueless and uncaring anti-war urban leftist. Do you really think there's no one at the Times with a soldier in the Armed Forces? That the Times has no one in the Reserve? And is that some kind of purity test, now? To be able to empathize and care about the troops requires that you be personally connected to them?
Don't scuttle your objections, and demean them, by attaching a silly, intellectually shallow, and unfair caricature of the Times (or the people it represents as a cultural icon). These are complicated issues, the question deserves to be asked. To whatever degree the Times has failed to live up to its journalistic standards, it deserves criticism. (I'll save the fact that the conservative media is held to almost no journalistic standards whatsoever for a different time.) But please, don't invoke these kind of demeaning, broad stereotypes. That's no way to pursue the truth.
Freddie,
Your idea that the members of the NYTs are not numerically illiterate cannot be substantiated. The bulk of your newspeople are innumerate. Let's take a anedote: A recent Harvard Graduated that posts at the Atlantic: Matthew Yglesias. By his own description of his Harvard Education, suppossidly one of the top schools in the land, he graduated numerically illiterate. Yet no one cares. Would Harvard be a great school if it's graduates could not read?
BTW, I'm not saying this is a liberal issue. Its a newspapermen's issue. Look at any print or internet rag, they are all the same and incredibly bad. USA Today is probably the worst but look at any newspapers housing section (the clearest example). You will see flat out lies and incredibly bad statistics. This is becuase your average liberal arts graduate doesn't have the basic math and statistics to understand the world around them. That is the type you see in the newsrooms, does not matter if it's the NYTs, NBC, Fox, or the Atlantic. How many times have you seen a major article or talking head show that he/she has absolutely no clue of the difference between medium and mean? It's frustrating.
Megan - please keep up the bloggin, still around following you since you were blogging over the world trade center holes. Luck.
There have been some interesting studies on the Vietnam vet issue - I remember hearing from a colleague with an interest in the issue that someone - Veterans' Affairs', perhaps? - had done studies of Vietnam vets and discovered that, on the whole, they had higher educational and income levels than their non-vet peers.
Like all DC residents, I encounter numerous panhandlers, many of them in military-issue jackets that picked up secondhand. They frequently claim to be veterans - and they can usually sustain the story for a line or two:
"I was in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq, man."
"Oh, you were? Which unit?"
Pause.
"I was in the first battalion."
Uh-huh. Of what, you wonder. If you know something about the Army, that is.
Never fails. Ever. And I'm betting a lot of reporters wouldn't realize that they're getting a load of BS when they get that response. My bet is that those polls the times cite tabulate respondents like the above as "vets," without realizing that you don't have to be much of a con artist to fake a service record if you're talknig to people who don't know much about the service - it's a bewildering maze of numbers, titles, acronyms, unfamiliar terms, and slangy jargon like "buffpilot."
I get several journals aimed specifically at electrical/electronic engineers. Even the journalists and editors at these are clearly innumerate, not to mention incapable of recognizing that there is something wrong when their paraphrase of a press release amounts to claiming that the issuers of the press release have demonstrated a working perpetual motion machine.
buffpilot:
Have you ever seen his grammar? Just goes to show that an Ivy League education isn't all it is cracked up to be. As far as reporters in general, they are shallow, lazy and stupid but I bet most of them have met a few troops at least. Look at the run up to the war, and even now. They are basically court stenographers. They uncritically write anything that is handed to them. They aren't much better than WH press releases. It is sad.
I don't think it's necessarily a liberal bias issue, but rather one of bad news selling newspapers. Reporters love bad news, and they love trying to blame it on someone. The first part is why they'd run this story without checking too hard -- they want something sensational. The second is why they're extra eager to run this -- they suppose that somehow this is the President's fault, becuase in the medieval minds of reporters, all news, good or bad, is the fault of the man in charge.
Megan, the reporters who did the story have clearly met very many veterans, including the ones they interviewed for the story. You're engaging in an unsubstianted slur.
They write in the story that they can't get a complete tally of homicides or violent incidents involving Iraq vets because no one tracks systematically whether people committing homicides are vets. What they did do was use a methodology to try and find reports of violent crime involving vets deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 6 years, and then use the same methodology to find reports of violent crime involving vets in the six years before the Iraq war; and they found 89 percent more killings over the last 6 years.
At a basic gut-check level, the idea that having been involved in prolonged life-threatening situations and being encouraged to use lethal violence in response does NOT lead to a higher propensity to violence back home...defies common sense.
No one is claiming that most Iraq vets are violent. The vets and the Pentagon themselves, however, are claiming that a high percentage are suffering emotional difficulties. Quote: "Today the focus is on PTSD, but military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, with an estimated half of the returning National Guard members, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines reporting mental health problems, according to a Pentagon task force."
And in the case of many of the vets who committed homicides, to say that their violent acts bore no relationship to the stress they underwent in war is extremely uncharitable -- in many cases, it seems flat-out wrong.
What you're saying is that if the Times didn't have the data to compare the homicide rate among returned Iraq and Afghanistan vets to the overall homicide rate, they shouldn't have done the story. That's wrong. Those data do not exist; but this remains a solid story.
It's time we somehow publicize widely the fact that reporters are and have always been the bottom-of-the-barrel among the educated, symbolic-manipulator classes. This is the lot that couldn't really make it in business, law, engineering, medicine, consultancy or academics. But it's a great line of work for SEEMING smart, because a lot of people mistake seeing a name in print or a face on a screen as evidence of brains. Hence a magnet for self-important dim-wits.
It's time we somehow publicize widely the fact that reporters are and have always been the bottom-of-the-barrel among the educated, symbolic-manipulator classes. - brm
I've worked as a reporter, my SATs are probably one to two hundred points higher than yours, and, based on your post above, I would hazard that I have never met a reporter as dumb as you are. So go screw yourself.
The general complaint about innumeracy is all too accurate. However, I think Freddie has understated his point. The military screens its recruits -- though probably not as rigorously as it did before things got tough -- to keep out the ones with serious criminal/juvenile records. I bet there is quite a strong correlation between having such a record and committing homicide. The appropriate comparison would be between veterans v. non-veterans among members of those age cohorts without records.
In the absence of such a study, there is of course no statistical basis for this story.
But is it the duty of the media, pending such a study, to ignore anecdotal evidence suggesting that combat service can change some people who experience it in scary ways? (Note emphasis.) Not exactly a new idea.
Which if true is not equivalent to "Soldiers are bad people," but further evidence that war is a bad thing. Which nobody can deny. And only a very few would maintain that it is always the worst possible alternative. The debate is always about whether it is the worst alternative in a particular case. Ignoring any of the costs does not make for good analysis -- prospective or retrospective.
Many journalists came out of the the anti-war movement and are not particularly friendly to the military. While they see themselves as free thinkers and humanitarians, they see soldiers as obedient grunts who like to kill.
So this story is no surprise.
brooksfoe,
Well my gut and common sense doesn't necessarily agree with yours. I find it very believable that it could go the other way - that being exposed to the horror of such violence first hand would make a person better understand its cost and the rarity with which it should be used, disbelieving the cool image it has in the movies, and shying away from it in their life.
But if we were all just going to sit at home believing our priors and trusting our guts, there wouldn't be a need for any articles at all. When we start rolling out statistics and charts, we tend to assume we're talking about some sort of real objective data, which can teach us something about reality beyond just accepting the current beliefs of our guts. So when someone tries to wield statistics to prove their point, and gets the statistics backwards, that's a problem even if their conclusion agrees with your gut.
The problem is that people really like trusting their guts, and they like a good story. They're almost certainly more convinced and moved by the dramatic "he took his AK-47 to the 7-11" narrative in that article than they are by the charts and numbers. Which makes them easy to manipulate, and we ought to be focusing them more on real data (like the murder rate comparison) rather than nodding along with the lamentations of their guts.
Yes, I am, in fact, claiming that if they couldn't compare the homicide rate among veterans to the homicide rate in the general population, they shouldn't have run an article claiming that a surprising number of veterans are killing people. Are you seriously disagreeing with this proposition? It's not like the number of people who have served in IRaq is some unknowable, black box figure; the Pentagon knows the number, and will presumably release it to any reporter who calls them up to ask.
Over a million people have served in Iraq, AFAICT. That 20 of them have been arrested on vehicular manslaughter charges for driving drunk does not mean that they were driven to it by combat; that may be the bog standard rate among people in that age group.
No, it doesn't flunk the gut check test; it's certainly possible that combat makes you violent. But possible!=true, and the New York Times "research" is, not to put too fine a point on it, useless, inummerate garbage.
"I've worked as a reporter, my SATs are probably one to two hundred points higher than yours..."-brooksfoe
When I think of the great minds in history I think of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and brooksfoe. If only the rest of us had that sort of talent...
roac puts it nicely. Think of it this way: Even if you had a study showing a solid, statistically significant correlation between serving in Iraq and committing a homicide, one which showed Iraq vets were twice as likely as the rest of the population to commit a homicide, it would still mean that only a tiny percentage of Iraq vets commit homicides. No one should be objecting that this article tries to paint Iraq vets as homicidal maniacs.
What bugs me is that the "blindingly obvious" steps Megan is recommending are, in several cases, steps that either are not possible, or wouldn't be relevant even if they were possible because other data would remain missing.
I still can't get past the argument in the first half of the post. Did you leave a paragraph out by mistake? You say the claim that 150,000 Viet Nam vets are homeless is "ludicrous claptrap," because of the est. 2 million homeless, only 200–300K fit the "streeted homeless" crazy panhandler stereotype in your mind. I don't see how this remotely resembles a refutation, or even directly addresses the numbers cited. Am I missing something?
It could be that those figures are indeed "claptrap," but you would gain some credibility if you would cite some actual critique of the numbers in the UPI article, rather than just consulting your gut and dismissing them as insufficiently "truthy" for your taste.
Next time someone panhandles you, take a careful look at him. Is he in his fifties or sixties? You'll notice he is not.
Funny you should ask, Megan, because each and every day I see the same three panhandlers on my way to and from work in Boston, and all three of them are over 50.
On my way home I'll be sure to share with them your wonderful post: "Megan McArdle has informed me that you guys are actually pretty few in number, and anyhow, you're just a bunch of crazy t-shirt-wearing non-veterans. Cheer up! And for God's sake, put a coat on, you fakers!"
The appropriate comparison would be between veterans v. non-veterans among members of those age cohorts without records.
I'd be more sympathetic to that defense of the article if it had at any point noted that increased violence among military personnel is still lower than that of the overall population.
It's also odd that they lead off with the story about Matthew Sepi, the "battle-weary grenadier" who shot two armed gangsters who were threatening him, under circumstances that were at least defensible. If Sepi had been unarmed or slower to shoot and had wound up contributing to inflating the murder-by-non-veteran side of the ledger even more, one doesn't get the impression that would have raised such concern in the NYT.
Funny you should ask, Megan, because each and every day I see the same three panhandlers on my way to and from work in Boston, and all three of them are over 50.
Are you coming in on the 2? If so, I've spoken with those guys and you'd be horrified to learn how young they actually are.
"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."
After you get the total number of Iraq and Afghanistan vets, presuming that the Pentagon will hand that figure out (have you in fact asked?), you then divide by...what? Your completely incomplete and unscientific number of homicides by Iraq and Afghan vets. But nobody has a complete, scientific figure on the number of homicides by Iraq and Afghan vets, and the Times lacks the ability to get that stat, among other things because, as it says, it can't always get the deployment history of vets convicted of homicide.
If you have 2 stories of returned vets committing homicides, it's not a story. If you have 10 stories of returned vets committing homicides, it may be a certain kind of story. If you have 121 stories of returned vets committing homicides, there is no question but that it's a story. And anyone who doesn't know that people who spend prolonged periods in war zones often exhibit aberrant stress-related behaviors has not talked to many combat vets, or war reporters or refugees or political prisoners for that matter.
Looks like we will sadly be needing 'Stolen Valor: The Sequel'.
In case anyone's curious, these are some highlights from the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm):
About one-third of the adult homeless population have served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 195,000 veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Many other veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing.
Right now, the number of homeless male and female Vietnam era veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died during that war -- and a small number of Desert Storm veterans are also appearing in the homeless population.
FWIW, most of the street homeless I see under the viaduct and in downtown Honolulu do appear do be at least fifty years of age. Or else hard living just makes them look much older.
Ah, didn't see tinisoli or CC's comment. You may be right, cc.
Sorry, wrong link in my last comment. Here's Dept. of Veterans Affairs: http://www1.va.gov/homeless/page.cfm?pg=1
One more point:
Even if we had a hard number of homicides committed by GWOT veterans and we compared it to various demographics in the general population and found that the vet rate was lower than the general, I'm not sure why this would merit a lack of concern over the homicides committed by veterans. There are various groups of human beings from whom we should, I think, expect behavior that is better than average. Lawmakers or law enforcement officers, for instance, shouldn't break the law. That's why we tend to publicize their lawbreaking when it occurs, and we scarcely bother to compare their rate of lawbreaking with that of the general population. It would also be a story if someone found that physicians are more likely to smoke cigarettes, or if, say, clergymen exhibited a high rate of pedophilia. Oh wait...
Anyhow, if Megan doesn't think that veterans should be held to a higher standard, fine. But I wish she'd say so instead of writing this off as a case of innumerate, biased journalists.
Look, what you're saying has a lot of merit. I think the question, though, isn't just whether the murder rate is lower or higher than the general population, but check it against other people of similar demographic makeup to the troops. Our vets, for example, are overwhelmingly high school graduates; they are (by the numbers) not among the poorest Americans; they attend college at a higher rate than the general population. How does the murder rate among our recently returned vets compare to those demographic groups? Simply comparing their murder rate to the general murder rate, I think you'll agree, is insufficient
You're completely right, that's exactly how this analysis should be done. And it would have been really awesome if the NYT had done that, because it would have, you know, been meaningful. Instead, what we got was no comparison whatsoever. It's not a left-right issue, it's a question of having a fucking clue, and it's all too evident that many reporters don't.
The question that the article asks is an interesting and important one. Unfortunately, the piece of "journalism" that they've done to investigate it is absolutely useless, except as further evidence of innumeracy on the part of the people who are supposed to be investigating and explaining the world to the average joe.
But why did they choose to write about this subject? If they did an article about the crimes comitted in Houston and elsewhere by people who left New Orleans people would interpretate it as a racial attack article. And front page plus two full pages in the first section on Sunday? Wake me when they do a front page spread on crimes comitted by illegal aliens.
Thanks, Megan. That was exactly my question before I'd even finished the headline.
I was resigned to having to scan the whole article before finding and answer. (Why does the "pyramid" so often end up burying the key facts?) I was not expecting to find a complete absence of the crucial information.
Journalistic innumeracy is truly rampant, right and left. But it's even more rampant in the general population. Not only is basic stats absent from most college requirements, it doesn't even get a glance in high school. Even in top-notch private schools, it's generally relegated to a senior elective (at best).
Even a day or a week of basic stats concepts would go a long, long way to improving the judgment of our electorate--their ability to distinguish between reasoned statements and crap.
What are correlation and causation and how can they be demonstrated? Why is standard D useful in comparing groups of things? What are the numerical and "truthiness" implications of false positives and false negatives? What is multiple regression analysis, and what are its powers and limitations?
People don't need to understand or do the deep maths. They do need to know when those maths haven't been done.
Basic stats is necessary for reading the daily newspaper intelligently. Why are algebra and trig taught instead?
Hi Megan. I'm a blogger at Crooked Timber. I'm going to rationalize away the errors in reporting.
First, I'm going to conjure up a completely implausible scenario that would make the figures about right.
Then, I'm going to justify any error on the grounds that the "jist" of the story is right, and for policy concerns, it doesn't matter if the number is this high or that low, and the only reason to bicker over these figures is if you're a dangerous right-winger who wants war at any cost.
Over the course of the post, I'll make sure to insult you and those who agree with you, in various ways, some of which are subtle.
Finally, I'll make some tenuous connection to how George W. Bush is anti-science.
Thanks for listening, and have a *great* day.
"my SATs are probably one to two hundred points higher than yours"
Yes, because a test everyone took when they are 16 years old is an indicator of current intelligence. Anyways, it's not that reporters aren't smart, it's that the search for the big story leads them to be uncritical when one passes by their desk.
It could also be that there are a lot of reporters and it only takes one of them to propagate a fake story. Even if 95% of them reject it, there's probably enough left to get it published and turn it into a big story the general public will eat up.
I know this one journalist who wrote an article/post titled "150,000 deaths in Iraq after invasion". But of course, that wasn't true. The number was really more around 400,000. This journalist failed to correct the number.
I've worked as a reporter, my SATs are probably one to two hundred points higher than yours, and, based on your post above, I would hazard that I have never met a reporter as dumb as you are. So go screw yourself.
Posted by brooksfoe
So what explains: David Brooks, Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman, Krauthammer, George Will, Faux Noise, any of the reporters on CNN and everyone on air at MSNBC(except Keith Olbermann and David Shuster)? Are they all that lazy and stupid? Do you care that they give your profession and by extension you, a bad name?
Where were you with this pronouncement when all the innumerate conservatives were slamming the Lancet study? Did you point out then that it's basic statistics to show that the latest study is actually in agreement with the Lancet one?
Or do you only make this sort of criticism when 'liberals' get it wrong?
Oh, I haven't read the story, but if what Megan says is true, then yeah, these guys come across as a pack of clueless innumerates who are more interested in a hook and truthiness than actual reality.
And this is exactly right. Not hard to figure out, folks.
Why must an article prove via statistical analysis that Group A kills at a higher rate than Group B before the article can state that 'many people in Group A are committing homicide and this may be surprising to some people'?
I am surprised that so many priests molest young boys, and it's not because I am inadequately aware of the rate of child molestation among the general population; it's because we're talking about PRIESTS. I am surprised that so many lawmakers break the law, and it's not because I'm ignorant of how much crime the rest of us commit; it's because they are supposed to make the law, not break it. I am surprised that Hall-of-Fame caliber baseball players would feel the need to become superheroes by taking steroids, and it's not because I'm unaware of how many younger athletes or non-stars are doing the same thin; it's because they've already made millions and achieved fame.
I don't think people should expect veterans to be any better or worse when it comes to abiding laws here in America, but I suspect that a great many people do have that expectation OR they worry that the particular circumstances of today's wars (vague goals, vague enemy, multiple tours, indifferent President) may indeed be leading to a spike in home front violence. Why is it so bizarre that a newspaper would attempt to look into this story?
roac wrote: Why do I think that the writer of this (1) wishes the NY Times would do such an article (2) because it would demonstratate the inherent criminality of black people? (And ditto regarding illegal aliens.)
Because a routing error at the robot factory sent you down the wrong assembly line. Your designer actually meant for you to be one of these.
Why is it so bizarre that a newspaper would attempt to look into this story?
It's not bizarre that they would "attempt to look into" it, it's annoying that they would substitute a mishmash of irrelevant or incomplete statistics for actually looking into it.
But why does this story's legitimacy depend entirely on this question of statistical significance? You guys seem to be paying very little attention to the possibility that many or most readers might find it surprising that 121 violent deaths here in America were the result of veterans' actions, regardless of how that number or rate compares with those in other demographics. Readers might also find it surprising or disturbing that some of these homicides occurred because soldiers were suffering from PTSD and/or behaving as if they were still in a combat zone. They may, for instance, find this passage about Vietnam veterans (all of whom Megan thinks are older than 50 and therefore incapable of being homeless) interesting and perhaps foreboding:
Half of the veterans with active PTSD had been arrested or in jail at least once, and 34.2 percent more than once. Some 11.5 percent of them had been convicted of felonies, and veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than nonveterans, according to government studies.
Yes, perhaps on further inspection we should conclude that today's veterans are actually less likely to commit murder than non-veterans, but does that mean anything in terms of the likelihood that if those troops had not gone through months or years or trauma in today's wars that they probably would not have killed anyone here in America? And does it mean we should not pay attention or consider what the hell is going on when a returned soldier shoots two people in an alley because he thinks he's still on patrol in Iraq?
How about suicide? Might there be tragic causal relationship between the wartime experiences of troops and their decisions to kill themselves? Should we ignore that too, lest we alter the Coulter/Kristol archetype of the golden, glorious warrior waging war against the evil Islamofascists?
"...Veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.) One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)"
Why 121? Where do you draw the line? The article left out a lot of context that could tell you if 121 really was a significant number.
If 1-2 million people really have served in the war over the same time period, 121 seems pretty small. But even the 121 is not necessarily a complete number. So they wrote an article based on an inomplete number without giving any kind of context or doing any kind of statistical analysis or doing any kind of comparison to other populations. Hm.
Hilariously, the lead-off story is possibly a legitimate case of self-defense. As was mentioned above, 25 were drunk driving accidents. This leaves 96 killings.
Another example they list is a soldier killing someone who is stealing his car. Then killing himself.
On page 2 of the article, the Pentagon brings up some legitimate concerns that were not addressed in the article.
Here's another of their examples:
She did what? He obviously shouldn't have killed her, but couldn't they have found examples where a soldier really did just snap and kill someone without provocation?
Another example... veteran's pregnant wife says she wants to leave him. So he kills her and himself. Again, obviously he did the wrong thing, but I see a motive here other than his service...
I love this line...
Since when is "gun ownership" some kind of problem? I bet they show higher rates of fatigue ownership, too. And higher rates of using military jargon. Let's just quietly throw "gun ownership" in with a bunch of pathological behavior as though it were a mental problem.
I'm sure that some soldiers are driven to violence by their experience in war. I'm sure that some soldiers are neglected by the military. But the article here does nothing to really describe the problem. Do we have a massive, systematic problem of soldiers driven to violence and ignored? Or do we have a problem of a few soldiers falling through the cracks? Do most soldiers do just fine and it's the rare exception that has a problem? Or do most soldiers have problems and it's the rare exception who is okay? The article makes lots of emotional statements and draws conclusions without really backing them up at all.
I don't expect reporters to solve the problems they report on, but I would like them to accurately report on the nature of the problem.
EI
"Yes, I am, in fact, claiming that if they couldn't compare the homicide rate among veterans to the homicide rate in the general population, they shouldn't have run an article claiming that a surprising number of veterans are killing people."
They should not be comparing it to the rate of the general population. The military is overwhelmingly male and young. This demographic has much higher rates for things like homicide, suicide, drunk driving, drug abuse.
The NYT article states that 20% of the incidents in this "cross-country trail of death and heartbreak" were due to drunk/reckless/suicidal driving. It is really news that young males are more prone to DUI?
This is where "studies" like this one and others on suicide rates, homelessness etc. go off track as they always compare the military to the general population.
SOV,
Actually, if you had bothered to read it, you would have found the new Iraq War death study shows the orginal one to be a pile of horse manure- or vice versa. You can't claim they give the same results, however.
You guys seem to be paying very little attention to the possibility that many or most readers might find it surprising that 121 violent deaths here in America were the result of veterans' actions...
I'm not surprised. We have millions of veterans, some of whom were probably borderline criminal even before they did a harsh tour as uniformed air-conditioning repairmen in Texas. Some of them commit murders after they get out, just like some people commit murder even though they have never faced serious trauma.
Statistical significance--or, really, just a vague gesture in the general direction of statistical relevance--is the only thing that makes this story interesting or worth writing at all. "Some people kill other people" is not an important headline. "Vets kill people because combat drives them over the edge" is.
So yes, I expect them to get the math right rather than make up the conclusion first.
maybe it's too much Bastiat, but I'll cross-post this:
why isn't anyone linking the NYT emotion-fest with the bill, winding its way through Congress, to disarm(bar from gun ownership) returning Iraq-War veterans (?)
http://www.veteransnetwork.net/archives.php?edition=18
Posted by MEH | January 14, 2008 12:52 PM
cdeegan,
"Within the general population, going back to World War I, combat veterans historically are twice as likely to die of suicide as the nonveteran. Within the current Army, the rate of suicide is the highest it has been in the 26 years that records have been kept." (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565407)
They are also more likely to suffer from PTSD, which very often goes hand-in-hand with alcohol or drug abuse:
"Vietnam combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who had requested treatment through a special VA-sponsored PTSD treatment program were evaluated using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). Based on the DIS, 91.12% of the sample had a lifetime diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence and this was, by far, the most frequent co-diagnosis in the sample."
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/q113335831r77717/)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And claims require evidence. Anecdotes are not evidence.
If you want to say something, especially if you are "all the news that's fit to print", you should have done your homework and actually demonstrate what you claim. These basic questions by people on the internet should be answered in the article itself (it wasn't like it was short or anything), as they are basic questions that go to the heart of correlation vs causality.
There are a few war reporters who have met many, many soldiers. So 10-30 people at the NYT have met 100s if not thousands of soldiers. The NYT employs over 350 staff reporters and a total of 10,000 people. Reporters, as a group (especially at the NYT), are exceptionally unlikely to know soldiers, given where they work and live. Many of them are PROUD of their innumeracy, and are far more concerned about how many novels they have read rather than their ability to read or understand a basic mathematical proof, evaluate the appropriateness of an investment for their personal situation, or determine if a new medication is helpful.
To brooksfoe's internet stats waving. Um, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that very many of the commenters here would make your statement of being 100-200 points better on the SAT impossible. You should also remember that the College Board publicly claims an error of +- 40 points (http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/scores/understanding/scorerange.html).
Superiority based on a 100 point difference in scores is evidence of innumeracy, especially if you have a score close to the max. But then if you were as smart as you claim to be, you would know this, and you would be able to demonstrate your intelligence and prowess simply through your prose .
tinisoli, the Medscape article provides no actual data. Saying that "Within the current Army, the rate of suicide is the highest it has been in the 26 years that records have been kept" is somewhat disingenuous since the suicide rate in the Army is less than the comparable demographic in the general population.
Also, "Vietnam combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who had requested treatment through a special VA-sponsored PTSD treatment program...91.12% of the sample had a lifetime diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence"
means nothing. That veterans suffering from PTSD to an extent that they would request treatment in a special program also suffer from a very high rate of substance abuse is unsurprising. Again, for this to mean anything you would need to compare it to rates for civilians suffering from extreme PTSD.
I don’t, by the way, think that this is some sort of liberal media conspiracy, before the commenters start in. I think that reporters are often innumerate, and too willing to believe bizarre things about combat troops because they’ve never actually met any.
Or met any that they knew were once combat troops.
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "You were in (pause) the Marines? But you don't _look_ like a Marine" .. well I wouldn't be rich but I could buy a nice dinner for two.
A surprising number of former service members go on to lead productive, rich and successful lives. It's just that we look like everyone else.
I don’t, by the way, think that this is some sort of liberal media conspiracy, before the commenters start in. I think that reporters are often innumerate, and too willing to believe bizarre things about combat troops because they’ve never actually met any.
Or met any that they knew were once combat troops.
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "You were in (pause) the Marines? But you don't _look_ like a Marine" .. well I wouldn't be rich but I could buy a nice dinner for two.
A surprising number of former service members go on to lead productive, rich and successful lives. It's just that we look like everyone else.
Kolohe
FWIW, most of the street homeless I see under the viaduct and in downtown Honolulu do appear do be at least fifty years of age. Or else hard living just makes them look much older.
The way to bet is the latter one. Most of us have no idea what decades of outdoor living can do to a person. I met my platoon sergeant as a young just out of bootcampe Marine; he looked like he was 40 years old - easily as old as most of our fathers. Leathery skin, deep tan, gray and somewhat wrinkled.
He was 28. He'd spent the entire previoius ten years in the Fleet as a grunt.
brm: It's time we somehow publicize widely the fact that reporters are and have always been the bottom-of-the-barrel among the educated, symbolic-manipulator classes. This is the lot that couldn't really make it in business, law, engineering, medicine, consultancy or academics.
I'm a reporter. And I never wanted to go into law, engineering, medicine, or academics. I have done some work as a consultant on the side.
I've always wanted to be a writer, and that's what I do now. That's true for a lot of us, which is partly why many of us are bad with numbers. I'm terrible with numbers myself, but I didn't flunk out of business or law school.
That's true for a lot of us, which is partly why many of us are bad with numbers. I'm terrible with numbers myself
The problem isn't that some (most?) reporters are bad with numbers, it's that many (most?) of them and their editors aren't even aware of the weakness. Nobody in their right mind would hire me to write about opera, because I know nothing about opera. Why do newspapers allow people who know nothing about numbers (or any of a plethora of other topics) to write about them?
It's only a story if it's an unusual number. If it's not, then it's dog-bites-man. Simply throwing out the number "121" does not make it unusual. Without a denominator, there's no story.
(Consider it this way, so that we don't have an issue which reinforces your left-wing prejudices: If you have 121 stories of black people committing murder, does that make it a "Story" rather than just 121 individual incidents of crime? Of course not. (Indeed, no reporter would touch that "story" with a 10 foot pole even if the 121 were extremely disproportionate.))
The way to bet is the latter one. Most of us have no idea what decades of outdoor living can do to a person.
...and worse, if the environment is harsh enough.
When I was in high school, my American History teacher happened to have collected some photographs of people from the Great Depression. In one case, he presented a picture of a an elderly dustbowl farm couple that, at a glance, appeared to have the features of at least a 78 year old (her) and an 85-90 year old (him). He then asked us to guess their ages, and got answers in that general range.
Nope, he replied; they were both in their early-to-mid thirties.
You apparently haven't read them, but I have. Yes, they give the same results for overall deaths. I know you don't like it, but really, statistics trumps ideology.
But thanks for letting me know that you are an innumerate.
quote------
If they did an article about the crimes comitted in Houston and elsewhere by people who left New Orleans people would interpretate it as a racial attack article.
Why do I think that the writer of this (1) wishes the NY Times would do such an article (2) because it would demonstratate the inherent criminality of black people? (And ditto regarding illegal aliens.)
end quote-----
so what do you think about the NY Times doing this to our military?
Nah, no bias here, just move along. 47 front page stories on Abu-Graihb, none on military valor. Even the Medal Of Honor winner buried on page A4, I think. Are you people kidding me? No agenda my a**!.
"There is none so blind as he who will not see."
The New York Times editor(s) could've easily been charged with a federal crime for divulging signals intelligence info. See US Criminal code Sec. 798 title 18:
"Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information . . . concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States . . . shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
A political decision not to, of course...just like the decision not to prosecute the traitor Jane Fonda.
A Vet in Georgia
"I've worked as a reporter, my SATs are probably one to two hundred points higher than yours, and, based on your post above, I would hazard that I have never met a reporter as dumb as you are. So go screw yourself."
On what basis could you advance such claims? Oh, right, none. But you've worked as a reporter, so I guess facts and numbers are inherently flexible to you.
I have to admit, the dumbest people in my liberal arts college all wanted to be teachers or journalists. The brightest ones wanted to be scientists, doctors, lawyers, or bankers.
Every question deserves a respectful answer. My answer to this one is that there are two answers, depending on what you mean by "the military": The military as an institution, or the individuals who serve and have served in the military.
If you mean the institution, I think the article is suggesting that the military may not be doing an adequate job to help individuals who may have been injured psychologically by their combat service. I think it is entirely fair to expect the military to look into this possibility. Especially given the convincing recent evidence that the military has not been providing adequate support to its members who have been physically injured in the service.
On the other hand, I think it is legitimate to fear the creation of a stereotype of the "crazy-Iraq-vet." The crazy-Vietnam-vet was for many years one of the staple bad guys used by lazy writers for movies and TV, which was certainly unfair to the many, many non-crazy Vietnam vets, and may have been actually detrimental to some of them. So yes, I agree to some extent with what you I think you are saying. But I don't think we should let that consideration stop us from making sure that people get help who need it.
[I add that I myself served in the Army in Vietnam. To the extent that I am crazy, I do not believe Vietnam had anything to do with it. But I did not serve in combat which is an enormously important distinction.]
If the intent of this article was to highlight the failure of the military to care for the psychological needs of soldiers who have served in the military, it did not do a very good job. Instead of highlighting the killing spree that has spread across the country like wildfire, it should have highlighted the human misery of the soldiers who have returned to civilian life. It could have done this by talking to soldiers who haven't done anything violent but who are, instead, suffering the effects of PTSD.
It could have been a great story of how our soldiers struggle with the effects of war and how we have failed to help them adapt to civilian life. Those who returned and killed would have been a legitimate part of the story without having to pretend that soldiers are a danger to society because of their propensity for violence.
EI
I am a Vietnam combat veteran.
There is no doubt that a significant part of the homelessness that returning Vietnam veterans and post WWII veterans have faced is the result of intentional discrimination against the same in employment and education. Feminism, affirmative action, anti-veteran legislation (such as veterans preference laws which required them to identify themselves as veterans but which had no enforcement provisions), and other laws have been used to establish and promulgate veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, as a class of individuals whose persecution is seen as a means of establishing and maintaining the new social order, an order in which women, minorities, and others have granted themselves privilege.
The homelessness of veterans can be seen as a result of societys choices to maintain a social order more than individual choices of veterans to become homeless.
Why is there so much difficulty in finding recruits for our armed forces?
Why must they pay recruits $20,000-$40,000 sign on bonuses?
Why must they pay mercenaries $10,000 or more per month because they do not have enough soldiers in Iraq?
Why is there so much difficulty in finding recruits willing to be combat foot soldiers?
Why are the standards for military enlistment been significantly lowered because of enlistment problems?
The answer to the same, in my opinion, lies in the premises which I have already stated.
Re: At a basic gut-check level, the idea that having been involved in prolonged life-threatening situations and being encouraged to use lethal violence in response does NOT lead to a higher propensity to violence back home...defies common sense
I don't see why. When people are "back home" they are rarely, if ever, exposed to the sorts of stumuli that they were trained to respond to violently in combat.
Re: every day I see the same three panhandlers on my way to and from work in Boston, and all three of them are over 50.
Have you seen their ID? If not don't assume what their age is. They probably look 10 or even 20 years older than their calendar age. The homeless guys (and occasional homeless woman) I see here in S. Forida all look horribly old at first sight, but if you look closer most of them aren't much over 40.
I couldn't read all of the comments, so I apologize if someone made these points.
Comparing 6 years since the start of the war and 6 years before the war for news reports involving military personnel or veterans will not yield any useful data. Prior to Afghanistan and Iraq, there was no real war to be blamed, so the news reports wouldn't necessarily note the killers' veteran status or contain comments from distraught parents saying things like "He just got back from a tour of duty in Germany and he couldn't readjust to civilian life because of the lack of morally casual Teutonic women and tasty, high alcohol beer."
Also, someone commented on the Veteran suicide reports as evidence that, even if they're not murdering people at an alarming rate (or mowing them down when they're drunk), they are damaged goods. However, I am pretty sure that the suicide report also failed to compare Veterans' suicide rates to comparable age groups.
About Vietnam vets and homelessness, Vietnam vets can't be compared to today's GWOT vets. First, many Vietnam vets were drafted and wanted nothing to do with the war. Second, while not all of America rolls out the red carpet for GWOT vets, they certainly get better treatment from the general public than the Vietnam vets did. Being called a murderer and a baby-killer by your fellow countrymen may well be more damaging psychologically (especially if you were sent involuntarily) than having seen the consequences of the fighting in the GWOT. Third, due to the draft and the military's higher standards, the average GWOT vet is better educated and less likely to have a criminal background that Vietnam vets. In contrast, vets with criminal histories, especially including those with jail time, are much more likely to find themselves out of a job and out on the street. Also, many returning Vietnam vets, especially anti-war vets, embraced a culture that encouraged drug use, free love and a certain amount of vagabondish behavior.
I have no links or numbers to support these assertions -- just my gut. I am confident that I could do some digging and find data or links to back up my feelings. But then again, I'm not a reporter for the paper of record publishing a lengthy article that smears -- intentionally or negligently -- Afghanistan and Iraq veterans.
I think the public and especially our veterans deserve better.
If you want to see a great doc about homeless Iraq war veterans, check out http://www.whenicamehome.com
I saw this film at Tribeca and was blown away.
We have to do more to support or veterans.
Hi, I hate to burst your bubble on this, but your facts on homelessness are just plain wrong. The largest truth about homelessness is that no one has any hard data about the homeless population. Just check with all the different organizations that claim to deal with homelessness, they all state something different - unless they are plagerizing someone else's bad information.
brooksfoe: as a Vietnam vet, I take umbrage at your claim that there are no murder rates available for the general US population. The latest (2006) FBI statistics show that there were 17,399 murders in the US. Broken down that would be 5.80 murders per 100,000 people. (male & female) The male ONLY rate would be 7.67 murders per 100,000 people. (remember women aren't supposed to be in combat)
Your bs attack on the columnist doesn't hold up to even the mildest scutiny! (it took me 5 minutes to find these statistics on NewsBusters) The "N.Y Crimes" story wasn't researched at all and violates even the most liberal rules of journalism! It's a liberal pandering, puff-piece that lacks any credibility! (unless your Kool-Aid drinking makes you SO lazy you won't check facts)
As I said, I'm a vet and I KNOW how the military is about handling weapons! If you were to only DROP your weapon, (in basic training) you'd be pushing terra firma away from you, until the DI got tired of seeing you do push-ups! ACCIDENTLY point a weapon at someone? Automatic Article 15!!! (non-judicial punishment, fines, reduction in rank &/or restriction) ACCIDENTLY shoot someone? Automatic court marshal! (reduction to lowest rank, imprisonment &/or dishonorable discharge)
That's why you're 5 times more safe with a male veteran than the average "Joe on the street"! Those are the statistical facts, not "N.Y. Crimes" slander! Radar `73-`75
BTW, those FBI stats were for the age group of 18 to 434 years old, both military and general population. An equitable comparison. Radar
BTW, those FBI stats were for the age group of 18 to 34 year old, for the general population. (military age) An equitable comparison. Radar
Brooksfoe and anyone else taking the same stance,
When someone commits a crime and is arrested, certain types of informatio is recorded and reported to the FBI. One of the main pieces of info is Military Status. The information gathered is is used for statistical analysis as well as by our Behavioral Sciences Unit.
Had these "reporters" shown any integrity and checked with us they would have found all the FACTS they needed, perhaps they did but did not like the way the figures came out, but I can only speculate on that.
When I was still undergoing training in the late seventies, similar nonsense was brought up about the Vietnam Vets. Then too, when the facts came out it was shown that over all they had a substantially lower violent crime rate than the general population of the same age group.
Brooksfoe, you mention the pentagon study that supposedly shows that the returning Vets have a high incidence of mental health issues. That study does not do a number of things that are necessary to validate it.
First and formost it is not normalized. That is it does not take into account the EXPECTED percentage of mental health issues that would normally develop in the general population had these Troops NOT been sent to war.
The second part of the normalization figures are the removal from the statistics of those Soldiers and Marines who were wounded in such a manner that it has drastically altered their life, wounds that have cost them limbs, sight or similar.
The third and final point not considered in that study is how many of the Troops developed problems, not because of the combat, but because of the stress of not being home earning a decent wage to support their families and the attendant financial hardships, or similar situations that are the result of them not being with their families for extended periods of time.
The Pentagon is guilty of throwing figures around without definition or meaning, and you are twice as guilty for not checking your facts.
As far as the Times' so called reporters? history has repeated itself time and again.
"Decades of studies on the problems of Vietnam veterans have established links between combat trauma and higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, gun ownership, child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse — and criminality."
Just to show how stupid this whole situation is, take note of the part about gun ownership. Lets see, it's guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and that makes it a CIVIL RIGHT, is anyone following?
Now for you WHINERS like Brooksfoe and Tinisoli,
Without statistical validation everything in the article is made up fallacy. It has no basis in reality. If you can not grasp that you NEED drastic help.
When Our Founding Fathers gave freedom to the press they charged them with one single duty, to report the TRUTH. In order to report the truth you have to have the facts. If you do otherwise you MUST list it as an EDITORIAL, or you are flagrantly LYING.
Brooksfoe, I have to laugh at your attempt to use you SAT score as a measure of your intellect. After all if you partied all the way through college and someone with lower scores studied, they came out with the superior intellect. Quite frankly the ignorance you show on here is that of a 16 year old who JUST TOOK the SAT exam, after all, an adult wouldn't even have thought about their SAT scores. Flapping off at the gums quite often reveals more about you than you know. Now go work on the school newspaper, after all there was a game to report on last night now, wasn't there?
I quit reading the NY Times years ago because I already knew how every story would be presented. Face it. The liberals at the Times loathe the US military. They simply hate President Bush. They want us to lose in Iraq. They're probably upset that casualties have dropped ,so they have to print a story that disparages our soldiers. As to the returning vet fairy tale, why would anyone expect anything different.
im a us soldier im in the army my mos is infantry im writing a report and i found this site if anyone could help me that would be great im needing to know the rate of how maney people are for supporting the troops and how many are not like a ratio thing like made in % kind of thing if anyone can help email me anything u can find that deals with supporting the troops my email is baseball_16seth@hotmail.com
im a us soldier im in the army my mos is infantry im writing a report and i found this site if anyone could help me that would be great im needing to know the rate of how maney people are for supporting the troops and how many are not like a ratio thing like made in % kind of thing if anyone can help email me anything u can find that deals with supporting the troops my email is baseball_16seth@hotmail.com
im a us soldier im in the army my mos is infantry im writing a report and i found this site if anyone could help me that would be great im needing to know the rate of how maney people are for supporting the troops and how many are not like a ratio thing like made in % kind of thing if anyone can help email me anything u can find that deals with supporting the troops my email is baseball_16seth@hotmail.com