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Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home

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This is a poignant and tragic cautionary tale about what happens when a a small group of young infantry soldiers are:

not properly screened (e.g., for psychopathic traits);
not sufficiently indoctrinated in true warrior values and honor code;
not trained for a prolonged counter-insurgency warfare;
not educated to have basic cultural competency needed to operate effectively in foreign theatre;
not taught mental resilience techniques;
not taught to recognize the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, or other psychic injuries, or organic brain damage due to traumatic brain injury (TBI) or substance abuse, either in themselves or in their buddies;
not taught proper mental health first aid;
not properly supervised, counseled, or disciplined;
not properly diagnosed;
not properly psychiatrically treated (but often overmedicated with cocktails of psychotropic, sleep-inducing and pain-killing drugs);
not instructed about suicidality and other serious potential side-effects, or dangerous and unpredictable interactions of these prescribed drugs with alcohol or street drugs;
not encouraged to overcome stigmas to get professional help;
not properly decompressed after missions;
not properly "retrained" or "reconditioned" to civilian life or civilian employment;
not properly reintegrated into post-deployment life back home;
--or due to ignorance or expediency, dismissed as "bad apples," and not given the proper medical care and social support they deserve.

As a likely consequence, these warriors (some who already had troubled beginnings), descend into a fog of substance abuse, war criminality, and shocking self-destructive and antisocial behavior that, although inexcusable, has undoubtedly been exacerbated and amplified by their war experience and trauma.

It is also about their victims, those who got caught up in their misfortunes, those who cared to help them, and those who have have sought solutions to the pervasive and overwhelming PTSD problem.

In the chapter "Casualties of War, David Philipps does an excellent job describing PTSD, its history, and recent research and theory.

The John Needham story is especially moving. One can only imagine his terror during his "flashback" hallucinations. The Needham tragedy makes a case for considering war trauma as an extenuating factor in judicial proceedings.

All in all, a fascinating read.