David Philipps’ Lethal Warriors opens with the true story of the discovery of a dead body by the roadside in suburban, white-picket-fenced America. One naturally thinks, given the subject matter, that this dead man is a traumatised soldier who has taken his own life. It is not – it is the body of a traumatised soldier shot dead by three his comrades on home soil, just one victim of the spree of beatings, assaults and six killings committed by the veterans of the 506th Infantry Regiment – the “Band of Brothers” – on their return to Colorado from Iraq in 2006.
Philipps, a journalist with the newspaper whose deliveryman found the body on that street, was compelled to record the experience of Colorado Springs, the military town in which one in every three dollars spent comes from the Department of Defense. Amongst numerous other military facilities, Fort Carson is in his city – the Fort is home to the 506th and to thousands of other such soldiers, who spent and continue to spend more time deployed abroad than at home during the still-ongoing wars of the early 21st century. This is not a scientific study – like many of the best and most powerful discussions of national traumas, it is a narrative of specific events in a specific place told in a journalistic style, the tragedies of the individual case standing for the wider picture, these scenes of suffering and pain reproduced in families and towns and cities all across America.
Featuring insights from sources up to and including the General commanding Fort Carson – himself father to two dead soldiers – Philipps’ book is one of the best examples I’ve seen of journalists who genuinely know their own patch expertly documenting local events which come to capture national and international attention. Perhaps occasionally a little too speculative and at other times too gushing for my taste, but these are just quibbles.
The rights and wrongs of America’s involvement in these conflicts need not enter into the discussion to appreciate the significance of the issue raised here. Societal failure to support and look after the troops who protect society is far from new. The Vietnam narrative is riddled with it. Kipling knew it all too well. A significant proportion of London’s homeless population are veterans. Philipps’ book insists that we address it – and he is right.
This is perhaps the most depressing book I have read.
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