I'm not sure what more can be said here. Via Fire Dog Lake is this report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. It is part one of a series and appropriately titled  "The hell of war comes home". The article highlights a group of Iraqi vets, and the violent crimes that were committed in America on their return. But it also highlights crimes that were seemingly routine on the front lines of Iraq and implies a photo scandal that could make the detainee abuse picture issue seem tame.

Another sergeant shot a man in the head without cause while questioning him, Needham said, then mutilated the body, lashed it to the hood of his Humvee and drove around the neighborhood blaring warnings to insurgents in Arabic that "they would be next."

Other Iraqis were shot for invented reasons, then mutilated, Needham said.

The sergeants particularly liked removing victims' brains, Needham said.

Needham offered a photograph of a soldier removing brains from an Iraqi on the hood of a Humvee and other photos as evidence. His father supplied copies to The Gazette.

The Army's criminal investigation division interviewed several soldiers from the unit and said it was "unable to substantiate any of his allegations."

This is a really amazing piece of journalism. The author does not go for a simple account of horrible behavior in Iraq. Instead, Dave Philipps provides a chilling deconstruction of what is happening to our soldiers. It follows the progression of young soldiers deployed with a unit called the "Lethal Warriors" through battle experiences and subsequent return to the US to an ultimate end in prison for violent crimes.  It is a stark statement of the deadly results putting soldiers through a meat grinder and bringing them home with no mental health support has for American communities and the soldiers themselves.

Soldiers from other units at Fort Carson have committed crimes after deployments -- military bookings at the El Paso County jail have tripled since the start of the Iraq war -- but no other unit has a record as deadly as the soldiers of the 4th Brigade. The vast majority of the brigade's soldiers have not committed crimes, but the number who have is far above the population at large. In a one-year period from the fall of 2007 to the fall of 2008, the murder rate for the 500 Lethal Warriors was 114 times the rate for Colorado Springs.

Equally amazing are the prison interviews with infantry specialist Kenneth Eastridge. In two parts, he describes activities in Iraq that led to reprimands and a fatal incident that occurred when he and fellow soldiers returned, resulting in the death of a fellow Iraq War veteran on his birthday.

One thing that I find inexcusable is that the military has treated these soldiers with PTSD like the private insurance companies treat patients with cancer: try to find some way to kick them out.

"As soon as I got out [of the mental counseling facility], I had a scheduled bitching session with the sergeant so he could yell at me about what a liar I was," he said. "After they found out a guy was getting evaluated for PTSD, they would try to find any little thing to kick him out."

Dozens of soldiers who screened positive for PTSD received an "other than honorable" discharge from the Army -- the equivalent of being kicked out -- for infractions such as missing duty and drug use, Pogany said. If soldiers are kicked out, they often aren't eligible for free health care, counseling or other benefits that soldiers who are medically discharged with PTSD receive. Often, Pogany said, that means veterans who need help the most don't get it.

There is no way any blog on the subject is going to do this article justice. It is quite long ... but well worth the time to read.