The NY Times has an excellent (though lengthy) feature on Iraq War veteran-related violence in America. Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles is yet another piece of evidence that the damage of this war doesn’t end in Iraq and that not enough is being done by our military to prevent this type of thing from happening.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

Many of our soldiers are all but forgotten after they return home. Yet another wonderful piece of hypocrisy from an administration that claims to “support our troops.” Be sure to check out the photo gallery, it’s intense.

I may not agree with the war, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the treatment (or lack thereof I should say) of soldiers in post-Iraq America.