USA. Watertown, New York. 2007. Specialist Scott Jones at Fort Drum in upstate New York, a month after returning from
Afghanistan. He was to be discharged the following week, having completed his time in the
Army. His unit of the 10th Mountain Division was going through a tough transition home. Several
of the soldiers had been arrested for drunk driving. Another was committed to a psychiatric
hospital after he’d beaten a civilian in a drunken rage.
In Afghanistan, I had met the soldier that later inflicted the beating. He had told me that two
of his friends had disintegrated when a massive roadside bomb hit their “gator,” an unarmored
golf-cart-like vehicle normally used as a light transport on large bases. The next day, their
platoon returned to the village where the bomb had been set off. The soldier told me how he had
methodically fired his automatic grenade-launcher into the houses.