The whole NYT story baffled me the moment I saw it.
If one accepts the premise of the article, that combat experience somehow leads to homicide, the late 1940’s when the WWII vets returned would have had to have been an extraordinarily violent era as there were many times the number of young combat vets on the streets then as opposed to now.
Since that was obviously not the case, the NYT story didn’t pass the smell test, only their acute liberal myopia prevented them from seeing the silliness of their big story.
“If one accepts the premise of the article, that combat experience somehow leads to homicide, the late 1940’s when the WWII vets returned would have had to have been an extraordinarily violent era as there were many times the number of young combat vets on the streets then as opposed to now.”
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I remember in “Up Front with Bill Mauldin” the “Willie & Joe” creator’s first collection published while the war was still on, he got good and worked up in one essay after reading stateside editorials postulating that the streets and booby-hatches would soon be filled with shell-shocked veterans stuck in kill mode. He made it clear that an aversion to casual brawling was the mark of a soldier who had actually BEEN in combat.
Although, it does seem that the very first generation of outlaw bikers in the late forties were supposed to be disaffected WWII vets. Or at least that’s how they liked to see themselves...