Remembered in Nightmares

The first units of the 101 Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky yesterday. Lots of wives, lots of kids, lots of flags. Bless them. The 101st was engaged in some of the heaviest fighting.

The 101st Airborne is also the unit from which at least four soldiers have been arrested for raping a fifteen year-old girl and murdering her and her family. The investigation of the crime and the cover-up continues and another four soldiers have been charged today.

Captain Mark Weinschreider was emphatic that the allegations of war crimes "don't affect me . . . All the good we're doing over there outweighs any bad stuff that happens."

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. American soldiers work and fight and slog their way forward, but their good work is always being undone by the incompetence in Washington, sectarian animosity between Sunnis and Shiites, and the crimes being committed in the field. Forty years from now, the efforts of the 101st will be remembered primarily in nightmares--their own and those of the Iraqis they thought they were helping.