Report: Home from Iraq, some troops 'kept killing'

A series of articles in the Colorado Springs, Colo., Gazette investigating an Army unit whose members have been accused of at least 10 murders in the past several years highlights the risks of prolonged warfare.

Soldiers from the US Army's 4th Brigade Combat Team, stationed in Fort Carson, Colo., described a breakdown of battlefield discipline as they fought through two grueling tours of duty, one in Iraq's violent Sunni Triangle, and another in downtown Baghdad. The combat team has had a far higher casualty rate than the rest of Fort Carson. (Since May of this year, it has been deployed to the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan.)

In the first part of its feature report, the Gazette describes a persistently deteriorating disciplinary situation among the members of 4BCT, and a growing culture of violence that led some soldiers to keep killing when they came home: More