David Philipps’ Lethal Warriors opens with the true story of the discovery of a dead body by the roadside in suburban, white-picket-fenced America. One naturally thinks, given the subject matter, that this dead man is a traumatised soldier who has taken his own life. It is not – it is the body of a traumatised soldier shot dead by three his comrades on home soil, just one victim of the spree of beatings, assaults and six killings committed by the veterans of the 506th Infantry Regiment – the “Band of Brothers” – on their return to Colorado from Iraq in 2006.
Philipps, a journalist with the newspaper whose deliveryman found the body on that street, was compelled to record the experience of Colorado Springs, the military town in which one in every three dollars spent comes from the Department of Defense.
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