In 'Elah,' war's casualties are found beyond the battlefields

In 'Elah,' war's casualties are found beyond the battlefields
By Norma Meyer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
September 21, 2007
Their only son's skeletal remains were housed in a cardboard box and tagged as prosecution evidence for more than three years. Finally this spring, in a cemetery in California's high desert, Vietnam vet Lanny Davis and his retired Army medic wife, Remy, laid to rest the bone fragments etched with stab marks from a knife.

“This ain't my America. My son tried doing the same thing his daddy did. He made me proud,” says a still grief-stricken Davis from his home in St. Charles, Mo. His voice is raspy, a permanent condition caused when a Viet Cong soldier jammed a rifle butt into his throat and damaged his vocal cords.

Army Spc. Richard Davis, 25, had been at the forefront of the bloody invasion of Iraq, but he didn't die in one of those fierce battles. A day after returning to Fort Benning, Ga., from their tour of duty, he and four platoon members celebrated by drinking at a Hooters and a topless bar.

The men he had fought alongside in Iraq would later be convicted on charges stemming from the stabbing of Richard at least 33 times that night and their driving to a convenience store to buy lighter fluid that they poured on his body and torched.
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