Hard Evidence, Duty, Death Dishonor

Last night on Investigation Discovery Channel I watched this program. All I could think about was the movie In the Valley of Elah. But this wasn't a movie and the parents are real. The suffering of the soldiers coming back was real, as real as many are going thru today. If you ever want to know more about what some of them go thru, I really suggest you watch this program the next time it is on.

48 Hours: Hard Evidence
Duty, Death, Dishonor
TV-14 (V), CC

In July of 2003, 25-year-old U.S. Army Specialist Richard Davis disappeared after celebrating his homecoming from Iraq with four army buddies. Nearly four months later, the four soldiers who were last seen with Davis were arrested

AP PHOTO Remy Davis and her husband hold a photo of their son U.S. Army Spc. Richard Davis.
Kate Green

Parents of U.S. soldier blame unit members for murder
November 17th, 2003


COLUMBUS, Ga. — The body was almost a skeleton when
investigators found it, hidden in the woods for nearly four months
and so decomposed that knife marks etched in its bones were the
only way to tell the man had been stabbed.

Spc. Richard Davis had survived the war in Iraq, where he turned
25 during the march to Baghdad, only to be slain after celebrating
his homecoming at a topless bar near Fort Benning.

With the discovery of his body earlier this month came an even
more disturbing twist. The four men accused of turning on him with
fists and a blade, then hiding his body, had served beside him in
the same infantry unit.

Now the Army is on the defensive, accused by Davis’ family
of writing him off as AWOL instead of quickly investigating his
disappearance.

Some people are also questioning the investigators’
conclusion that the killing was simply the result of a brawl gone
bad, wondering if trauma from the battlefield could have led to
bloodshed at home.