NACDL

Louis Jones Jr. served in the first Gulf War. He served with distinction, and came back with decorations. He was one of about 130,000 U.S. soldiers who were exposed to Iraqi nerve gas when our troops destroyed an enemy weapons depot in the spring of 1991. How that affected him — how much that affected him — we’ll never know. What we know is that they killed Louis Jones Jr. last March.

But Louis Jones Jr. did not die of any war wound. We killed him ourselves. Louis was executed for committing a brutal murder. Whether that murder had anything to do with what Louis endured in war is the sort of thing people argue about. But there’s no arguing with the fact that America taught Louis Jones Jr. to kill, sent him to kill, and asked him to be ready to die. He was an instrument of America’s will, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Then he died at America’s hands, subjected by America to its ultimate penalty. There’s no argument about that.

Crime spikes after