Reconstructing how, and perhaps why, something happened is one of the most rewarding kinds of reporting. It’s called a tick-tock in the trade. Nancy Gibbs and I do it in this week’s Time, retracing the lives and military careers of Army captains Michael McCaddon and Ian Morrison to try and shine a light on what drives soldiers to suicide.
Greg Barnes and Drew Brooks do a fine job on the same sort of assignment in Sunday’s Fayetteville Observer: tracing the lives of a pair of Fort Bragg soldiers – Lieut. Colonel Roy Tisdale and Specialist Ricky Elder — whose lives ultimately exploded into a murder-suicide on June 28. Such stories are grim, to be sure. Unfortunately, ignoring them won’t make them go away.