Milton's hard lesson, in addition to his occasional nightmares and daily guilt, is knowing he could be prosecuted as a war criminal.
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes, according to Syracuse University law professor David M. Crane, a former war-crime prosecutor, and others I asked.
That's why, in exchange for his true story, I have given the Iraq veteran a false name and have omitted some personal details. Everything included is accurate.
Much of his time in the Army, Milton was a medic, but not a noncombatant. "Everyone's an infantryman first; that's what you learn in basic training," he says. He never wore a helmet with a red cross on a white field because "It's like a big, red bull's eye," says Milton. Medics can be identified by the 50-pound bag of medical supplies they carry, plus a rifle and a sidearm. Milton's pistol was a 9 mm Beretta.
He committed a war crime with the Beretta.
In 2003, attached to the Third Infantry Division, he and five buddies were returning from a beer run into town from their base - buying Jordanian Horse Head beer from an Iraqi entrepreneur who served hot grilled chicken in the front of his stand and warm beer in the back. They were riding in two Humvees when a roadside bomb blasted the passenger side of the vehicle Milton was driving. Before the smoke cleared, a shocked Milton looked down and saw his buddy's eyeball in his lap.
Milton and the soldier in the back seat were not injured, nor were the GIs in the second vehicle, who saw the man who planted the bomb and shot him several times. He was down, but not mortally wounded.
The soldiers were screaming, punching and kicking him. Like his buddies, "I was a little crazy," Milton says. Instead of medicating the insurgent, he drew his Beretta and shot him in the head, killing him.
Milton didn't regret it then, but he does now.
