Our soldiers are not meat

It is increasingly difficult to consider the Army's refusal to reopen the investigation of the suspicious death of Pfc. Lavena Johnson in Iraq - a death whose circumstances belie official claims of suicide - without considering a wider range of insulting treatment toward the nation's soldiers and their families. I'm not talking solely about facts behind fatalities brought reluctantly to light, as in the infamous case of Cpl. Pat Tillman, but a broader pattern of dishonor and dismissal toward those who serve and sacrifice.