Americans got a reminder last week that some war zones are more lethal than others. After seven months in the Persian Gulf with a Patriot missile battery, Army Specialist Anthony Riggs, 22, won a two-week furlough. Back home less than 24 hours, Riggs was helping his wife load a car and rented van to move out of a crack-infested neighborhood in northeast Detroit to an apartment in the safer suburbs. Someone took a fancy to Riggs' 1989 Nissan Sentra, pumped five shots into the soldier and sped off in the car.
Riggs had underestimated just how murderous America's urban battlegrounds could...