Fort Hood Massacre

I generally do not blog about current events. The way I see it, there are millions of other people on the internet that do so, in reality, how much more different will what I say be than other people? I woke up this morning to one headline that was dominating MSN and Yahoo; a mass killing spree that took place within the confines of Fort Hood, Texas. I read what USA Today and the NY Times had to offer and learned the gunman was a Soldier himself, Nidal Hasan.

Every news outlet was covering this story religiously and rightfully so. The latest reports were Nidal Hasan (I refuse to address him by his rank because he does not deserve even the slightest form of respect), who achieved the rank of Major and was a psychiatrist, was too scared to deploy. I was reading the NY Times aloud to Celia as the disbelief was steadily rising in both of us. The reason why I felt compelled to blurb a little something about this headline doesn’t have to do with the fact that I’m in the Army. It also doesn’t have anything to do with how awful it is a Soldier decided to slay fellow Soldiers, like so many of the media outlets are covering, and again, rightfully so. What I have to say regards the probability of Nidal Hasan’s deployment, had he deployed and not gone off the deep end.

For starters, like I said before, he was a psychiatrist and held the rank of Major to go along with his profession. He was not a lowly enlisted, 18 year old private fresh out of basic training specializing in combat arms. He was a field grade officer who counseled Soldiers for post traumatic stress. Once he arrived in Iraq the chance of him staying in a small, isolated JSS or COP would have been about as likely as me typing this blog in Chinese. This man most likely would have been located on a Super FOB like Camp Liberty; I never saw Camp Liberty but believe me when I say that a deployment to Liberty would not have been rough.

I also heard on the T.V. this morning that Nidal was scared about possibly squaring off with fellow Muslims in the Middle East. Ok, perhaps I need to reiterate the comment I’ve said about 3 times now. This man was a Psychiatrist and also a Major. He was not going to be leading dismounted patrols through Sadr City or Baghdad. In fact, I would venture to say the only time the man would be outside the wire would be on a helicopter ride from one Super FOB to the next. So anybody sympathizing with this man possibly having to kill fellow Muslims please, please do not buy into it. The closest he would come to combat would be providing therapy to Soldiers who actually saw action. I trust anybody reading this understands the kind of deployment this guy would have had.

The other piece that absolutely needs addressed is Nidal Hasan wanted out of the military for people slandering him for being Muslim. Who? Who made fun of his Muslim heritage? The rank he held was Major, am I really supposed to believe that? Your average Soldier is not poking fun at this man for being Muslim. The fallout for that Soldier would be disastrous. Although there were reports that Nidal had made some comments on the internet about being sympathetic towards suicide bombers.

Another thing, do not for one second believe this attack was carried out by a highly trained military officer. He’s in the Army, yes, but does that make him a prime candidate to offer realistic, professional advice on T.V. shows like The Unit? Of course not.

Look, the bottom line is this man is coward. He took full advantage of a system that would finance his way to an education. It’s an unfortunate and ugly day for the Army. It’s even more unfortunate that this parasite took 13 innocent people down during his meltdown. A lot will be made of this event but stop and ask yourself just what exactly was he scared of?


In closing, do take a moment out of your day for those individuals whose lives tragically came to an end.