7 killed at Ft Hood shooting

[ghostrider]

>So I am asking all of you to also send notes to the Senators if you agree

I agree. Its already on my 'to do' list.

[57Coastie]

I know nothing about this other than what has been presented in the media. Hasan's records have been sealed, and it is not possible to define, in the media, much less this message board, the timeline of any discharge requests at this point. It is likely Hasan was denied discharge due to an obligation of service or that a deployment was pending. However it went down, and perhaps my earlier statements were overreaching, Hasan remained on active duty and had time to foment the details of this terrible act against his fellow soldiers. If the U.S. Army wants my help in figuring all this out, I'd be more than willing to furnish them with my military service I.D. number and lend an hand. God knows the Army and that chain of command need some help in this respect, because I don't think from their statements that some of the people currently in position fully understand what they're dealing with, and I'm talking about all the way to the top.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 9111127361" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/ ... 257485260/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

casingpoint,

As I learned to say when I worked for the State Department, "I do not necessarily disagree with everything you say here."

One of the great dangers of the internet is that I type faster than I think.

Truce?

Jim

[C-dub]

IF IF IF it was an extremist muslim motivated attack.

This was the perfect place and time. He killed and wounded soldiers that were on their way to fight in the IZ. What good would it have done to attack the soldiers at Walter Reed (not meant to irritate)? They are already wounded. The doctors arent fighting in the IZ either...ATT.

He did however limit the ability of some units that are on their way to fight.

I am in no way saying this was or was not an extremist muslim motivated attack

I wasn't thinking about the soldiers, but rather the doctors. What's the training time of an infantryman? What's the training time of a doctor? Same reason medics became targets in war. Shoot a medic and you've limited your opponents ability to keep wounded alive. Hasan's killing of these 13 people has not stopped those that were preparing to deploy. However, I admit that it is very difficult if not impossible to make sense of a senseless act.

[57Coastie]

I wasn't thinking about the soldiers, but rather the doctors. What's the training time of an infantryman? What's the training time of a doctor? Same reason medics became targets in war. Shoot a medic and you've limited your opponents ability to keep wounded alive. Hasan's killing of these 13 people has not stopped those that were preparing to deploy. However, I admit that it is very difficult if not impossible to make sense of a senseless act.

Very good point, C-dub. As we continue to speculate about what happened, isn't it possible that this very thing may have had something to do with a decision made by somebody somewhere to keep him in the Army? A value-judgment?

Jim

[Purplehood]

On a different note, I have a request. I was talking with some people on another forum and found that the soldiers shot at Ft. Hood and the ones killed in Arkansas are not eligible for the Purple Heart. It requires that the act be international terrorism, which is defined as having occurred outside the US. I think this is wrong so I sent the following to both John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison:

I recently found that the soldiers shot at Ft. Hood will not be eligible for the Purple Heart medal since the terrorist attack occurred inside the US.

I think these soldiers and the ones killed in Arkansas recently both deserve to be properly recognized. Could you sponsor a change to the law to make them eligible for the Purple Heart. It could be one simple line to add persons injured as a result of acts of domestic terrorism after Sep. 11, 2001 (many of our awards started on that date).

I kind of sidestepped whether or not this is a terrorist act by assuming it was. Even this change may not make them eligible if people continue to deny this was terrorism. But there is no way anyone could truly deny the Arkansas recruiting station incident. I think this change should be implemented even if this incident does not get ruled terrorism.

So I am asking all of you to also send notes to the Senators if you agree. I did not send it to my representative since I don't think he would support it anyway, but you could add your representative if they would support it.

They would have to define Hasan as a Terrorist and they don't want to do that.

[casingpoint]

Truce?

On the condition those mugs are filled with Shiner Bock.

[hurst_guy]

God bless the families and it's to hell for the major

[57Coastie]

I wasn't thinking about the soldiers, but rather the doctors. What's the training time of an infantryman? What's the training time of a doctor? Same reason medics became targets in war. Shoot a medic and you've limited your opponents ability to keep wounded alive. Hasan's killing of these 13 people has not stopped those that were preparing to deploy. However, I admit that it is very difficult if not impossible to make sense of a senseless act.

Very good point, C-dub. As we continue to speculate about what happened, isn't it possible that this very thing may have had something to do with a decision made by somebody somewhere to keep him in the Army? A value-judgment?

Jim

Ran across an article in the Houston Chronicle this morning, headlined "Army boosting mental health aid in Afghanistan" which may bear on this tragic story, particularly the question of whether or not personnel shortages in the Army's mental health corps may have helped set the stage for what happened.

"The Army is more than doubling the number of mental health specialists in Afghanistan to address soldiers' psychological troubles due to combat stress, repeated tours in war zones and too little time at home, the Army surgeon general [General Schoomaker] announced Friday..."

The closing paragraph of the article appears to deny my suspicion.

'The additional personnel will be fully qualified, [he] said. The Army medical corps currently has about 2,700 specialists in mental health — about 75 percent of the number needed.

“We would never compromise quality in order to simply get a body out to the field,” Schoomaker said. “We never have, and we never will.'”

More here: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6720032.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Patience is not one of my virtues (if any), but time will tell.

Jim

[Count]

However, I admit that it is very difficult if not impossible to make sense of a senseless act.

That's true but there is at least one motivation that makes sense, especially if you apply Occam's razor.

[stroo]

I have read in a couple of different places in the last two days that Hasan fired off over a hundred rounds and reloaded either just before or as he was shot. With the 20 round mag in the FNH 5.7 that means he reloaded at least 4 times.

[Purplehood]

Just watched a Fox News analyst (Bill Cowan Colonel Retired?). He stated that the Red Flags that should have popped-up and didn't were due to Political Correctness. He stated that if a skin-head radical Soldier had made similar inflammatory statements to colleagues about White Supremacy he would have immediately been Red Flagged by the FBI and Army.
I tend to agree.

New buzzword: Red Flag

[RPB]

>So I am asking all of you to also send notes to the Senators if you agree

I agree. Its already on my 'to do' list.

Ditto, I done did it ...

Just watched a Fox News analyst (Bill Cowan Colonel Retired?). He stated that the Red Flags that should have popped-up and didn't were due to Political Correctness. He stated that if a skin-head radical Soldier had made similar inflammatory statements to colleagues about White Supremacy he would have immediately been Red Flagged by the FBI and Army.
I tend to agree.
New buzzword: Red Flag

Political Correctness? Red Flags? Yeah, probably wouldn't be good for politics if his background and contacts were made more widely known.

Foxes in charge of the hen house?

I understand why Obama wants people to wait to investigate. And why Obama insists that Nidal "acted alone".

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/official- ... id=9048590" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had "more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI" than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge so .....

The FBI said it turned over the information to the Army, but Defense Department officials today denied that. ..... (Commander-in-Chief Obama, I'm wondering if they'll find it next to the several minutes of missing tapes left by Nixon, in the secret hiding place drawer)

-----------------------------------------------------
Appears to me that this is really him in the

PROCEEDINGS REPORT OF THE HSPI PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TASK FORCE
April 2008-January 2009
Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration group,
The Homeland Security Policy Institute Presidential Transition Task Force*

Initiated by HSPI’s Steering Committee in Spring 2008, the Task Force sought to further policy discussions of the top strategic priorities in the area of security in order to generate actionable recommendations, for the Administration taking office in January 2009, designed to effectively meet the most vexing challenges the United States faces today.

He was a "participant" on that Homeland Defense Security panel which was "to generate actionable recommendations, for the Administration taking office in January 2009"

"See http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_Proc ... .19.09.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . Go to page number 29, Participants: scroll down toward the bottom on the left column."

Here it is in case you don't have a pdf/acrobat reader

Participants

Kevin Gundersen U.S. House of Representatives
Jeff Gunnulfsen National Petrochemical &. Refiners Association
Vikram Gupta Homeland Security Institute
David Hagy U.S. Department of Justice
Ronna Halbgewachs The George Washington University
Amanda Halpern U.S. House of Representatives
Beth Hampton Homeland Security Institute
Nidal Hasan Uniformed Services University School of Medicine


Here's his page from a healthcare standpoint, where you can click to make an appointment, with info RE: education
http://www.healthgrades.com/directory_s ... 708AB4.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Experience / Training
Medical School:
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine
Bethesda, MD 2003
Internship:
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences F. Edward Herbert School of Medicine
Bethesda, MD
Residency:
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Washington, DC 2007
Fellowship:
USUHS/WRAMC - Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry
Bethesda, MD 2009
Undergraduate School:
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 1997
-----------
He wasn't one of the two Muslims Obama recently appointed to Homeland Security positions, he was merely a participant on the panel listed above..... but still, it could be embarassing politically.

Political Correctness ....

We wanted to impeach Nixon for possibly being connected to a coverup regarding a burglary and losing minutes worth of recorded tape?

I think the DOD might never find that info the FBI says they provided, and yeah, he "acted alone," except for all his contacts on that list the FBI provided to the DOD/Commander-in-Chief Obama, which must be lost ..... just my guess.

We wanted to impeach Nixon for possibly being connected to a coverup regarding a burglary and losing minutes worth of recorded tape? .... really?

[Dragonfighter]

Here is the letter I sent to Representative Burgess:

Mr. Burgess,

In the wake of the terror attack on our troops at Ft. Hood, there has been very little, if any dialogue addressing the eligibility for the Purple Heart for those fallen soldiers and their wounded comrades.

I know that the administration would rather foist the health care debacle on us than deal with the reality of what occurred at Ft. Hood, but I would appreciate your opening the dialog in the house as they are the victims of international terrorism on U.S. soil, irrespective of the level of infiltration accomplished by Maj. Hasan.

To do this we must either admit that Hasan was a terrorist and that the act was terrorism, or introduce a bill that expands the eligibility for Purple Hearts to include an attack on soldiers by class, I.E. if soldiers are targeted because they are soldiers either by those that are violent protesters or to prevent them from engaging in deployment, then they would be eligible for a Purple heart...retroactively to include the attack at Ft. Hood.

I would also like to see actions taken to re-arm our troops during station keeping. This was done away with during Viet Nam, but had the soldiers had their issued weapons the attack never would have happened as these cowards always chose soft targets. If it had, then three long minutes of unbridled carnage would have been stopped in seconds. We trust them with millions of dollars in tanks, aircraft, artillery and high capacity weapons when deployed, why are they less trustworthy here, protecting our native soil?

Thank You,
Name Removed

[Purplehood]

Here is the letter I sent to Representative Burgess:

Mr. Burgess,

In the wake of the terror attack on our troops at Ft. Hood, there has been very little, if any dialogue addressing the eligibility for the Purple Heart for those fallen soldiers and their wounded comrades.

I know that the administration would rather foist the health care debacle on us than deal with the reality of what occurred at Ft. Hood, but I would appreciate your opening the dialog in the house as they are the victims of international terrorism on U.S. soil, irrespective of the level of infiltration accomplished by Maj. Hasan.

To do this we must either admit that Hasan was a terrorist and that the act was terrorism, or introduce a bill that expands the eligibility for Purple Hearts to include an attack on soldiers by class, I.E. if soldiers are targeted because they are soldiers either by those that are violent protesters or to prevent them from engaging in deployment, then they would be eligible for a Purple heart...retroactively to include the attack at Ft. Hood.

I would also like to see actions taken to re-arm our troops during station keeping. This was done away with during Viet Nam, but had the soldiers had their issued weapons the attack never would have happened as these cowards always chose soft targets. If it had, then three long minutes of unbridled carnage would have been stopped in seconds. We trust them with millions of dollars in tanks, aircraft, artillery and high capacity weapons when deployed, why are they less trustworthy here, protecting our native soil?

Thank You,
Name Removed

Commendable letter.

[Dragonfighter]

Hey all, just got a letter back from Mike Burgess, he has co-sponsored an act to extend combat related benefits to those killed and wounded at Fort Hood. It reads in part:

This is why I am a sponsor of the Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, H.R. 4088, introduced by Rep. John Carter [R-Texas]. The service members who lost their lives at Fort Hood were days from deployment, and this legislation would ensure that these service members and civilian employees are treated in the same manner as those who are killed or wounded in combat zones or civilian employees who are killed or wounded in a terrorist attack. Under the legislation, those wounded or killed in the Fort Hood attack and their families would be eligible to receive the benefits and acknowledgments they deserve, including: the Purple Heart, the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom, compensation, rehabilitation pay, medical expenses, family transportation expenses, special tax treatment, and life insurance coverage, among other benefits.

I respectfully submit that we all let our congressional and senatorial representatives know how we feel about this and support H.R. 4088.