Tragedy & Heroes

I spent the first half of yesterday just cruising along, having a good day. & it was all flipped upside down after lunch. The tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood yesterday is shocking. I spent most of the afternoon into the evening on the phone with friends & family, trying to make sure everyone we know there was ok. Thankfully our friends at Hood are alright. Glued to the TV, trying to make sense of something so surreal, the tears fell for the first time since Dave deployed. I was scared, am still a little shaken by the events of yesterday. We chose to live on post because it's believed to be more secure. The shooting certainly made me rethink that last night. & while the reports were saying it wasn't believed to be a terrorist attack how could we be so sure? They also didn't believe the first plane that hit the Towers on 9/11 was a terrorist attack until the second plane hit. Our post did elevate security at the gates & put out more patrols on the streets which helped many of us here feel more secure.

Unfortunately this event has left many unanswered questions & topics to be discussed. Hasan was a PTSD psychiatrist. He had stated many times to his family that he didn't want to deploy in the upcoming month. He had never deployed before & the stories he heard from some of his patients coming back from war bothered him. He went so far as to seek legal advice to get out of the deployment to no avail. Now here are the questions I have. He's a psychiatrist, he would not see combat himself but help our Soldiers who are currently in a combat zone. Why would he be so terrified to deploy? Is it really due to his Muslim faith? Did he, somewhere along the line, become an extremist?

Hasan's cousin stated that he had been harrassed at work because of his faith. I don't want to call bullshit on that but think about it: he's a MAJOR in the Army, who would give him flack? He's pretty far up the ranks to be receiving flack from anyone. That statement made no sense to me. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it didn't sit well with me.

He strode into the Soldier Readiness Center & opened fire. He worked 1 mile down the road at Darnell. Witnesses say he wasn't shooting randomly but actually targeting individuals. If he was upset about being harrassed don't you think he would have opened fire at Darnell? The shooting occurring at the SRC tells me that it may have been more about the deployment & less about these claims of harrassment. & that leaves us back at one. Why did he not want to deploy? After some of the alleged statements made by him it sounds more & more like he may have had some extremist ideals.

Hasan is currently in the hospital under security & on a ventilator. Will we ever get the answers we deserve? He walked in & shot an 18 yr old kid who was preparing to deploy for the first time. Why? Was it because he didn't want more violence overseas for other Muslims? Or could it have been simply that he didn't want another Soldier to experience the horrid stories that he'd heard from war vets? We may never know but I certainly want answers.

Thank God we have some fantastic Soldiers. Troops who were tearing apart their own uniforms to help administer first aid, life saving techniques to the wounded. These techniques are taught to all Soldiers & unfortunately they had to put it to use on American soil. It goes to show that our Soldiers are real life Heroes.

I'm sure this will not be the last blog on the issue. I'm curious to see how this all plays out.