I'm grieving with those who lost their loved ones today at Fort Hood

[FrenchieCat]

My message:

With heartfelt condolences, I am very sorry for your loss.

“You don’t get over it, you just get through it.
You don’t get by it, because you can’t get around it.
It doesn’t ‘get better,’ It just gets different.
Everyday grief puts on a new face.”
Wendy Feireis

I am but a stranger, but I deeply feel your pain.

[ChicagoSuz219]

1. My thoughts & prayers are with the people of Ft. Hood... nt

[Suich]

2. Thanks, FrenchieCat.

I can't even imagine what it's like for them.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Yes, we can speculate all we want about it all,

but they have a reality to deal with that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I hope their loss and pain doesn't get lost to us while we discuss
the political meanings of this tragedy, cause at the end of the day,
it is a grave tragedy to them before all else.

[akbacchus_BC]

4. Frenchie, we all are greiving hon. What a terrible thing to have

happened! Am at a loss for words!

[JDPriestly]

5. I'm with you, FrenchieCat.

The families will suffer terribly as a result of this. I do not understand why this disturbed man was allowed to remain in the military. People are discharged for mental instability. Why wasn't he?

[eridani]

6. Probably because they need the warm bodies

They are letting in more with criminal records, and are putting people back into combat even after being classified as medically unfit. This is what the imperialism business costs, and we need to get out of it.

[Mopar151]

7. The US military is "walking wounded"

The Army docs (Like the shooter) have been handing out Zoloft like breath mints. AND sending soldiers back for more deployments when they are already haunted by PTSD.

[jmowreader]

8. The guy's CO probably thought he was "faking it"

This happens more often than you'd think: a mentally ill troop's chain of command decides he's not really mentally ill and either orders him to "snap out of it" (which you do not do), gives him some sort of formal punishment for malingering, or throws him out of the service without sending him to the Mental Hygiene section at the hospital. Google "William Kreutzer"--this is the guy whose mental illness caused him to shoot up his company's PT formation one morning.

[JDPriestly]

13. We need to insitute a draft so that troops do not have to serve so long.

We don't need a huge draft, but we should have some sort of draft with no student exemption.

[dgibby]

9. Often, it's those closest to us who are the last to realize how sick we are.

In any tragedy like this, friends, family, co-workers are very often the last to suspect we'd do something like this because we're good at hiding our true feelings. We'll tell strangers things we'd never tell our friends. We don't care what strangers think, but we want the approval of the people closest to us.

There's also another phenomenon at work here. Medical professionals are not supposed to get sick. We're the care takers. We're not there to get help, we're there to give it. It's not ok for us to show any so called "weakness". We are experts at hiding our true feelings.

Now add the military "suck it up" attitude, and you can start to understand why he would have fallen through the cracks.

I'm not bashing the medical field or the military. I'm a retired Navy nurse. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.

I'm glad Major Hasan has survived. It's not often we get an opportunity to try to find out why mass murderers do what they do. Maybe we'll be able to learn from him, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to prevent the next tragedy of this sort.

In the meantime, I grieve for those dead and injured, their families, friends, and comrades in arms.

[Neecy]

10. Thank you for this thread

What's getting lost in all of the Ft Hood threads here is that a community is in shock and grieving today.

These men and women and their families have been stressed enough. Adding this on top of it is just unbelievably horrible.

[FrenchieCat]

11. I agree.......

I know that if this had happened to me, I'd be devastated!

Just tragic!

[TwilightGardener]

12. Sad that these families of the soldiers had been mentally and emotionally

preparing themselves for deployment, only to lose their loved ones this way. Senseless.