Letter From Fort Hood

[kpete]

..................

I hate to tell you this but in the course of the day it became clear that it was another Akbar incident.1 (Once they convinced them the blood drenching my clothes wasn't mine I spent the day being interviewed by the alphabet.) Akbar again. God help us. He was very planned. I counted three full mags around him (I secured his weapon for a while). Found out later that his car was filled with more ammo.

This was premeditated. This wasn't VBC again. That guy snapped, not this one. He was so damn calm when he was shooting. Methodical. And he was moving tactically. The Army really is diverse and we really do love all our own. We signed up to be shot at but not at home. Not unarmed. No one should ever see what the inside of that medical SRP building looked like. I suppose that's what VA Tech looked like. Except they didn't have soldiers coming from everywhere to tourniquet and compress and talk to the wounded while rounds are still coming out.

No one touched him...the shooter that is...other than to treat him. Though I told the medic (and I'm not proud of this) that was giving him plasma that there better not be anyone else who needed it because he should be the last one to be treated. But I had just finished holding a soldier who was critical (I counted three entry wounds) and talking to him about his children.... If the shooter had a grievance he should have taken it out on those responsible; he wasn't shooting people he knew (media reports to the contrary). He was just shooting anybody who happened to be present for SRP medical processing, mainly lower enlisted.

But please, no one use this politically! The Army is not "broken", PTSD doesn't turn people into killers, most Muslims aren't evil, and whether we should stay or go in Afghanistan has nothing to do with this. I'm babbling...sorry.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/11/fort-hood...

[paulsby]

1. all the PTSD drones on DU when we didn't know anything about the shooter

, it was all "it must be PTSD" or "a teabagger" reminded me of the old bloom county comics where everybody was always asking the vietnam vet guy if he had PTSD, or assuming he did, etc.


and people are still playing the PTSD card, because (god forbid) this psychiatrist had to listen to horror stories from men and women who had been in country.

this guy was a cold blooded piece of shit mass murderer. he also took out (as the letter stated) mainly average joe enlisted soldiers just trying to do their job.

he signed up for the military, got a doctorate level education as well as a medical degree (psychiatrist) from it, and now was (god forbid) directed to go to afghanistan. here's a hint. join the military and they might send you to where a war is.

he wanted to get out. good for him! ya think a lot of the enlisted guys would rather be stateside listening to stories vs. hunkering down in their humvee hoping not to get taken out by a IED?

i've met evil before. too many people try to explain it away. but it exists. and what this man did was a perfect example of it.

[vadawg]

2. the guy had Pre Traumatic Stress Syndrome according to some

hopefully he recovers, the army tries him and then executes him, do they still hang them or is it a firing squad. got no sympathy or time for this piece if detrius...

[paulsby]

3. love that

PRE traumatic stress syndrome!

that's awesome.

[vadawg]

4. yeah weve been using that as an excuse ourselves since we heard it the other day

never know it might catch on.

[paulsby]

5. reminds me of a guy who went out on stress leave when i worked in hawaii

he got suspended for some violation (don't recall what it was, but it was a 3 day suspension) and the day he came back to work, he started the process and went out on a six month paid stress leave.

his reason for the stress? He had gotten suspended.

oh, the STRESS!

so, he got a 6 month paid vacation out of it, and MAN was the administration pissed. but he had the union behind him and our collective bargaining agreement. it was hilarious.

[vadawg]

6. lol ill need to ahem check into that, i just take my three days and go fishing

though my wife has told me next suspension im taking the family to orlando. disneyland sounds like the perfect punishment for me...

[paulsby]

7. one of my instructors once told me

"if you've never been suspended, you haven't done your job"

disclaimer: i've never been suspended...

but i credit it to luck

[vadawg]

8. roflmao, the way i tell it is that if you have never had any complaints

then you are not doing your job, i get a couple of complaints a week probuably, which is really funny stuff like i used excessive force in deploying pepper spray and physically taking down the subject and he hurt his arm when the machete he was carrying cut him. you know stuff like that all the time with the gang bangers...

[paulsby]

9. my two favorite complaints ever

one of my FTO's was a really smart guy. two master's degrees, very very smart. he looked like the stereotypical meathead - buzz cut, powerlifter physique, etc.

we go to a call and it is some STUPID call. he says to the woman "and how can i help you today ma'am" but in this kind of sarcastic tone of voice. she calls and complains to our sgt. later, while we are at the pct. i hear the sgt on the phone and she's like "ok, let me get this straight, the officer asked you "how can i help you today ma'am?" and you want to make a complaint because he was SARCASTIC in his tone of voice?... conversation continues and sgt. hangs up the phone, calls in my fto. tells him "stop being sarcastic!" he says "whatever you say, ma'am" in this REALLY sarcastic tone of voice. sgt. is on the floor laughing.

my other favorite. we have this guy, former navy diver, thinks he is a total bad-ass. he gets in a pursuit with a stolen car, guy is flinging bags of cocaine out the window, careening around, and finally crashes, gets out of the car, fights with the officer for about 10 minutes, and they are rolling around in the blackberry bushes, getting all cut up by the thorns, etc. and he finally gets the guy in handcuffs.

he stands over him and says "you fight like a little girl. who's yer daddy NOW, bitch!"

this guy was a repeat felon, multiple warrants, in possession of cocaine in sale quantities, and just engaged the officer in a high speed pursuit. a local citizen who lives apparently not too far from the side of the road where the fight occurred, called in to complain about the officer's languge, specifically the "bitch" word.

if THAT is the kind of stuff the citizenry is complaining about, chances are you are a pretty good police dept. sarcasm, and an officer used the word bitch after a drawn out fight into handcuffs of a multiple felon who had engaged him on a high speed pursuit

[vadawg]

10. rofl, yeah my cursing is my downfall.....

i dont even notice that i drop the mofo all the time, little old ladies tend to call in complaints when you mofo them during a traffic stop lol its a bad habit but sometimes you just let one slip in...

[Barack_America]

11. How many stories of fellow soldiers and innocent civilians being killed in cold blood...

...do you figure you would have to hear before it got to you?

Honestly?

This guy heard them all day, every day for 5+ years. According to his family, he even invited soldiers over to his own home to counsel them when the clinics were closed. He became so troubled by what he heard that he slowly withdrew from his family. And yet he continued because there was nobody else to do it.

Now I'm not saying that this guy wasn't conflicted about his Palestinian roots, Muslim faith and role as a US soldier going to Iraq, I'm sure he was. It seems likely that played a role in this incident.

But to laugh off his experiences as a US soldier confronted daily with the worst memories and experiences of war, well, that just seems cold as hell.

[vadawg]

12. simply put, people are making excuses for the guy

he was a piece of shit, i could have some sympathy for him if he had just of offed himself, but he made a decision to take other innocent people with him, so hell yeah im going to mock him and wish him all the best for his courts martial..

[paulsby]

15. of course it would get to me

i've seen scores of dead bodies myself. saw a guy blow his head off 1 foot next to where i was standing, after negotiating with him for 15 minutes. i've seen babies killed in car accidents, seen probably acres of torn flesh and more blood than i can remember, i've pulled a cooked human body from a plane, been shot at, in shootouts, seen 3 of my partners shot at one scene, bla bla bla

that changed me.

but i didn't go ON A FUCKING SHOOTING RAMPAGE AND KILL A BUNCH OF INNOCENT PEOPLE

so, yes. i'm saying it. there's LOTs of other psychiatrists who heard horrible shit and didn't go off and KILL OTHER PEOPLE. if he committed suicide, i'd have empathy for him.

if that seems cold as hell, fine with me. to me, what is cold as hell is what he did to those innocents at the base.

[Barack_America]

18. I'm glad to hear you are of more sound mind than Maj. Hasan.

And you're right, lots of psychiatrists don't lose it and go on shooting rampages, most who lose it just commit suicide, just like most soldiers who lose it.

But this psychiatrist soldier did lose it and go on a shooting rampage and it would be wrong to assume the horrors of war he heard on a daily basis could not be one of the stressors that set him off.

[paulsby]

19. of course

i would never say that hearing what he heard wasn't a stressor or that it couldn't have contributed to him "going off" so to speak.

[cali]

16. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers experience far worse than he did

the vast majority don't turn to slaughtering others in cold blood. but it's sweet that you care so much more about this murdering asshole than his victims.

[vadawg]

17. yup people seem to think that talking to someone who goes through trauma is the same thing

its not, its like saying that because you watched saving private ryan, that suddenly you understand the trauma of landing on the beaches....

[GA_ArmyVet]

21. I don't know how many he listened to. Don't care either.

I spent the last 22 years, working Murders, Child Abuse, Gruesome Suicides, attending autopsies and so forth as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer.

For the Army,I spent my year in the Afghanistan, a year in Iraq/Saudi, another year in Iraq back in 90-91. Saw it. Lived it. Shot at people and shot at by people. Mortared, Rocketed, IEDed, Grenades thrown at me, Picked up my wounded brothers and sisters and kept doing my job. I live with PTSD, as diagnosed by the VA, receive minimal treatment, and you know what....I have not now, nor have I ever felt the need to go shoot up an installation or anything else for that matter.

Don't give that piece of crap an excuse for his behavior..He is a criminal no less, no more. A murdering piece of shit, no amount of listening to other peoples problems can excuse his actions. NONE.

[TorchTheWitch]

13. Cutter John and his Starchair Enterpoop

One of my favorite characters in the Bloom County strip.

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=466223770d7d4aff70f4...

Nobody was buying the PTSD claim for Steven Green as an excuse for what he and his buddies did to that poor Iraqi family. But he wasn't a Muslim so naturally the PTSD card wouldn't fly here for him.

[vadawg]

14. your reply is totally useless without pics of yourself ;)

i hope you are well and keeping safe...

[paulsby]

20. thank you

cutter john! despite being a hyoooge bloom county fan as a kind, i could not remember his name