Fort Hood Shootings

[Thankful]

I hate to say I sort of hope it's PTSD and not sleeper cell or something to that effect. That reality is scary for many, I'm sure. They did say that he yelled "god is good" in Arabic just before shooting, and so I wonder if he had 'switched teams' some time recently? That reality is very scary and once again will pose great stress on those who are muslim and in the military, they will undergo scrutiny for sure. We shall soon find out why, I'm sure.

I do however find myself very concerned for those who were about to deploy and suffered this tragedy or saw this happen as a bystander. There is SO much stress around deployment and then now this???? That's some serious fuel for PTSD in the making.

I did say to some military wives I converse with on a forum that we have to maybe stop and take note that this random violence or trauma is something their spouses experience on a regular basis overseas, if in combat that is. I said this as I find that the ones you'd think would be most engaged on the topic of PTSD are not; they want to think that their spouse is a super hero and will come back to them unscathed and they will carry on as before. That alone is tragic as most of them don't, such as mine.

So it's sort of ironic...they were about to deploy to go and 'partake' in such trauma and yet got it right here at home, before leaving. The reality of war, and trauma is so great for me....I wish more understood, things might be different, how quickly folks sign up for war might be different. Or, maybe not. Who knows.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I do understand that we should not judge this guy, but somewhere, someone failed......This Dr. was let go at Walter Reed Hospital 6 months ago, because of his poor attitude with the patients. He was sent to Fort Hood and supposedly under supervision??????????? That's what was reported this morning on CNN....... I know still to early and a lot of speculation going on.....

But if this was true, WHY did he have guns? And where was the supervision?????? This could have been avoided IMO, if the system in place hadn't failed, and he had been under the proper supervision, and had his guns removed.....There were warning signs and no one paid attention......

 

[NarcSis]

Interesting and forgive me if I step over a boundary, but there will now be some soldiers with PTSD who didn't GET the chance to be deployed into combat - they were shot by one of their own. What does that do to your sense of safety?

I also hate to sympathize but it is my nature - if someone put a gun in your hand and told you to kill your fellow countryman/religious cohorts, how would you deal with it? I assume he thought he would never have to kill another muslim because he was a psychiatrist in the military...I wonder if he was even realized that he wouldn't be scheduled for a combat position, he's far to valuable to 'waste' in the field.

If this illustrates that not everyone in the healthcare field is exactly 'stable', I don't know what would.

 

[cynelena]

This tragedy HAS BROUGHT combat stress/ptsd to the forefront

I pray that it stays in the forefront. WAKE UP WORLD!!!!! How much more evident does something have to be? PTSD is real and SO many people are suffering. I sincerely hope that the media and government and anyone that has a voice to keep the PTSD talk going does so.

Sorry to shout, but I am just overcome with emotion on this one. I am so pissed, and so disappointed, and so saddened. The veil that has covered PTSD for so long HAS come off and it needs to stay off! Our Sufferers need help. What transpired at Ft. Hood yesterday was a worse case scenario as far as I'm concerned. A PSYCHATRIST, on a military base, counseling soldiers did this! There's your proof for any doubters (not anyone of the forum of course, but outsiders) that PTSD is REAL!!!!!

Thank you all for reading and for posting. I had posted this in the Carers section (guess I was worried about triggering some folks), but it was so rightfully moved to view in the General forum (thank you Anthony and Nicolette).

Hug your Sufferers. Hug your Carers. Hug the oblivious people around you too...for 13 families will never hug their spouse, son, daughter, father, mother, sister, cousin, or friend again.

 

[CCurry]

You'd think the world would wake up but seriously this may get a week to two week's coverage and then the world will put it's blind folds on once again.

When I went with D to his family doctor on the second visit I blurted out to his doc that she should know that D was drinking........oh dear is what she said she didn't think to ask that??? OMG, how ignorant and she's a doctor that doesn't understand that ptsd and substance abuse usually go hand in hand!!!! Frustrating that there's is THIS much ignorance even among doctors!!

So hopefully people will become educated by what happened at Fort Hood but I'm not so convinced.

C

 

[Deleted member 541]

Has the world gone nuts???? I'm serious! I just don't comprehend the actions of some people. Psychiatrist, shooting fellow officers. Mothers killing their children, teachers having sex with their students. Husbands taking out their entire families....People walking into places and opening fire on whomever is there..... Serial killers with 11 bodies in his home for over 2 years.

I am appalled, and yet, I don't comprehend the actions. Where or how do they get to the point that they feel that there are no other options? How do they get that desperate, without others seeing the problem. It's usually there in hindsight, but no one makes a move to stop it.

Forgive me for being so ignorant, and stupid, but just HOW does it get to this point, and how in the hell can it be avoided, or stopped. How can we get to people, to teach them that there IS ANOTHER option.....When I get that desperate, I hurt myself, not others, and I just don't get any of this.......I am furious, sickened, saddened, and angry that this happens over and over again, and yet there is nothing offered to help people see that there is another option........

When is this shit going to end????????

 

[Clarity99]

In light of this chaos I am having a genuinely dreadful time being able to humanize the shooter long enough to acknowledge that of course he must have been mentally ill.

Yes, it is a terrible tragedy. As much as it is unacceptable to take the lives of 13 people, he obviously needs help himself.

Its easy to be angry or place blame on one person, but for me this is just another tragedy that forces us to realize that we as individuals, as families, as a society, as a world need to DEAL with our issues, rather than suppress them. There is way too much stigma and fear out there. The silly thing is that EVERYONE suffers for varying reasons, but we often can't be honest with each other and reach out. (Oh, plus our medical systems aren't really set up in a way to truly help people... One must often be their own advocate and lots of people don't have the know-how or finances to do this.)

I'm not trying to pick on anyone, I know lots of people are trying very hard to get help and its not easy (or as simple as I have stated above). I sense the sadness of the world and my heart goes out to people who feel isolated and alone.

My prayers are with these families (yes, the shooter has a family too) and everyone who is affected by tragedy.

 

[Paloma]

Like you guys...I am shocked and horrified. I have been trying to figure out a possible rationale as well. I hope I don't piss anybody off...just exploring.

How could this happen? Well, as a woman veteran I can tell you the military is not one big happy family. There are a number of ostracized groups that take punishing "friendly fire" from their comrades. I was raped and harassed for six years by my "brothers-in-arms". Many racial groups have to deal with similar crap. Any guy who isn't sufficiently macho for his unit is subjected to terrible hazing and abuse. Many male soldiers are subject to rape and sexual harrassment too.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be an arab and a muslim in the army at this time. The Japanese Americans who served in WWII were in their own units. This guy was alone with people who probably saw him as the enemy...who defined to him what his religion was about...who saw him day after day with war stories involving the killing of people he identified with...and then he was about to be sent in support of that effort. He had bad ratings from Walter Reed where he was probably starting to decompensate. He arrives alone at a new base with no support network...and finally snapped. The military isn't all that supportive of troops with PTSD for a variety of reasons. They are even less supportive of officers who lose it...and a shrink???!

In no way do I condone any of his actions. But I too was trying to figure out why...if suicide was his intention...did he mow down all these people deploying. I am guessing that he felt threatened by the army and polarized to his deeper ethnic roots. When he went psycho he was defending his identity...and his people. I have to admit, there were times when the constant abuse, harrassment, and singling out were so intense and overwhelming that in a psychotic moment I believe I too could have blown away the guys in my shop. Fortunately, I saved total crack-ups for when I was out.

It is incredibly tragic and the ripples will be felt for years. There will be more of this...suicide rates pre-deployment are so high now...as are military PTSD...it's a tsunami that hasn't peaked yet.

 

[suzie q]

I support what Paloma posted, the other side of this tragedy. Being a veteran myself, I can say from experience, just because you are in the military doesn't mean everyone is on the same page. We are trained to work as a unit, but obviously some don't practice that. They were on a base with almost 50,000 people, some active, some not. That's a huge city. All types and all illnesses.

I wonder if we would all be so quick to get angry if this had happened in a civilian environment, say another city or country? Because we are at war, we are having news pumped everyday into our heads about the negative. What he did was ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!! I agree completely. Am I getting upset because he wasn't "one of us"? Probably.

I am trying to look at this situation from a point of balance. Otherwise, I would trigger. I want to be angry at the disease, not the person.

 

[NarcSis]

I agree with you both, well said, the military is not the cohesive brotherhood that it is portrayed to be. My brothers went through similar harrassment here in Canada because they were members of a minority group, it was just lucky for them they knew how to fight back, others didn't and ended up destroyed and angry.

I too do not condone his actions however regardless of background he acted as a human in crisis, we don't think clearly, there is no rationalizing our actions, we act emotionally and use our beliefs to justify it. It won't ever make sense because we cannot read the minds of other people. We hurt others. We are all capable of it, just as we are all capable of killing another, it is our ability to decide NOT TO that makes us strong.

May strength be with you all.

 

[Deleted member 541]

I am not angry or upset because it's military. I am angry and upset because it happened.......I am angry because there were obvious signs well ahead of time, and someone dropped the ball.

I am angry because this happens over and over again, in our schools, places of work, homes, stores, and on our highways. We talk about it, discuss it, rehash it, pull it apart, and the media pulls it into a thousand different working stories. But, in the end, that's all we have done. We get angry, we talk about it, and then it's over and onto the next horrific story.

My point is....NOTHING ever gets done!!!! Yet, after everything is said and done, there were warning signs, people knew that things were not right, something was going to happen, the system failed.....

We can discuss the rights and wrongs, the what ifs, the whys, the possibly reasons, till we are blue in the face, but UNTIL something is put into place ahead of time, people step up to the plate, the system fixes itself, there are more resources available, people are given another option, and we try to work on PREVENTION.....Then we shall continue to do nothing more than what we are doing right now......

Prevention is the key..IMO!!!!!!

 

[2quilt]

The only way I can imagine that Maj Hasin had handguns was if he used his privately owned weapons, that he failed to register on base, as required. We were watching the news in a restaurant at 230pm Thursday, and when FOX said that the shooter had 2 handguns, all of us in the group who were ex-military thought that the shooter either (a) was a Army officer (b) was an MP 'military policeman', or (c) had used his privately owned fire arms. At that moment in the unfolding, he had shot more than ten and injured more than 30 with 2 handguns, so we thought that he had full multiple clips and was firing with both hands at the same time...the traits of someone trained as a sniper or at least front-line, and it sounded premeditated. And because it happened at the building where either new recruits are grouped to get shots and such, and where soldiers stop off to do last-minute tasks before overseas deployment, we thought that either the shooter was not wanting to deploy or that he was having war flashbacks. Either scenario, we all thought that the shooting was due to PTSD.

I agree wholly that when a soldier, even a mental health provider, shows sign of PTSD, the leadership should do everything possible to help get that person the help they need, stop them from being deployed into a warzone, take away all known fire arms, and appoint a supervisor to monitor that soldier in question not as a nanny, but as a responsible leader to hopefully prevent tragedies such as this.

Right now we don't know if Maj Hasin's supervisors knew that he was bullied, or if he had privately owned weapons, if he had been diagnosed with a mental illness, if he accepted or refused treatment, if he was "off his meds", etc. Since he is alive, I am hopeful that he is receiving treatment now and can give us honest answers when he is stable.