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Letter From Fort Hood
A former reader emails today to pass along a firsthand account of the shooting at Fort Hood on Thursday. It's unedited except for paragraph breaks:
I was walking into the medical SRP building when he started firing (he never made it to the main SRP building....the media accounts are understandably pretty off right now). He was calmly and methodically shooting everyone. Like every non-deployed military post, no one was armed. For the first time in my life I really wish I had a weapon. I don't know how to explain what it feels like to have someone shoot at you while you're unarmed. He missed me but didn't miss a lot of others. Just pure random luck. It's a very compressed area, thus the numbers.
I saw a lot of heroism. So many more would have died if this wasn't an Army post. We're almost all CLS trained and it made a huge difference. Cause the EMTs didn't get there for almost an hour (they thought there was a second shooter). I just can't believe one of our own shot us. When I saw his ID card I couldn't believe it. After he shot the female police officer he was fumbling his reload and I saw the other police officer around the corner and yelled at him to come shoot the shooter. He did. Then I used my belt as a tourniquet on the female officer.
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.
1Hasan Akbar was an Army sergeant who killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait in 2003. He's currently under a sentence of death.
There have been several media reports that the Fort Hood shooter yelled "Allahu Akbar!" during his rampage, but my correspondent says, "He was silent in my presence."
Heartwrentching
Thank you both for sharing this
Ughhh the politics of this..
It's quite sad that people are politicizing this into a religious issue when there really isn't any solid proof or claims to prove that it is. Asides from the fact that the guy has an Islamic sounding name and ancestry, which I don't take to be proof that this is religiously inspired, there is more evidence to suggest the attack was carried out because the guy was angry and did not want to be shipped out to Iraq or Afghanistan. It also begs the question why he would join the army in the first place.
The odd part of the media coverage surrounding this is that some outlets are focusing on the fact that the guy possibly was Muslim, despite that the issue never really comes into question in terms of what he did. I would expect a person's religion, be it Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or any other religion for that matter, be made the main emphasis when there are no reports to indicate that their religion had anything to do with their actions or behavior.
It also begs the question why he would join the army
As I understand it, he enlisted before 2001 for patriotic reasons. Then the "war on terror" began, but by then he was already locked into an obligation to serve for many years because he was sent to OTS and the military had paid for his education/medical school.
I heard he offered to pay the money back, but they wouldn't let him go. They very seldom do.
Yet if he'd claimed to be gay, they would have cashiered him in a New York minute.
What's wrong with this picture?
re: "They wouldn't let him go."
re: "I heard he offered to pay the money back, but they wouldn't let him go. "
Having served as a Marine officer for fifteen years, I highly doubt this. An officer can resign his commission at any time. He would have to pay money that he was given in exchange for future service, of course.
That is why the officer's oath is different than the enlisted oath. In the officer's oath, one pledges to "take this obligation freely, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion." It is a duty "freely" taken. It would be highly unusual for an officer not to be allowed to resign, especially for matters of conscience.
-PTR
OnLiveTV
He yelled Allahu Akbar! pior to shooting that makes you either naive or just plain retarded. Live that way if you want to but don't ask us to be brain dead along with you.
You repeat lies because your
You repeat lies because your brain has been seized by a parasite.
Whose Fault is this?
Maybe we should start treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent and we should be on alert at all time that anyone who sends or recieves suspicious emails or has any drop of red on his or her flag be investigated to the fullest and that would includes the most red/white and true blue American or would that make us seem to be the land of the paranoid and not the land of the Free?? This was a HUGE POKE PEOPLE... do you think he is alone? Sure he was at FtHood... but I would almost dare to venture that there are others..just waiting for us to let our guard down. We have a history of relaxing. They are getting closer to the heart.....this was something that could have been prevented and funny how it always comes down to hindsight. Maybe those that are in the position to monitor and suspect to protect need to have a QA of their own... Seems as though they either fell asleep at the wheel again...or thought....why waste out time on something that will turn out to be nothing. This act is a tragedy that could have been prevented. Lets open our eyes people, Lets not be paranoid but lets be aware. Respect our Veterans...those who have served and those who are currently serving. They are the very reason we are able to walk around free to do as we please..They protect those rights that our ForeFathers thought to write in our Constitution for us...
Let them not be forgotten....Let those currently serving Not Be Mistreated.
wow
wow
"former reader" Could you
"former reader"
Could you explain that Kevin? What does that mean?
Kevin, thanks for posting
Kevin, thanks for posting this, and to the anonymous writer, I am so sorry for your friends and your suffering. thank you and them for doing what you could.
I'm disinclined to say much more. the comments on the last thread were so ill thought out (both of the "the army made him do it!" and the equally stupid or worse "kill all muslims" variety) that I honestly think I'm stupider for having read them.
But I will ask this: does it seem to anyone else that this case might help us understand how blurry the line between "terrorism" and "lone nut with a gun" really is? By all accounts he had a number of grievances, was deeply unhappy in the army, had been ridiculed, was getting ready to go into combat for an institution he was at odds with. I'm not saying he "snapped" but planning this, moving methodically, shooting everyone in sight, alot of that sounds like descriptions of Georgia Tech, or Columbine, situations where we don't look for ideology to explain it.
so, what if someone who fits this description finds themselves an ideology that allows them to construct or rationalize an act like this as something larger than the petty and vicious murder that it is? How much terrorism is actually psycological pathology harnessed to someone else's political ends?
Coming off SSRIs hard
can explain this bazaar behavior. Please look into Hasan's record to find out if he was on SSRIs. Since he was a psychiatrist, he could have gotten SSRIs without a prescription. (Theft).
Thanks for posting this
Thanks for posting this Kevin, and thanks, thoughts and blessings to our soldier and their families.
At least from what I've read
At least from what I've read of his profiles, he sounds like one of those "he was such a nice man - mostly kept to himself" types - devout muslim, previous issues with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and resistance to being sent there (one of his colleagues heard him say that something along the lines of "muslim lands should expel the aggressor), etc. I think he probably just snapped and went psycho.
On top of his bravery, this
On top of his bravery, this trooper is a good writer.
Lucid and pithy.
Thanks
Just to echo everyone else:
Thank you for posting this. May it be read far and wide.
He hasn't been sentenced
He hasn't been sentenced yet. He is not under the death penalty because of a right even he has to what we call due process. The shooter is still in intensive care from his own wounds and still has yet to stand trial. Mr. Drum, making such a statement that he is under the death penalty when he is has not yet been tried in court before a jury of his peers is journalistic irresponsibility.
I am currently stationed at Fort Hood and I have no sympathy for the shooter whatsoever. One soldier, PFC Reinhart, who used to be in my squad was present during the shooting. He knocked out a window to escape the shooting and lacerated his hand in the process.
Everyone here at Fort Hood is taking this very seriously and very personally.
Roy, Kevin's comment about
Roy, Kevin's comment about being subject to the death penalty applied NOT to the shooter yesterday, but to "Hasan Akbar," who Kevin states "was an Army sergeant who killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait in 2003. He's currently under a sentence of death."
he is not a journalist.
he is not a journalist.
He was referring to Hasan
He was referring to Hasan Akbar, not the shooter in this incident.
Thank you again for posting this.
This was a terrible act but it certainly gave me respect for the men and women who are in our armed forces, rushing in to help their comrades even while this guy was still shooting up the place.
I'm also glad to see that today the nation is united in condemning it and nobody is out there trying to score cheap political points from these murders.
One reference I didn't understand. VBC?
Victory Base Complex - that
Victory Base Complex - that giant, sprawling American military base on the outskirts of Baghdad. Camp Liberty is part of the VBC, and earlier this year was the site of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Liberty_killings. A very similar episode, but perpetrated by a white guy.
Thank you again for posting this.
This was a terrible act but it certainly gave me respect for the men and women who are in our armed forces, rushing in to help their comrades even while this guy was still shooting up the place.
I'm also glad to see that today the nation is united in condemning it and nobody is out there trying to score cheap political points from these murders.
One reference I didn't understand. VBC?
Killer is a Palestinian devout Muslim
This is not hugely mysterious.
The killer is a Palestinian. His mother was born in Jerusalem. He's a devout Muslim bachelor, who was frustrated that he couldn't find a wife in America who would wear one of those tents.
There's been a steady stream of terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11 committed by Muslims. For example, Kevin should remember the July 4, 2002 attack by an Egyptian immigrant who shot up the El Al airline counter at LAX, killing two Jews.
a comforting illusion
Steve Sailer - you're only finding the patterns you want to find. There are 1.5 billion Muslims. If they all wanted to kill non-Muslims, there would be bigger problems than there are. It's a big world, with lots of different points of view.
The shooter in the Ft Hood tragedy is Muslim. He is crazy, or he was deranged by SSRIs, or perhaps he was killing people consciously as a Muslim. It doesn't matter: whatever the reason, they are his reasons, and not those of Muslims around the world.
Unless you personally are willing to take on the guilt for murderous acts committed by Christians, do not categorize others as murderers because of this murderer.
Sailer is Christian?
Who says Sailer is Christian?
Why do you assume there are only Muslims and Christians - you protect one side and say "unless you are" (the other side).
The problem IS sides.
I was born to a devoutly Catholic mother and devoutly Baptist father - and then I married a devoutly Buddhist woman from Japan. I'm having an identity crisis everyday of my life.
So throw it all away - identify yourself as human and forget the mother lands and religions. Be religious - but don't _be_ a religion. "I believe in Jesus" or "I believe in Allah" is not quite the same thing as saying "I _am_ Christian" or "I _am_ Muslim".
I reject all Muslim and Christian categories. War ends when we stop seeing borders and categories.
Meaning there will always be war in my lifetime unfortunately :(
not protecting any side
I'm not in favor of any side except rationality and kindness. I do not have any religion, myself.
I was trying to make Steve see that his hatred was actually irrational, that "muslims" had committed no crime, only one person did. If you like, you could make the counterexample be that Timothy McVeigh indicted all white people as cowardly murderers when he blew up a federal building in 1995.
The Least Tolerant Community - The Most Defensive Community
Rathskeller - show me the proportion of minorities living in Muslim-majority countries. It's a well known fact that minorities in Muslim-majority countries suffer inferior rights and treatment in comparison to Muslim minorities living in non-Muslim majority countries. The low numbers of surviving minorities in such lands is ample proof of this. The fact that the Islamic world is so overwhelmingly Islamic in its demographics shows that minorities have not been able to survive easily there. The only ones who praise the tolerance in Muslim-majority countries are of course Muslims. You don't see non-Muslims immigrating to Muslim-majority societies as much as you see Muslims immigrating to non-Muslim majority countries. There's a clear difference. I myself am an Asian, as well as an atheist, and I am aware of Islamic intolerance from firsthand experience. Those Muslims who are tolerant are so in spite of their culture and not because of it.
relevance?
sanman - Did I parachute into an argument you were having with someone else? Where was I saying that Islam was tolerant of religious minorities? Is that a hot button issue you have?
You probably did have some bad experiences with Muslim intolerance. Sorry, it was probably pretty unpleasant for you.
There are many different Muslims, and uncountably different ways of following that faith. What's worse, there are Islamists, folks like the Muslim brotherhood and other followers of Sayyid Qutb, and they go well beyond the intolerance you experienced, and many would cheerfully kill you for being an infidel. Knowing that those people exist doesn't make all Muslims terrorists, which was my only point, originally. I don't know enough about tolerance of non-Muslim minorities to make any kind of interesting argument. If you say they're jerks, then they probably are, at least in your country.
Former reader?
Former reader?
"There have been several
"There have been several media reports that the Fort Hood shooter yelled "Allahu Akbar!" during his rampage, but my correspondent says, "He was silent in my presence.""
Maybe, maybe not, but there's video footage of him in formal Arab Muslim wear at the 7-11 that morning.
Quibbling over details won't cover up that this is blowback from America's Invite the World / Invade the World policies.
Allahu Akbar
I seriously doubt he uttered this at all. My estimation is that it just "adds" to the story and is untrue.
I have a trusted friend who
I have a trusted friend who was one of the wounded. He heard him say Allahu Akbar, and has no reason to lie about it to "add to the story."
I have a trusted friend who
I have a trusted friend who was one of the wounded. He heard him say Allahu Akbar, and has no reason to lie about it to "add to the story."
Lighten up, Sailer
Tripp
Don't feel bad about what
Don't feel bad about what you said to the medic. As one myself, you were absolutely correct; don't let all this politically correct bs make you feel bad, you were 100% correct about treating him last. I'm not alone in saying this.
"Pass along a firsthand account"?
Kevin-
What's your confidence level in this material? It's a very dramatic account, certainly. Do you have any reason to believe it's authentic?
-Mithras
Fables of the Reconstruction
mithras.blogs.com
I'm friends with Kevin's
I'm friends with Kevin's correspondent and he emailed a group of us a longer variant of this letter with a lot more detail on his personal experience of the shooting. The version I received makes it more clear that the events he's writing about took place outside the Medical SRP building. As he says here, he "was walking into the medical SRP building when [Hasan] started firing"; he stayed outside the building, directing people away from it, until Hasan came out and fired at the group of people he was with. The letter writer didn't make it into the Medical SRP building until after the shooting spree.
Of course the one major discrepancy between his account and the ones making the rounds in the media is that according to him Kimberly Munley was not the officer who brought down Hasan; rather it was her partner. He says he didn't see whether Munley hit Hasan (he was taking cover behind a car) but Hasan was still standing and reloading after Munley went down.
In any case, I can vouch for the authenticity of the letter 100%.
Thanks, a couple more questions
Thanks. That makes sense about inside/outside.
You say you're friends with Kevin's correspondent. Kevin's first line says that the letter was "pass[ed] along" - which I took to mean the correspondent was not the writer of the letter. You seem to be saying the person who emailed Kevin was the person who wrote the letter. Is that right?
The second question you might not know the answer to. The NYTimes article says Munley was driving her car to get it repaired, which sounds like a personal errand someone would do when off-duty, when she heard the radio call. Then later it says it's not clear whether her partner shot Hasan, too. Does that mean he was in the car when she rolled up? If so, and she saw Hasan from her car (as the article says), then what was the partner doing as Munley charged Hasan, firing? Why did the letter-writer have to call him over to shoot the guy who just shot his partner?
Anyway, thanks again.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mithras Invicti
Fables of the Reconstruction
mithras.blogs.com
The account I read about Munley
made it sound like she kept shooting the guy even after she hit the ground (hit in both thighs and wrist).
Who knows?
I also heard that Munley herself doesn't care about being called a "hero." She won't mind either way. So I don't know why I just bothered to answer this! Ha!
Letter is too similar and not similar enough
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones runs a “firsthand account of the shooting at Fort Hood” emailed to them from “a former reader.” Anonymous. And the details are so strikingly similar to the ROFASIX account below that it must be the same person. Especially since in both the MJ account and the ROFASIX account, the person identified him(her)self as a first responder to the wounded Sgt. Munley.
MJ: “Then I used my belt as a tourniquet on the female officer.”
ROFASIX: “We take our belts off and tourniquet her just like we’ve been trained (I hope we did it right…we didn’t have any CLS (combat lifesaver) bags”
This is the same person’s account. Whether that person was really there or not is impossible to tell. It was easier to believe the authenticity of the ROFASIX account. But after discovering the Mother Jones post, there is room for doubt. But if it’s fake, what’s the motivation?
http://abesauer.com/2009/11/09/rare-first-person-tale-from-fort-hood-sho...
Kevin, I'm trying to
Kevin, I'm trying to integrate your correspondent's description of the shooting with media reports which say the lady police officer actually stopped Hasan, not that her attempt was finished off by another, male (well, "he") officer. From http://abcnews.go.com/WN/fort-hood-officer-kimberly-munley-hailed-massac...
The Fort Hood massacre ended when Sgt. Kimberly Munley spotted Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as the alleged gunman was chasing a soldier who was already wounded and trying to shoot him again, officials said today.
Kevin, I'm trying to
Kevin, I'm trying to integrate your correspondent's description of the shooting with media reports which say the lady police officer actually stopped Hasan, not that her attempt was finished off by another, male (well, "he") officer. From http://abcnews.go.com/WN/fort-hood-officer-kimberly-munley-hailed-massac...
The Fort Hood massacre ended when Sgt. Kimberly Munley spotted Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as the alleged gunman was chasing a soldier who was already wounded and trying to shoot him again, officials said today.
The NYTimes article clearly says Sgt. Munley shot him outside
This is what the article says:
The letter you published implies the shootout took place inside the medical SRP building.
-Mithras
Fables of the Reconstruction
mithras.blogs.com
God Bless you Kevin. Thanks
God Bless you Kevin. Thanks for your words of truth.
Stacy in Huntsville,TX
Revolutionary Justice
The real mystery is why more vigilantes aren't executing more volunteer war criminals. There was no element of collective punishment here; all of the intended dead were individually guilty beyond any doubt. The distinction between terrorist or a street gang thug and a "soldier" lies entirley in the impunity of the supposed "soldier." A soldier deserves the loyalty of his countrymen when he obeys legal orders to defend his country; when he obeys illegal orders to take part in a massive criminal act such as waging aggressive war, he rejects and discards this honorable profession, along with the loyalty of his countrymen. He becomes a thug, a terrorist, an assassin-for-profit: a war criminal. The appropriate fate for such a person is trial and imprisonment---never going to happen. Failing that, it would be just if such a person came back from the scene of his crime maimed or dead---but far too many will survive intact. I'm sorry, but spitting on them is simply insufficient. So how can we have justice? This shooter has pointed to the only option left available to us by the corruption of our own society: summary revolutionary justice. It's that or the long, slow march into the gloom of fascist evil. The time is coming to pick sides.
Are you completely out of
Are you completely out of your mind? No soldier joins the military with intent to commit war crimes, and once he's in, he has no choice where he goes.
You are as bad as any religious extremist. Unless fundamentalist religion also contributes to your crazy.
No soldiers are legally required to obey illegal orders
No soldier who has challenged deployment orders on the basis of their illegality has been convicted of a crime. Soldiers are in fact legally required to refuse illegal orders; those who fail to do so have violated the law. Even without such meaningful alternatives, each sane person is absolutely in control of their own actions at all times; refusal is always an option. Soldiers who enlist at this time should expect to be recieve illegal orders as a consequence.
Nuts.
And not the appropriate time or place in any event.
On the contrary, this is the time when war criminals are reaping
...undeserved sympathy from people who seem to have forgotten that we had no legitimate right or reason to invade these places in the first place. Don't like it that your nation's soldiers deserve to die for following the orders of their superiors? Then you should have done something about those orders and those superiors years ago.
"The time is coming to pick sides"
hmm... crazies vs. army, what should I choose?