First, my sympathies to the families and people directly and indirectly harmed during the Fort Hood Shooting. Watching that unfold was difficult and confusing. Let's sort out what happened on Thursday, because I'm still confused about what happened and why.
First, all of this actually started at 1:30 PM Central Time, according to my notes, blogs, other blogs, and updated information, reports of shots were coming from Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installation in America.
(Fort Hood is huge. It spans 339 square miles and is the largest active duty armored post in American. It's home to about 5,000 active duty officers and 45,000 enlisted; with approximately 9,000 civilian employees. It's located next to Killeen, and northeast of Austin, Texas. To give you an idea of how large Fort Hood is, Walt Disney World is 49 square miles, larger than Manhattan Island. Fort Hood is over six times larger than Walt Disney World.)
At that time, according to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nathan Banks, shots were fired and there's where things got confusing for me.
I was watching MSNBC at the time and as the moments advanced, they said that there were reports of more than one gunman at Fort Hood. At that point Fort Hood was on "lockdown": no one can get in, no one can get out or move from place to place. So I turned to CNN for a different perspective, as they commonly find someone to go on camera as an information resource.
I then found this video, thanks to Cao's Blog:
Then I wrote: There was a graduation ceremony going on at the time of the shooting, according to MSNBC and CNN. The shooting happened at the solidier readiness facility on the base.
The gunmen were carrying M-16s according to General Russell Honore U.S. Amry (Ret.) on the Rich Sanchez Show on CNN just three minutes ago.
President Obama was informed of the incident and CNN reported that the White House expected him to make a statement, soon.
Then here's what was confusing for me:
First, the number of gunmen, which started at one, then two, then three, and now it's back to one. What's unexplained is how there could be gun shots in different places of the installation in the same time frame?
Then there were the number of fatalities: it started at 7, then went to 12, then 11 because one of them was said to have been the gunman or a gunman, and now its at 13. The number of wounded is at 31, that increased steadily during the day, starting at 12 people.
Obama makes his statement:
Finally after a woman "first responder" reportedly shot the person who's said to be the "lone gunman" named Major Malik Nadal Hasan. At that point he was reported to have been killed. We later learn he's still alive and said to have been upset over the chance that he would be sent to war.
This is from the Associated Press, later in the evening:
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president is being kept updated as details about the shooting emerge.
Gibbs said he told Obama about TV news reports that seven people were dead at the Texas military location and others were injured. Gibbs said he informed Obama based on broadcast reports and the president is being kept up to date through the White House Situation Room.
The Web site of the base in central Texas has posted an alert that says, "Effective immediately Fort Hood is closed." The Web site said that units at the base have been ordered to account for all personnel.
The site says, "This is not a Drill. It is an Emergency Situation."
Fort Hood is located halfway between Austin and Waco.
On the Fort Hood Web site, the word "closed" is posted with the statement, "Effective immediately, Fort Hood is closed. Organizations / units are instructed to execute a 100 percent accountability of all personnel."
Fort Hood was asking people on post to stay away from windows, CNN affiliate KXXV said. The incident took place at the sports dome, now known as the soldier readiness area, the station reported.
FBI agents are headed to the scene to assist, said Erik Vasys, spokesman for the FBI office in San Antonio. He had no other details.
The military installation is located near Killeen, Texas. It is the Army's largest installation, Honore said.
What to make of this? Well, what does concern me is a report by CNN that Major Malik Nadal Hasan was constantly working as a therapist for soldiers who've gone through horrible stuff, and yet he has no outlet. No girlfriend or wife to come home to and share what he's going through or better yet, forget about it for a bit.
He's one - reportedly according to Keith Olbermann's interview with Clint Van Sant, a former profiler with the FBI - shrink responsible for about 750 officers who are being processed to enter society after returning from wars. That's a hard job to do and keep one's mind straight.
Major Hassan was placed in a sensitive position, dealing with the issues and pains of fellow officers and internalizing them, and with no outlet, he apparently snapped and shot a lot of people, or shot at them.
He had to have lost it: Hassan had no previous extensive experience using guns and was said to have hated the idea of going to the gun range.
(Oh, this has nothing, zero, zip to do with being Muslim or Arab or anything , so please don't be a major bonehead and go there.)
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