As families and friends mourn the thirteen individuals who were shot dead at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, questions continue to be raised about what might have motivated Thursday’s rampage. The suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was an Army psychiatrist who had spent most of his career at Walter Reed Hospital before being transferred to Fort Hood earlier this year. He had also recently received orders to deploy to Afghanistan.
Michael Kern talking:
Imagine just having a job where, every soldier comes in and tells you the most horrible tragic stories about what happened in Iraq and what they’ve done in Iraq. And you have to deal with all these things, and then all of a sudden you get orders to deploy? That’s going to screw with anyone, mentally.
Numerous things happened to me in Iraq. I actually engaged and shot and killed a child, believing at the time that it was a legitimate kill. That still troubles me to this day. anything—we got hit with mortars, IEDs, EFPs, small arms fires, RPGs, anything you can think of. I lost a lot of good friends out there for a, immoral and an unjust war.
I don’t see religion as being an issue with the people I’ve talked to. I don’t see religion being the issue in anyone’s mind. The media is trying to spin it like that right now, but, I think most soldiers are pretty much well informed, that they don’t watch the regular news. And I’m pretty sure that they think it’s compassionate PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).
– from democracynow.org
Michael Kern, Active-duty veteran of the Iraq war stationed at Fort Hood. He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.