Attacked at Home
I’ll be continuing to post from the East Providence GOP event, but this demands immediate mention:
Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base in a murderous rampage that officials believe was carried out by an Army psychiatrist.
The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Nadal Malik Hasan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, told Fox News that military sources informed her that the gunman was about to be deployed to Iraq.
With WPRO running commercials when I got in the car, I first heard the news on Christian rock station K:-OVE (91.1FM out of New Bedford), and there was something comforting about hearing extended prayers offered shortly after the news. Mine go out to the dead, wounded, and their families.
Now we can only wait for background information.
It is especially disturbing to think that this guy was a psychiatrist, counseling others on their problems.
Radovan Karadzic,the notorious Serbian war criminal is a psychiatrist.Occupation doesn’t immunize anyone from committing evil acts.
I know. But imagine being a patient of this guy’s.
My heart goes out to the families of the victims.
It is widely thought by others in the medical profession that psychiatrists enter the field to resolve their own problems. I attended a psychiatrist’s party in the late 70’s. They all had beards and were identically dressed in black turtlenecks and jeans, I wondered.
I note later news indicated he felt harrassed. Real, or imagined, I wonder. He also was fighting his impending deployment because he felt the U.S. position was wrong. It is not like he was in the combat arms.
It is obvious from the facts this was preplanned. He killed or injured 42 people with a handgun. On the highest capacity handgun I know of, this is at least the majority of the cartridges held in four clips. Assuming that not every shot connected, it could be five clips. Further assuming he did not reload the same clip (this would require enough time for him to be physically overwhelmed), he brought 4, or 5, clips with him. I also understand the pistol was not military issue. So, he made the effort to obtain it. Not spur of the moment.
The news has explicitly stayed away from this guy’s background, but his name indicates that he’s of Middle-Eastern descent.
Does anyone else think that yesterday’s vote on the Goldstone Report ( http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.res.=0867: ), combined with the pressure of hearing your brothers-in-arms espousing their excitement to ‘kill some towelheads’ in the run-up to deployment might be enough to push a conscientious American over the edge?
This is definitely a tragedy, it shouldn’t have happened, and the perpetrator needs to be brought to justice, but the background of the perpetrator combined with our own policy of denying war crimes when they’re politically disadvantageous should at least be discussed.
Warrington Faust,
It is also being reported by news sources that Nidal Malik Hasan brought himself under military scrutiny with rants on the Internet and Blogs also he filed a hate crime complaint after his car paint was keyed with the word “Allah” and the complaint was dismissed. The man was spun up!
“News Channel 25’s Henry Rosoff has learned the suspect, Nidal Malik Hasan, was giving all of his furniture along with copies of the Qu’ ran outside of his apartment Thursday morning.”
“By PAM HESS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) – Military officials say the suspected shooter at Fort Hood was a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for six years before being transferred to the Texas base in July.
The officials had access to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s military record. They said he received a poor performance evaluation while at Walter Reed.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because military records are confidential.
The Virginia-born soldier was single with no children. He was 39 years old.
He is a graduate of Virginia Tech University, where he was a member of the ROTC and earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1997. He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. At Walter Reed, he did his internship, residency and a fellowship.”
ADDEMDUN:
Warrington Faust,
It’s reported Nidal Malik Hasan used two handguns one being a semi automatic and both not military issue.
Normal clips hold 10 to 17 rounds.
A number of the 30 wounded were shot multiple times beside the 12 dead.
Nidal Malik Hasan himself was shot at least 4 times by the first female responding civilian police officer whom he wounded.
Warrington-Ken is correct.Most high caps like Glocks or XD’s can hold 14-18 rounds in a magazine(a clip is something different).An FN 5-7 can hold 20 rounds in a standard mag,and the pistol is sold with 3 mags.With one round in the chamber,you can have 61 rounds ready to go with a fast reload or two right out of the box.You can also buy extended magazines for various semiautos,but they aren’t always reliable.
When I was on my job,ans carries a SIG 226 for a while,I was able to fire 46 rounds in about 25 seconds with a reasonable degree of accuracy,but I was a lot younger then.
A horrific act but especially brutal coming to those at Ft. Hood, a place that has seen so much loss over the years.
Obama and his slippery AG Holder better stay away from this case and let the military handle it. This is their jurisdiction.
The more we find out about the attitudes and statements from this man prior to his murder spree and the inaction from anyone/everyone after hearing those statements, it is quite evident that political correctness has also poisoned the military.
Tabetha, I think you’ll find many who work in psychiatry are shall we say “interesting” in personality. Seems to me many are drawn to that profession because of their own needs.
I guess I haven’t kept up with Glocks and the plastic pistols and am still stuck in the day of Browning Hi-Powers. I thought 13 rounds was about the practical limit because of cartridge size and that a larger magazine made the gun unwieldy. I know the distinction between a clip and a magazine. As kids we always called removable magazines “clips”, guess I never got over it. These incidents always make me recall that when I was a kid a lot of fathers had “war trophies” hanging from joists in the basement, many “full auto”. An M2 if they had been paratroopers. In proportion to the number of guns available, it seems I never heard of such shootings as this. Perhaps it is just that with the development of the Internet and satellite TV, news is better disseminated. Most of us were “heavily armed” by age 14, or 15. Walking down a side road with a .22, or shotgun, did not arouse the police. While in college, I recall trying to catch a cab in Manhattan while carrying a shotgun in a case (it wouldn’t fit in a locker at the E.S. air terminal). It was a long walk, but the police never bothered me. I do recall hearing of a local garage owner who had trouble with his Coke machine. In response he got out his service .45 and blasted it a few times. I don’t recall this being a particularly “news worthy” event, of course that was in the day before licensing and “illegal weapons”. Because the Thompson “gun that made the twenties roar” was the AK-47 of its day, full auto weapons have been illegal since the 30’s. In fairness, I do recall that Aberchrombie & Fitch had an unfortunate incident. They kept their guns on… Read more »
Warrington-Browning Hi-Power!!It’s what I carry today.It got the name Hi-Power from its(then)high capacity.The 9mm round has been improved considerably over the years.
I got my first gun when I was 18,just before joining the service.I bought it at Hudson Sporting Goods on 3rd Ave in Manhattan and with 100 rounds I went home on .the subway.It was wrapped in brown paper,but you couldn’t miss what it was.It was a Lee-Enfield Jungle Carbine,ca.303 British.Kicked like an SOB for some reason.
I first shot a rifle when I was 10.It was in a supervised situation with my friend’s father and we had a lot of fun killing cans.
To this day,I’ve never hunted because I don’t like game meat and I’m not going to kill a bird or animal for any other reason unless it’s a threat,like a rabid racoon or something.
I target shoot all the time-I’ve got a thing for killing paper bullseyes.Keeps an old fart like me coordinated to the extent I can be.
It’s ironic that on a military base no one is normally armed except the MP’s and those on training exercises,so they were sitting ducks.Horrible.
One bizarre note:this individual graduated Virginia Tech,where the infamous Mr.Cho murdered so many people a few years ago.
joe bernstein writes:
“a Lee-Enfield Jungle Carbine,ca.303”
With the “flash deflector”?
I remember the mail order ads in Guns & Ammo for those “jungle carbines”. You could buy the ammo mail order too, real cheap if you took the military “ball” ammo.
I still have the Mannlicher (too beautiful to use), an 03-A3 and a sporterized Mauser. Used to do some pig hunting, but not in years. I have a notch in my left tibia because we tried it with pistols once. Magnums bounce off their heads.
Instead of having my suits specially cut, I carry a Walther PPKS. Not a real “stopper”.
A friend was accosted on the street in Boston, he pulled out an engraved .25. They laughed at him.
My alternative is the .45 ACP.BTW a Georgia Arms 45 Colt(not ACP)260gr JHP 1200 fps round called the “Deerstopper”is probably good on boars,but not a head shot.As I said,I don’t hunt so I don’t know.I’d personally use a 45-70.
Yeah,it had the flash suppressor-you just gave away your approximate age.
If you want a “9mm type”round with real punch the .38 Super is excellent.It was developed in 1929 to go through car doors.Dillinger and the guys chasing him used it a lot.
joe Bernstein & Warrington Faust,
According to updated reports, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan legally purchased one of the handguns a FN 5.7mm dubbed “cop killer” some time ago. The other handgun is being tracked by authorities.
Hasan paused his shooting only once to replace a single clip in one handgun it was reported.
Hasan was shot four times after being confronted by the responding civilian Fort Hood police officer Sgt. Kimberly Munley who was on site within three minutes of reported gunfire. Sgt. Munley was wounded by three rounds of return fire from Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
The female officer is in stable condition with hand, hip and leg wounds
According to reports Hasan has been flown to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX in stable condition but on a ventilator.
Ken-calling the FN 5-7 a “cop killer” weapon is another Brady gang inaccuracy-I realize you are telling us what it’s called,and that is true.The armor piercing ammo that could make it so dangerous is not sold anywhere to civilian purchasers-police and military only.The normal ammo is comparable to the old 221 Fireball.
BTW you can pick up armor piercing ammo vary easily-hte .22 Magnum can defeat some lighter body armor and the 7×25 Tokarev round can go through a lot of body armor.The Tokarev can be fired from the CZ52 or the Norinco Type 54,both of which are cheap and available,although neither has high capacity mags available.The round is also known as the .30 Mauser-they are interchangeable.Mauser “Broomhandles”arehard to find and not easy to conceal.
What the 5-7 provides is volume of fire because the rounds are very small.Kinda like miniature .223’s.
Ken writes:
“Hasan paused his shooting only once to replace a single clip in one handgun it was reported.”
Seems very unlikely. We’re talking about over 50 rounds. That is probably why news stories are called “stories”. If he just hit the release, let it drop, and inserted another clip most people would never notice the time interval.
“Hasan was shot four times after being confronted by the responding civilian Fort Hood police officer Sgt. Kimberly Munley”
I wonder how he will feel when he wakes up and finds out a woman shot him. If I had anything to do with it, he would wake up and find a pig carcass in his bed.
Body armor is fairly effective, hence the FBI motto “two taps to the center of mass (to knock him down) and one to the head”. When it comes to a “gun culture”, nothing beats the FBI. At least they still put some emphasis on accuracy, rather than “volume of fire”. In Viet Nam we learned that about 25,000 rounds were expended per casualty. In Viet Nam, most troops in helicopters sat on it. You protect what “matters”.
“Hasan was shot four times after being confronted by the responding civilian Fort Hood police officer Sgt. Kimberly Munley”
4 hits while taking fire, that is pretty good “gun control” on the part of Sgt. Munley.
Tim writes:
“political correctness has also poisoned the military. ”
A little political correctness story. My daughter attended an “elite prep school” in Cambridge, to be exact, Buckingham, Browne and Nichols. They were planning a “60’s party” for the kids. While my daughter was up to some sort of rehearsal, I sat in on a planning session. Under discussion was what songs were to be played. Several songs were suggested, after which everyone looked at each other and frowned.
After the third song was suggested (don’t recall the name)and everyone frowned, I asked what was wrong with that song. I was informed that “we shouldn’t rob the Black culture in order to entertain white people”. Along with another father, I left. We didn’t know anyone had been “robbed”, we thought they had made plenty on those songs.
I could tell political correctness stories about that school for hours. At one summer camp, she was told not to eat at McDonalds because they were destroying “the rain forest”. Why is “the rain forest” always referred to in the singular?
joe Bernstein & Warrington Faust, I am only relaying information I receive from interviews with the soldiers that were there. The shoot out between Sgt. Kimberly Munley (a Ft Hood trained incident first responder and weapons instructor) and Hasan was described by an Army medic who witnessed the event. I understand you can not normally purchase the FN 5.7 mm high powered rounds over the counter that can penetrate a great number of body armor. I worked with the US Navy, US Air Force, US Army, Army National Guard and Department of Defense. One of my working offices was in the range control building Camp Fogarty, East Greenwich live fire weapons range. The interviewed Medic that treated Hasan at the scene indicated his fatigue pockets were full of clips loaded with 20 rounds each. A soldier named Smith who was on processing when Hasan started firing indicated he jumped under a desk and waited till the firing stopped before making a break for the door as Hasan started firing again. According to interview it was an area made up of 5ft tall cubicles and Hasan was firing into the cubicles causing rounds to be ricocheted and deflected everywhere. Smith returned twice to pull wounded soldiers out before being chased by Hasan firing at him receiving a bullet lodged in the heal of Smith’s boot. This whole event took 4 minutes before Sgt. Kimberly Munley was on site and shot Hasan as he was chasing a wounded soldier outside the building trying to shoot him. The numbers are staggering now being reported at 13 dead and 43 wounded by one person (how did it go from 31 to 43?). By the way I did two volunteer back-to-back years in Viet Nam 1968-1969 during the big Tet Offensive. I worked out of… Read more »
Ken-Welcome home!!Didn’t the Aussies have C130’s at Phan Rang?I remember flying over thaat place-it was right on the coast like Cam Rahn where I was with a C130 unit that introduced the Daiycutter LZ On demand service.I was there 9/68-8/69 about 12 says short of a year because my last name started with “B”.Everyone A through D in my unit scheduled for September DEROS went back in the end of August because of empty plane space.I was due to rotate on 9/2 and went back 8/24. Jack Jacobs,the only person on MSNBC I have any respect for(he’s a MOH recipient)made a point of saying that he couldn’t equate the casualties with the shooter’s armament and he thought there might be friendly fire casualties. If you recall at Attica,every hostage killed in the yard died from NY State Police rifle fire.None were killed by inmates during the assault.One officer was killed by inmates,but that was on the first day. I guess we’ll have to wait for forensics to determine if Jacobs was correct. When I joined the Border Patrol,THAT was a gun culture.We had to qualify at 50 yards as part of the course.When I transferred to Investigations,we only had to go back 25 yards.I carried the 1911 .45 for many years in the INS until they banned single action autos.Too bad.They’re MUCH safer than Glocks as long as you are properly trained. I think this will turn out to be a case of a maladjusted psychiatrist(!)who bwcame a terrorist in his own mind,but probably ahd no cpnnections with any group or cell.From all accounts he fit the loner/loser profile of a number of mass killers.Okay,he was a doctor,but apparently not a very good one,and he seemed to have no social connections.I have a friend who is a retired psychiatrist and… Read more »
Joe and Ken, I didn’t mean to give the impression I was in Viet Nam by the use of “we learned”. I meant that in the simple collective sense of “we learned from the BDA’s in Germany”.
Warrington-I understood your comment in the same context as I would’ve used “we”talking about the US in WW2 when I wasn’t quite born.
joe Bernstein, Welcome home to you too! Cam Ranh Bay; I was there 3 different times! In country flight, fuel stop and out country flight. I spent a lot of my time in Phu Cat, Na Trang, Saigon, Pleiku, Da Nang and Ben Wha. At Phan Rang we worked with Aussie 2nd Royal Bomber Squadron and their MK-20 Canberra bombers (Aussies were cool and a lot of fun) and ROK 9th Division “White Horse” (you didn’t mess with any of them because they shot first and then asked questions). There were also Turks in the area and I found out my good friend, a neighbor, was living in the hills above Phan Rang as an Army LRPR taking long range shots on Charley. As far as USAF units Phan Rang was comprised mostly of TAC, SOS and FAC. There were F-100, B-57, C-123, C-47, C-119, O1E, O2A, OV-10 and a lot of transit SOS stuff. I was an RO on C-47s. We almost got over run one night. Charley broke through two of our perimeters and was knocking on the third and final. All of the C-119 Spookys were up as well as C-47 Puffs lighting up the sky and ground. I was deployed for final stand but stupidly standing up taking time laps photos of the sky with red (tracers) flowing down to the ground on the other side of the hill in front of me (3 sec burst covers a football field with 1 round per inch). When I got out I went into medical electronics designing hospital equipment and implantable pacemakers, worked for RI Health Department Laboratories and ME’s office maintaining test and drug control equipment, worked with Woonsocket Public Safety, loaned out to different police departments, supported FBI, US State Department, Security and Exchange Commission, taught… Read more »
ADDEBDUM:
Na Trang, and Ben Wha misspelled.
Proper spelling should be Nha Trang and Bien Hoa
Wow-we had the White Horse soldiers on our perimeter!!They also manned the 155 howitzers for counterfire against the NVA rocket attacks(they mostly used 122 mm)-it’s bizarre about the overrun attack-my section of Cam Rahn got overrun from sampan based sappers in July 1969-they blew up a bunch of installations and got caught out in the open by a Spooky gunship-sayonara.What a crazy parallel experience!The same night we got hit with about 25-30 large rockets-I was out changing a tire on a C130 when a “flying trashcan”landed about 25 feet from where I’d been sleeping in a shed.The shed got aerated pretty good.We had a lot of guys hit with shrapnel that night.I have a piece of that shrapnel in my room on the bookcase-it was from the rocket that should’ve greased me.Thank God for flat tires! I was in a crash at Qui Nhon and walked out of it without needing a bandaid.The plane was totalled but didn’t burn.I was in aircraft maintenance,but often had to fly as an additional crew member. I loved Aussies!I was on R&R in sydney and hooked up with some sailors from the HMAS Derwent-they treated me like a brother-gave me a whole tour of their ship and we got seriously drunk. The ROK’s did a lot of stuff out on the perimeter that I really don’t want to mention on this blog because some people just wouldn’t understand the necessity of it. I serviced a number of C123’s that were out spraying,like disposing of the contaminated FOD they dumped in the drums.I ahve since had cancer,diabetes,and coronary artery disease linked to Agent Orange and am 50%.I’ve been dealing with the sh*t for 29 years,but the VA is good for medical care and I have no bitterness about it.Look at how many guys never got… Read more »
Joe Bernstein, I have vivid memories of what the ROKs did on our base perimeter and in town. Like I said, they shoot first and ask questions later but they were the best to have on your side. You had R&R while you were in Nam!! I sold back 90 days when I mustered out but then while stationed in Viet Nam I was under orders to the US Embassy in Stockholm for 30 days, almost lived in Hong Kong, Sidney, Perth, Singapore, Bangkok, Hawaii, and the Philippines plus I had to wait 60 days in a hotel in Washington State for aircraft. I have a good idea what you went through in Sidney being there myself. The Aussies are great even on their base compound in Phan Rang! I had one very very memorable close call taking off from Ton Son Nhut climbing through low clouds when just as we broke cloud cover all of a sudden I was slammed against the bulkhead next to my seat! I looked at the navigator and then at pilot and co-pilot as they wrestled the C-47 back into normal flight pattern from the wing over. All of a sudden the crew chief came forward yelling; “Did you see the look in their eyes and on their faces?” Tower had cleared a 707 freedom bird for our runway and it was on final as we were cleared takeoff and in take off climb out. I’m 10% VA disabled from foot problems developed in Nam. I consider myself very lucky using up at least 7 of a cats 9 lives in Nam but I must say of 35 guys and 5 aircraft all 35 of us came home with only 3 original aircraft. Phan Rang got hammered by Charley a number of times but… Read more »
We must’ve been separated at birth!i got an AFCOM in 1970 at Pease AFB,also signed by Gen.Brown-I think all the aircrews in my unit got Air Medals and the ground crews got AFCOMS if they did their jobs okay.I would love to say everyone in my unit made it back,but unfortunately they didn’t.We lost some people on C130’s going down,including one of my closest buddies,Barry Murtaugh,who was killed with six other members of the unit on their last day in country in an accident.Not even enemy action.We had some bad accidents on the flight line,including a guy who tried to spot weld a 1000 gal.avgas tank while it was empty-it blew up in his face-the man next to him miraculously survived with no eardrums left.
I think Vietnam was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been-Nha Trang and Dalat come to mind.I also liked looking out over the South China Sea every morning at the islands that just seemed to come straight up out of the ocean.There were times it seemed hard to believe a war was going on and other times a lot different.
I can’t imagine much nice scenery in Iraq.I know we’ve gone off topic,but it is great to communicate with someone who had such similar experiences.
Tan Son Nhout airfield!It was worse than the Apponaug traffic circle flying in there-the Viet pilots would honk right up outta the runway and into your flight path like they were on a cyclo.