How do we understand the mass killing at Ft. Hood? How do we understand the killer? I’m not referring to attempting to find reasons that would excuse the killings, rather 
how does the average person understand a random act of violence intended to the lives of multiple random human beings.
My mind screams for order, even in random happenstance, demands to understand. I’m sure there are smart people who understand what brings a person to the sort of indiscriminate violence Hasan unleashed, but I am not one of them.
I’m sure there are other smart people whose job it is to come to understand the “why” of it. Fortunately, that’s not my job. I don’t really even want to understand, or attempt to arrive at understanding.
What I do want to understand is how the military missed the danger Hasan was. The military is all about “being a round peg in a round hole“. Conformity. Conformity is the one argument used by the military to bulwark their stance against homosexuals serving.
Homosexuals are a supposed danger because of what they might do to occupy their private time and private relationships. This danger is viewed to be so great it earned a military person a dismissal from said military [until very recently when President Obama announced his intent to stop the "Don't ask - don't tell" policy]. If a person is suspected of homosexuality investigations are mounted and hearings held. It is deemed a very serious thing, this “private matter” of sexual orientation is.
Barring homosexuals from service in the military has never made sense to me. It is a private matter. In fairness to the military, they also have regulations against extramarital affairs and one can be court martialed for such.
The military has never been shy about its “interest” in the private lives of those who serve our country. Right, wrong, or indifferent — the military sees nothing “private” in the lives of active duty military personnel. Nothing. Every second of every day is the “military’s business”.
Yet, I find myself asking: did Hasan remain “unmolested” by investigations and hearings because of another “private matter”, his religion? Political correctness has reached its poison tendrils into the very bastions of political incorrectness that is our military. It is the height of political incorrectness to even think that a practicing Muslim could also hate his or her country and act counter to her best interests. After all, everyone knows that Islam is a religion of peace and love.
Islam may be a religion of peace and love, but there are factions of the Islamic faith that are decidedly anything but. Each of the “Three Biggies” of religious faith, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, have their radical sects. Factions so outside the mainstream that they are a general embarrassment and public relations nightmare to the overwhelming majority of the adherents of the umbrella faith [Christianity, Islam, or Judaism]. And some beliefs are just not compatible with service in the U.S. military, no matter how politically incorrect that may be.
Unlike a sexual act that occurs during “off duty time”, behind the privacy of four walls, and among consenting adults, a belief that murder and mass murder are justified – even demanded – acts in the service of that belief, demands scrutiny, demands excising from the ranks of our military.
A mass murderer walked among us. A mass murderer worked with and along side men and women, many of them barely into legal adulthood, who took their oath seriously, unlike Hasan.
The oath Hasan swore to [the commissioned officer's oath]:
I, ____________, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
The oath states “…I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation…”, “… I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.” “So help me God.” Powerful words. Unambiguous. A sacred vow.
Hasan’s commanding officers failed to uphold their solemn oath, perhaps not willfully, but failed just the same.
Congress and the President failed to uphold their oaths as well, they need to empower the military to ferret out those in uniform who hold radical beliefs, ferret them out with all the cold precision employed to ferret out homosexuals. Innocent and non threatening as sexual orientation is in reality aside, we at least know the military is capable if there is a policy and will to do so.
It is tragic enough when this nation loses a brave son or daughter in uniform to enemy fire or tragic accident in the performance of their duty, it is inexcusable to lose them to religious zealotry coexisting among them. Religious zealotry known to espouse violence and murder, even violence and murder of random innocents.
My sincere sympathies to all of those suffering the loss of a loved one or someone held in the “gentle fondness” of colleague or friend. My thoughts are with those still struggling with the injuries they sustained at the hands [and weapons] of Hasan, my thoughts are with the worried families of the injured.
Nothing anyone can do now will bring the fallen back to us. Nothing we can do now can undo the injuries of the wounded, those will have to wait for time and medicine to heal as best it can. What we can do is do everything within our power and ability to prevent an incident like this from repeating in the future. We can — and must — LEARN from the errors that laid the foundations for the Ft. Hood massacre.
To do less would not only be an insult to the victims of the Ft. Hood massacre, it would be a willful failure to uphold the oath sworn to by each officer of the military, our federal elected officials, up to and including the President of the United States.; a willful act of dereliction of duty.
Rid our military ranks of religious radical zealots and all those who view the United States as the enemy and the problem.
