From the Austin American Statesman:
Scott & White in Temple receives 10 patients.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, November 06, 2009The Fort Hood shooting victims were dispersed to hospitals throughout Central Texas, where few details of their injuries or prognoses were released Thursday evening.
The first stop for many of those injured was the Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood and the Metroplex Adventist Hospital in nearby Killeen. The more serious were then transferred to other hospitals so patients could receive specialized care.
Ten of the wounded were taken to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, 26 miles from the Army post’s main gate.
Of those patients, four were in operating rooms late Thursday and some others were in critical care, said Dr. Robert Greenberg, vice chair of the department of emergency medicine at Scott & White.
I head on the radio on the way home that the call for blood donations has been satisfied, and they’re closed for that now.
I have nothing but respect for those in uniform, and have no words for the families of those killed and wounded by a traitor in their midst.
We’re going to hear a lot about this murderous POS, and not enough about the dedicated soldiers who rescued their fellow men and women. Just like the VA Tech shooter, I’d like nothing more than to name him an Un-Person.
This monster was not a soldier who cracked. He is an enemy who managed to infiltrate our millitary forces. I do not think anyone believes that this was an act of “random violence” as Kay hutchens stated. I believe he is an operative who athorities had discovered and had outlived his usefullness. When are we as a society going to wake up and drop the pc mess and call an enemy a enemy? He did not see combat “no PTSD.” where were our inteligence agencies who had read his terrorist coments on blogs? How did he make the rank of Major without being discovered? I think these are the questions that our senior millitary officers and political officials need answers to.
Infiltrator? I doubt we will ever have the satisfaction of such an easy validation. The more likely conclusion was that this was a psychologically-isolated and significantly troubled individual who happened, at least on one level and at least to some degree, to be a high-functioning professional. At the same time, he was probably alienated profoundly from the people he both worked with and for, enough to be able to kill them anonymously,randomly and in large numbers and in a way that probably anticipated his own death in the process. So he “failed” in a strange, pathetic and horrific way. In whatever way his flawed reasoning worked, his actions mirror those of others whose backgrounds would not suggest a predisposition to mass murder; this story brings to mind the mass killer Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who shot and killed 29 people and wounded another 150 at the tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Israel in 1994, a religious zealot who had the animus and narcissism to shoot scores without sympathy and with little regard for them or himself.
Calling the suspect a “POS” is perhaps gratifying, but it doesn’t illuminate. The scant news doesn’t help much more, but the report of his having been evaluated poorly at WRAMC suggests that there was some indicator that his behavior was deteriorating; that kind of thing is pretty significant and professionally damaging in a relatively small military professional community where everyone knows everyone else. His turn may have just come up for a deployment, but I half wonder whether it wasn’t was seen as a relief by his professional peers who might have hoped he would go someplace else for the duration of his obligated service.
As the news cycle grinds on, I would not be surprised to see uncovered a story of personal failure and frustration behind the apparently functioning, if not slightly impaired professional life of the perpetrator. Radical fundamentalism (of any faith)appeals to those who are alienated and otherwise giving up on life and grafts onto that its own wrathful ideas, the ugly fruit of which we see again and again.
BZ to the base police officer who shot quick and accurately. Also to the medical response folks on base. Those who saved, transported and treated the shooter are have far more moral character and professional ethics than I.
Im saddened more than surprised that someone with deep inner problems could matriculate the whole med school/residency bit and be tossed out somewhere along the way.
That he opposed the war does not bother me. hell, we have had conscientious objector assigned as corpsman-and he won Medal of Honor.
Nothing against docs, but a head shrinker is not going to be seeing any combat, unless there is a terrorist attact on a base hospital.
So his actions have no real rational basis.
We are left with the deep cespit that fills his psyche. Again, how could he make it through the long and supervised path to Psychiatrist, and no one notice he had problems?
I suppose everyone said “what a wierd guy, but he shows up for clinic, does his rounds-besides we are short handed and would have take over his cases if he leaves.
Very Sad.
So very sad.
A lot of people are going to spin this as an understandable anti-war reaction and I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of sympathy for this murderer. He’s a disgrace to physicians, the military, his religion and the human race.
This misanthrope may have been an antisocial loser, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a terrorist. The facts aren’t all in, but when they are, let there be no circumlocution about what this was.
Reports that he sympathized with suicide bombers, considered himself a Muslim first and an American second, talked about the Koran and how it countenanced killing infidels (at a grand rounds, for God’s sake… heard that on NPR). He reportedly also argued his anti-war views with the very returning vets he was supposed to be counseling.
There are also direct eyewitness reports that he shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he coldly and methodically killed unarmed soldiers.
I’m not sure what else you’d call it. This man wasn’t some kind of conscientious objector. In fact, I’d argue that this man wasn’t anti-war at all… he simply wanted to fight for the other side, and did so.
As an aside, this man’s actions should NOT be used as an excuse to initiate any sort of pogrom against Muslims who ARE faithfully discharging the oath they took upon entering the service. Muslims have served with distinction, and continue to do so.
This man, however, seems to have been something else entirely. A true America-hating and military-hating screwball who should have been discharged from the service a long time ago. The really interesting (and uncomfortable) question is how he managed to stay in the service as long as he did, particularly when he so frequently and openly espoused a viewpoint sympathetic to the enemy.
Do we need any more proof that the radical jihad is not only against George Bush? Not even our waffling, socialist, Apologist in Chief has dissuaded them from their goal.
There is one guaranteed way to lose a war: surrender. That is exactly what I, and no doubt the jihadis, hear when the politicians and the media describe enemy action as something else.
“The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men – Plato”. I saw that the other day as one of many lefty bumper stickers on the same car. If only they could bring themselves to accept an inconvenient truth.
“As an aside, this man’s actions should NOT be used as an excuse to initiate any sort of pogrom against Muslims who ARE faithfully discharging the oath they took upon entering the service. Muslims have served with distinction, and continue to do so.”
When has that been a problem? I’m always perplexed by calls not to over react against Muslims and, frankly, have seen no evidence it ever happened in the first place. We routinely see obvious crimes against Judaism but when I google “crime against Islam/Muslim” I only find calls like your cautioning against over reaction. If the authorities had found a Glen Beck recording on his DVR we would be in the 50th hour of angst over the perils of Conservatism on the MSM. But if a Muslim shouts, “God is Great!” in Arabic while he slaughters G.I.s we’re forced into another “national conversation” on “tolerance”
We seem to suffer from a sickness in this country of ignoring certain facts when they are inconvenient. I’m please this POS is alive and will hopefully go on trial in a military Courts Martial.
There are nine people on Leavenworth’s death row, I assume this “officer and gentleman” will soon be the tenth.