Army psychiatrist shoots 44 people at Texas’ Fort Hood

Written By:
Danielle Afram

Published:
Dec. 07 2009

On November 5, a gunman opened fire in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center of Fort Hood, Texas, the most populous US military base in the world.  The gunman, 39-year-old Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major, psychiatrist and American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, opened fire at the Center, killing 13 people, including one woman who was pregnant, and wounding 31 others. Most of the people killed were in the military, but two were civilians.
“It’s tragic that 13 American soldiers had to die for something like this, but what is even sadder is that this was almost impossible to control,” junior Yoel Melles said.
Hasan was later shot and incapacitated by civilian police officers. He was hospitalized and put on a ventilator. By November 9, he was conscious and able to talk. Hasan has been under heavy guard and treated at an undisclosed area of Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. 
On November 12, Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and may face additional charges at court-martial. No motive for the attack has been determined.
Defense officials said Hasan arrived in Ft. Hood in July after working for six years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, which included training in disaster and preventive psychiatry. An official who spoke to the Associated Press disclosed that Hasan received a poor performance evaluation each year he was at Walter Reed. Hasan had shown symptoms of suicidal behavior and later received help from other psychiatrists.
Medical records from Virginia, where Hasan was born and registered to practice, and from Maryland, where he received his medical degree at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, did not reveal any disciplinary actions of formal complaints.
While working at Walter Reed, Hasan evidently came into contact with New Mexico-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, now living in Yemen, and a suspected associate of Al-Quaeda.  While al-Aulaqi says he was a “confidante” of Hasan, he denies pressuring or ordering Hasan into attacking Ft. Hood.  Al-Aulaqi also takes credit for increasing Hasan’s devotion to Islam while Hasan attended his mosque, Dar al-Hijra, in northern Virginia.  Many of al-Aulaqi’s sermons and writings have been in support of Al-Quaeda’s jihad.  In an interview with Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Hider Shaea, al-Aulaqi repordedly said that he “blessed the [attack] because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Hasan was scheduled to be deployed overseas to Iraq, about which he had been very upset over, according to reports. However, there has been no official word on motive. Officials suspected terrorism in the beginning, but there has not been any evidence to support this claim. 
People all over the country have been affected by the massacre. Family and friend members of the soldiers who were killed are mourning their losses.
“It’s so sad that the soldiers were killed in their own country. They expect to be safe at the military base where they are preparing to go fight in the war, and yet they couldn’t even be protected,” junior Whytni Crist said.