Tragedy at Fort Hood

While I was on course last week I spent the last three weeks getting to know a very fine US Army chaplain who had come up to observe the CF Chaplains' School and Centre in Borden. My heart goes out to him and his colleagues as they cope with this terrible shooting incident in Fort Hood, Texas.

Here's some of the New York Times coverage here:


November 6, 2009
Army Doctor Held in Ft. Hood Rampage
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
An Army psychiatrist facing deployment to one of America’s war zones killed 13 people and wounded 30 others on Thursday in a shooting rampage with two handguns at the sprawling Fort Hood Army post in central Texas, military officials said.

It was one of the worst mass shootings ever at a military base in the United States.

The gunman, who was still alive after being shot four times, was identified by law enforcement authorities as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who had been in the service since 1995. Major Hasan was about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas.



Sgt. Fanuaee Vea embraced Pvt. Savannah Green while trying to call friends and family outside Fort Hood, Tex., after the shooting.

Clad in a military uniform and firing an automatic pistol and another weapon, Major Hasan, a balding, chubby-faced man with heavy eyebrows, sprayed bullets inside a crowded medical processing center for soldiers returning from or about to be sent overseas, military officials said.

The victims, nearly all military personnel but including two civilians, were cut down in clusters, the officials said. Witnesses told military investigators that medics working at the center tore open the clothing of the dead and wounded to get at the wounds and administer first aid.

Read the whole NYT article here.

The US Department of Defence News that reported there were three gunmen, but later issued a second report to say that Hasan was the sole shooter.

The Globe and Mail reported that Major Hassan, "American-born and of Middle Eastern descent, was fiercely opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to his cousin, Nader Hasan, who stated the military doctor said he had been harassed by other officers for his opinions".

Many reports today such as this one from Associated Press picked up on Yahoo News reported that Hassan had shouted "Allahu Akbar!", God is great, during the shooting.