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.

Women Warriors Also Fighting PTSD

An amazing piece in this weekend's New York Times on women warriors (there are more of them than we might think) who are dealing with PTSD. Well worth reading. MP+

November 1, 2009
Women at Arms
A Combat Role, and Anguish, Too
By DAMIEN CAVE

For Vivienne Pacquette, being a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder means avoiding phone calls to her sons, dinner out with her husband and therapy sessions that make her talk about seeing the reds and whites of her friends’ insides after a mortar attack in 2004.

As with other women in her position, hiding seems to make sense. Post-traumatic stress disorder distorts personalities: some veterans who have it fight in their sleep; others feel paranoid around children. And as women return to a society unfamiliar with their wartime roles, they often choose isolation over embarrassment.

Many spend months or years as virtual shut-ins, missing the camaraderie of Iraq or Afghanistan, while racked with guilt over who they have become.


Ed Zurga for The New York Times
"Just admit that it happened. Then it's over," said Heather Paxton, Iraq veteran who received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress, and whose disability claims were rejected three times.

“After all, I’m a soldier, I’m an NCO, I’m a problem solver,” said Mrs. Pacquette, 52, a retired noncommissioned officer who served two tours in Iraq and more than 20 years in the Army. “What’s it going to look like if I can’t get things straight in my head?”

Never before has this country seen so many women paralyzed by the psychological scars of combat. As of June 2008, 19,084 female veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan had received diagnoses of mental disorders from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including 8,454 women with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress — and this number does not include troops still enlisted, or those who have never used the V.A. system.

Read the whole article here.

Busiest Month Yet for Mad Padre

If there's a fringe benefit to being stuck on course at CFB Borden without a car, it's that I had a lot of time to work on this blog. October 2009 was my most prolific month since I started Mad Padre in 2007. This blog began as a way tocommunicate with friends and family about work, military service, and hobby activities. The hobby activities have been spun off to my other blog, www.madpadre.blogspot.com, and the focus of this blog has gotten a little more serious. I hope to continue the blog's main focus on military chaplaincy, spirituality, ethics, military news and to throw in some fun stuff on occasion.

A friend asked me if I track hits here. I don't. I know that people read it, and last month the few visitors who actually posted (I wish more of you would) were strangers from all over, including a Military Policeman from Brazil (he showed up just after I read Jon Lee Anderson's harrowing article "Gangs of Rio" in the New Yorker - MP dude, I hope you're safe).

So if you're reading this, my thanks for visiting my little labour of love. Cheers and blessings,

MP+