Between sickness, anniversaries and general life issues, I haven’t been talking about current events. Though there are more than enough qualified bloggers that truly cover current events far better than I could ever hope to but I gotta break my silence and talk about the Fort Hood shooter, one Major Nidal Hasan, MD, MPH. Now I don’t know about you but I generally expect a human with the initials M.D after their name to be at least as sane as I am, shit, I expect you to be even more sane than me. Add in being a psychiatrist and let’s just say I would expect that such a person would have better coping skills than me.
Well as we all know, the good Major is either certifiable crazy or dude is working for the enemy. I will be honest my money is on crazy. After all it seems when the enemy wants to fuck with us and do us harm with their sleeper cells, they pick cats who can be discreet. Since when you are planning to attack the last thing you want is pick a crazy bastard who keeps dropping hints that he about to go ape-shit and kill up a whole bunch of folks.
Which brings me to the not so good Major, from what I have read he didn’t exactly have a great track record when he was at Walter Reed, in fact quite a few folks have stated off the record, that this guy exhibited strange behavior for years. I heard a report on NPR how when he was the doctor on call, he was known for not answering his phone. Even better is the unofficial quote that if you were in a foxhole, you did not want be there with Major Hassan.
Now I admit obviously I don’t know the real deal, after all the investigation is on going. But what I do know is that there were enough discussions about this man where somebody should have done something, but apparently there were concerns about how it would look to address him since after all he is Muslim. Look, clearly as a Black woman I am all about inclusion but when you gotta guy running around in the military of all places sharing ideas that sound strangely against the US, maybe that shit needs to be looked into…right away.
If it turns out this guy really is a lone job who twisted Islam for his own fucked up purposes, I suspect there will be a lot of pissed off (hell, the families of those impacted are probably already there) folks wondering why would we let the need to be inclusive and not offensive override common sense.
Now I admit there is another part of me that wonders if the overall shortage of psychiatrists in the Army impacted the decision to look the other way and hope that Hassan was just a smidge loopy and not ape-shit crazy. I read a figure in the NY Times a few days ago that stated there are less than 500 psychiatrists in the military, if that figure is correct that sure is not a lot of head docs for folks that may need some mental health services. In that case, and that is the case I am hoping for, I could almost see looking the other way. Key word being almost, but not quite.
No, in the end as a nation we need to figure out a way to make sure we are an inclusive society that is respectful of others yet there does come a time when we have to rely on common sense. In this case there is a good chance that had one of the many folks who have talked off the record in the past week, actually taken action, 13 solders might still be alive.
Yeah, these men and women sign up to defend our country and realize death is a possibility but when they are on home soil there should be a reasonable expectation that they are safe. Better yet, they should expect that they are safe from one of their own turning on them.