On November 5, one of the worst modern-day massacres in our history took place on a military instillation.  The shooter, we would soon discover, was an Army Captain, and a psychiatrist who had spent years counseling soldiers returning from combat. 

Now that more information has surfaced, I look at the tragedy at Fort Hood and am struck by two things, the need for the military to respond better to red flags within their ranks, and a deep concern for the impact the incident might have on the morale of our men and women fighting overseas.   

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but there were enough warnings about Nidal Malik Hasan that someone in the Army should have intervened. Reports are that Hasan’s peers saw problems.   He had been listening to horrific war stories from troops for years.  He had a religious conflict, and said he was against the war.  He claimed to have problems with harassment because of his religious beliefs.  He had performance problems at Walter Reed, and was apparently transferred to Fort Hood for a ‘fresh start’.

The military has a mission, just like any Fortune 500 company on Wall Street.  That mission is to search and destroy the enemy.  You cannot be under contract with the military and not buy into that mission.  You cannot talk about your feelings on duty and in lectures about being against the war.  No one, especially a leader, who is vocally questioning that mission, should be kept around.  AT&T would not keep someone like that on the team. Neither would Apple.

The Army should have let Hasan go a long time ago. 

When I think about how the massacre might affect the morale of the troops in combat, I remember how the Kent State shooting impacted me and other troops in Vietnam in 1970.  Already risking our lives for a war that most of America did not support, it was incredibly demoralizing.

For a soldier who is already emotionally exhausted, who has been through three or four tours of combat, to hear that a mental health officer does this kind of thing, how does that echo with him and the other members of his platoon?  He might ask, “If an officer who knows better than most what it’s like over here doesn’t want to go, why should I want to be here?” It is tough enough for our troops without having to think about things like that. 

The whole situation is like the intersection that needs a traffic light.  Sometimes, the light is not put up until there is an accident where someone is killed.  Well, there has been an accident.  And thirteen people were killed, plus an unborn child, and thirty were wounded.  I hope that the Army puts the checks into place that will weed out others in its ranks that might inflict this kind of damage.