Monday, November 9, 2009

Soap Box / Fort Hood Shootings

Last Thursday the shooting of Americans on the Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, Texas shocked the country. In the 1990s our daughter, Melani spent several years active duty Army, serving two years in Stuttgart, Germany and the remainder at Fort Hood. At the base she met and married her husband, Rick, also active duty Army, and in 1998 our grandson, Jared was born in Killeen. I talked with Melani over the weekend at home in Vancouver, WA and she was as angry as many of our current and former military families are that warning signs on the shooter were overlooked. And saddened that here in America where soliders should have a sense of security they faced an armed murderer in a place where they were unarmed.
I find no small amount of irony that I still have to remove my shoes and walk through a metal detector to board a plane ... God forbid fingernail clippers or more than 3 ozs of deodorant make it through security. Yet Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American solider, a man with published sympathies to terrorists and questionable mental health walked onto the largest US military base in the country with two non-military issue handguns and massacred soldiers and civilians. Unbelievable.

3 comments:

  1. Yes Kerri, the fact that this could happen is disgraceful - the loss of wonderful, valuable American lives - the loss to their families... is a result of "political correctness" coming down from our government.

    p.s. Thanks and God bless to our Veteran's this Veteran's Day and always...

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  2. What happened at Ft. Hood is tragic. Brings back memories of the rampage at Fairchild. In watching local news reports - the young man from Post Falls that was wounded, lived down the street from us - across the street from the New Life Church.

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  3. Gotta agree with you on this one Kerri. What is even more frustrating is the news reports saying that the shooter had been on the FBI radar as a person of interest and the fact that more than several people at Fort Hood thought something was amiss with him.

    Jeannie Peugh

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