Ft. Hood shooting reactions?

[Orchidflower]

Considering this shooter was a Major and a Psychiatrist, he seems to be the epitome of the old phrase, "Physician: Heal thyself."

 

[RonBoyd]

clifp,

Remember that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were both doctors.

Are you suggesting that RichInTampa, for instance, should be placed on some sort of "watch" list? Don't the Mods have enough to do?

 

[Walt34]

He grew to understand us as a group and he adopted a philosophy that we were all a "little crazy" because of our experiences at w*rk. His goal was to get us to examine why we reacted to some things the way we did, and through that understanding come to realize when we needed help and when it was just a natural and healthy reaction to being exposed to violence and death so often.

Dealing with that is what makes some appear to be "hardened". It's the process of finding that line between caring enough to want to do a good job but not "bringing it home with you." That's the "burnout phase" that about 80% go through.

How else, for example, to reconcile dealing with spending Christmas Eve with the family of a man who has chosen to end his life by eating a 12-gauge and then spend Christmas Day with your family? That felt like something right out of the Twilight Zone.

 

[Leonidas]

How else, for example, to reconcile dealing with spending Christmas Eve with the family of a man who has chosen to end his life by eating a 12-gauge and then spend Christmas Day with your family? That felt like something right out of the Twilight Zone.

I think every cop in America must have a 12-gauge suicide story that involves vivid imagery that can't be repeated in public. I have one that I wasn't even there for, but when I heard the sergeant in charge describe what he saw at that moment, well, I'll say that it was such a vivid description that I can't buy a pot roast at the butcher's and toss it in the grocery cart without having the same picture pop in my head. And it's been ten years since the incident.

Sometimes when that picture pops in my head I chuckle or smile, because I'm reacting as someone who maintains sanity by denying the normal human reaction to grisly and horrific things. If you're going to live a life that frequently exposes you to that kind of sight you have to how to separate it from your "real" life. It's dark humor, not something normal for regular people who seldom see such things. Every now and then the thought sobers me a little, and I have to remember that it really had nothing to do with me, that it was another man's bad choice in a tough spot. One of too many such things I have been exposed to, and I have to trivialize the tragedy to weaken its impact, or I would be debilitated from sorrow.

Things that work really well out there on the seamy side of life are non-starters at home. People with healthy adaptations find ways to get that w*rk personality all shut down and put to bed before interacting with la familia. And the healthy individual knows how to keep that personality turned off and not let normal stressful situations produce a w*rk-type response.

Being suspicious that every word you hear is a lie, or being prepared to turn a "no" into a "yes" by laying on off hands are totally legitimate tactics on the streets of the big bad city when justified, but are huge leaps into disaster-land if you apply them in your personal life. There were times in my family/personal life when I saw the cop personality trying to come out and I had to struggle to keep that bastard suppressed. On the streets it's all about "Git R Done" and at home it's all about maintaining the relationships.

Our pshrink said that healthy people can usually see the stress coming on and put Mr. Policeman back in his closet before they let him have his way. The people who can't do that are just maladaptive and need to go find another occupation. But he always cautioned about the surprise attacks that some situations could bring on in unexpected ways. Like the guy whose wife called in and said she was finding her husband laying on the floor of their daughter's bedroom; curled into the fetal position sobbing uncontrollably. The officer couldn't explain what was happening other than whenever he came home from work he would go to kiss his sleeping daughter and was repeatedly struck by a debilitating sense of loss and grief.

The ignition source for that guy's problems turned out to be a pair of shoes very popular with young girls like his daughter. Also popular with another young girl, the victim of a violent death, whose body he had seen in situ while working the investigation of her death - and she had been wearing the exact same shoes. The pshrink finally figured out that the guy's subconscious was making the connection, via the shoes, between his daughter and the dead girl. He would go in to kiss his daughter and see those same shoes and be struck by misplaced feelings that he couldn't figure out the cause much less control his reactions.

The message I took away from that was that no matter how good we are at separating w*rk stuff from home that our subconscious will sometimes win out. You wind up putting your whole family into the Twilight Zone. I got really good at apologizing before I got a better grip on why I sometimes reacted too strongly to what was not that big of a deal.

I don't know what rang this Hasan dude's bell and turned him into a mass murderer. I suspect, from what I've read, that he had closed himself off to so many support systems that he just became a one-issue kind of guy. His parents were dead (and they were against his military career), he had no wife or girlfriend, the few friends that have been mentioned don't seem like the bossom buddy types at all, and he was obsessed with his religion. It came down to the only "roles" he had in his life were the Army and Islam, and eventually he found himself in a spot in which those two roles were in direct conflict. There were no shades of gray for this guy. He couldn't see any good in one role and totally misidentified that dark side of the other and embraced it.

Even though his role in the military was totally non-combat and as rear echelon as you can get; he only saw that he was part of a machine that was killing Muslims. He didn't see them as terrorists who happened to be Muslim, he just saw Muslims as victims. And his role as a religious man bought into the dark side of the religion, the one that says it must be protected and that martyrdom is not only acceptable but glorious. He had two personalities, two life-roles, both of which he had distorted so far that they were in direct opposition and at war with each other.

IMO Hasan latched on to what he perceived as bad about his role as a soldier and was saddened and the enraged by it. He also latched on to that which normal people easily recognize as the bad in Islam and glorified in it. That's a balancing act that nobody could maintain, and was crazy to try it, or the trying drove him insane. In either case, he had his own Twilight Zone episode all to himself.

 

[RonBoyd]

I think every cop in America must have a 12-gauge suicide story that involves vivid imagery that can't be repeated in public. ...

Wow! What an impressive post. Very thought provoking. Thank you.

 

[LoftyNotions]

Thanks Leo. That was an excellent post.

 

[SciFiFan53]

How likely is it that Hassan, would not pose for photos with woman, be harassed? On one hand I'm thinking of Major Frank Burns from MASH, on the other hand he had only been base 4 months, and I don't think hazing is common in the medical field outside TV sitcoms.

I wonder if his "not wanting to pose with women" had to do with the kind of women he liked to hang out with.....
Hasan Enjoyed Strippers, Witness Says - CBS News
Also saw another newstory today about a former classmate that told about a rant he gave during a class - about justifying jihad. Sounds as if there were plenty of warning signs, but hindsight is always 20/20.
It's difficult to believe we have this kind of person (I know he is an aberration) in any kind of position responsible for "helping" our service men and women. I think it's probably due to the shortage of qualified people as pointed out by other posters.
While I agree that something is seriously wrong with him mentally, I don't want to see him be able to use an insanity defense. IMHO, personal responsibility needs to become important again. You do the crime, you take the punishment.

 

[Bimmerbill]

Shocking, someone in the Army enjoys strippers?
I guess I don't consider that out of the ordinary.

 

[Meadbh]

I don't know what rang this Hasan dude's bell and turned him into a mass murderer. I suspect, from what I've read, that he had closed himself off to so many support systems that he just became a one-issue kind of guy. His parents were dead (and they were against his military career), he had no wife or girlfriend, the few friends that have been mentioned don't seem like the bossom buddy types at all, and he was obsessed with his religion. It came down to the only "roles" he had in his life were the Army and Islam, and eventually he found himself in a spot in which those two roles were in direct conflict. There were no shades of gray for this guy. He couldn't see any good in one role and totally misidentified that dark side of the other and embraced it.

Even though his role in the military was totally non-combat and as rear echelon as you can get; he only saw that he was part of a machine that was killing Muslims. He didn't see them as terrorists who happened to be Muslim, he just saw Muslims as victims. And his role as a religious man bought into the dark side of the religion, the one that says it must be protected and that martyrdom is not only acceptable but glorious. He had two personalities, two life-roles, both of which he had distorted so far that they were in direct opposition and at war with each other.

IMO Hasan latched on to what he perceived as bad about his role as a soldier and was saddened and the enraged by it. He also latched on to that which normal people easily recognize as the bad in Islam and glorified in it. That's a balancing act that nobody could maintain, and was crazy to try it, or the trying drove him insane. In either case, he had his own Twilight Zone episode all to himself.

You may well be right. And whether you are right or not, your analysis is reasoned and nonjudgmental. Well done Leonidas.

 

[clifp]

Shocking, someone in the Army enjoys strippers?
I guess I don't consider that out of the ordinary.

Me neither.

It seems to me there are three like explanations for Mr. Hassan.

1. He is a garden variety sociopath.

2. He just snapped. Leonidas analysis of how and why this may have occurred is better than anything I could come up with and I dare say better than most of the talking heads on TV.

3. He is a Islamic Jihadist.

Personally, I am leaning toward #3. I am not sure it all that productive trying to figure out why someone chose that path. While I think it is popular to believe that Jihadist are poor ignorant Arab kids brainwashed in Madrasas. The reality is more complicated. In the last decade we have seen tens of thousand of Jihadist warriors engage in suicidal attacks.
These folks have come from scores of countries including many Western one. They have had a wide variety backgrounds of rich and poor, young and old, educated and ignorant. We have even seen a few in the US military.

Karl Marx called religion the "opiate for the masses" . While I think that much good comes from religion. It seems to me that radical, violent strains of Islam, like Wahhab, are indeed a very powerful drug. Once under its influence people can and will do crazy dangerous things.

 

[Bimmerbill]

I've seen my fair share of yahoos promoted to O4 and O5. Heck, I was hoping I'd be one of them before I retired. I've only seen various levels of incompetence tho, nothing at this level of crazy.

Tho I've been out for a few years now and things may have changed with the level of deployments my old comrades are experiencing.

I would assume the guy had the option of just resigning his commission. Prolly would have to pay back his school $, but if he was dead set against the Army's mission it would have been a much better option than facing a firing squad.