After the horror at home

Posted on November 7, 2009
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Is there any lesson to be drawn from the shootings at Fort Hood?

FORT HOOD is one of the largest army bases in America, sprawling over more than 300 square miles (some 780 square kilometres) of nondescript central Texas grassland between Austin and Waco. It is home to more than 50,000 active-duty soldiers, many of whom pass through on their way to Iraq or Afghanistan. One of their errands before deploying is to stop at the Soldier Readiness Processing Centre for last-minute medical and dental checks. It was here, on Thursday November 5th, that soldiers preparing for and returning from war encountered a tragedy no one expected.

Early in the afternoon a major, Nidal Malik Hasan, who worked as an army psychiatrist, walked into the centre and opened fire with two weapons. He shot dozens of people before Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer serving on the post, shot him. The bloody rampage lasted for about 10 minutes: 13 people died of their injuries and 28 more were wounded, including Ms Munley. For several hours the base was locked down and plunged into confusion, amid misplaced fears that more than one gunman was at large. Most of the dead were young soldiers. Five had been specially trained to deal with stress among soldiers in combat. ...

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