Posts Tagged ‘shooting’

My phone rang as I stood in line buying a mop head. It was my husband…but behind him was the voice of my youngest son. I instantly was filled with foreboding…how could my son’s voice be on my husband’s phone? “Hold on, ” says my husband, “I am merging calls.”

So, both my sons and my husband were in a conference call with me. My youngest son had called his father from Ft. Hood, and his voice sounded strained, “Mom? I wanted you to know I was alright, if you had seen the news—the cell lines were down and we are on lock-down.” I had not seen the news, being out of the house on an errand run.

He laid it out for me, my one-time-runaway prodigal son. The story he had gotten was of an Army Sergeant Major and possibly two or three others going into the “readiness center” where troops returning from war or preparing to go went to get paperwork whipped, and all that sort of thing. When the gunfire stopped, almost a dozen were dead and more than 30 others wounded. The shooter was shot, two others are in custody, and one or more possibly escaped and are at large on the very locked down Ft. Hood. It is said the Sergeant Major had converted to Islam sometime around his last tour in the war zone.

My son was safe, in his quarters, still on convalescent leave after his surgery. And stories pour into his ears through his phone, leaving him wondering which ones are true. He will surely hear four other versions than the one above before midnight tonight.

Which is the straight story? Which is rumor, and misheard rumor at that? One news report says the dead shooter was not a sergeant major, but a commissioned officer—a major, a doctor and psychiatrist who was angry over deployment orders to Iraq. His name was very Middle Eastern sounding, and set off alarms of ethnic hells ahead. It may be days before clarity comse out of this horror. I am afraid to turn on my television just yet.

Two thoughts buzzed through my brain as my son said good-bye, saying his commander and others were trying to reach him, that he had to go play phone tag with other unit members to make sure everyone was alright.

(1) As if it is not horrible enough dying in the war zones at enemy hands, and even at the hands of allies (the Brits shot by the Afghan police officer in their midst); how do combat vets ever mentally “stand down” even upon home-coming if this sort of horror is possible? How can men and women already struggling with issues of PTSD hope to relax and heal and reintegrate into non-war-zone life if this can happen?

(2) If the shooter was Muslim, how on earth will Muslims in the Army survive their own religion? I fear for Muslim members of the armed forces tonight, because of the fear and desire for revenge that this murderous rampage will ignite. Whether the shooter was a major or a sergeant major, this is not a junior position, not an inexperienced young man or woman….but a weathered veteran of military life. If such a man begins to identify with the enemy in a war that may seem endless and fraught with ethical issues, what chance have younger troops? If this was a trained mental health care expert…..oh, woe to guys who don’t know a neurosis from a nightmare!

But it is all very much “storm of war” right now….thousands of miles from Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been brought home to the heart of the US Army now. There is no safe zone, it seems, not anywhere at all.

So, judging by today’s news, if you lose your job you should go shoot a Democrat??  Or is that rule applicable only in Arkansas?

”

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A man barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters and opened fire Wednesday, fatally shooting the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase.

Police said they don’t know the motive for the 51-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released. However, they said moments after the shooting, he pointed a handgun at the building manager at the nearby the Arkansas Baptist headquarters. He told the manager “I lost my job,” said Dan Jordan, a Baptist convention official.” (http://tinyurl.com/64qsy5 )

I’m not getting why it is the fault of a Democratic Party official?  Anyone?  Is this the latest craze….get canned and shoot a liberal?   I am sorry for his family and friends, because this just strikes me as sheer insanity.  And when something strikes ME as crazy….