November 8, 2009
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I am not a Muslim…
…but I was so disappointed to hear that the shooter in yesterday’s Ft. Hood massacre was Muslim.
Major Nidal Malik HasanI felt sort of the same way I do when a black celeb is in trouble with the IRS, or when sports stars are arrested for marijuana misdemeanors. Do we really need this shit?
All this does is turn an already tragic situation into something that has the potential to cause enduring harm. For many this will become an issue about religion, race, or false patriotism. It’s more a matter of the safety and psychological well being of our armed forces.
I fear that for many close minded people, this will be another opportunity to discuss the problems that having Islamic soldiers in the military pose, when really we should be focusing on the problems Islamic soldiers in the military face. A fellow Ft. Hood soldier said of the situation,
“It kind of puts a negative light on them and makes people distrust them because everybody is going to look at them [and think]: ‘Well, you’re probably going to pull something like this’.”
A while back there was an incident in Iraq where a soldier threw a grenade into one a few of his platoon mate’s tents while they were asleep. It was a tragic occurrence and the act itself was disgusting, but did anyone learn from it? Did anyone truly analyze why it happened? Could we have avoided this massacre in Ft. Hood if the Army paid more attention to the many incidents of friendly fire that occur each month?
What Major Hasan did was horrible and inexcusable, and I am no way condoning or excusing him. However, I have been in the Army. I have seen the stress that people are put under when they are ready to deploy, or in many cases redeploy. I have experienced racism and prejudice, and witnessed it on many other occasions. Sometimes these things affect dark changes in people. A better job needs to be done of not only minimizing the darkness, but also recognizing it.
