Fort Hood
It was a tragedy but I won’t be commenting on it for a while because it will take a very long time for the military to release any real information, and most of what the media is reporting is garbage.
The military is slow and methodical when dealing with “incidents”. Many of the steps involved require ritual. The next of kin notifications involve a minimum of an officer and a chaplain, so that will take a while. The military does not want witnesses to speak to anyone before they speak to the military investigators. They want all media comments to be filtered through the public affairs office and cleared first.
When you have one outlet saying there have been 2 suicides at Fort Hood in 2009, and another saying 75, you have to question the reliability of the reporting.
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Fort Hood has over 30,000 people living there. If there were *only* two suicides in Ft. Hood last year, I’d be very surprised… I daresay any small city will have more suicides than that during the course of a year. 17.7 suicides per 100,000 is the average for males in the USA, which means you’d expect five or six suicides per year in a city the size of Ft. Hood.
79… if that were true, that would be alarming indeed. But somehow, given the fact that we haven’t heard any uproar before this, I doubt that number too.
Yay for the media, doing their usual great job (snark intended, heh).
– Badtux the Media Penguin
The BBC is now reporting that the suspect isn’t actually dead, but is wounded. Score another for rushing the story before the facts are in.
The suicide rate is very high for the military at the moment, but, as you say, both numbers are out of whack. At my Mother’s someone was talking to a Congresscritter who had supposedly been briefed by the military, but that is what is known as hearsay in the criminal justice world, and not considered admissible evidence at trial.
The military commanders really hate the media, and resent having to talk to them, so they are going to get the minimum possible information. They are also being distracted by self-important politicians at all levels, so they are not going to be fit to live with for some time.
Agree Bryan. Two of my team mates committed suicide ( one near the end of his tour, the other a couple years later). I was involved in both investigations. Both took quite some time before an official report was finished (well, the *official public*, and the *official internal only* reports, the *public* report was somewhat thinner). Suicides amongst military personnel (especially combat vet’s) are a lot higher than most citizens have any clue about. Almost everyone I knew in Cambodia (including yours truly) considered it at one time or another. Finding a reason to do it is easy, finding a reason not to is harder.
I seem to remember Fort Hood coming up a couple years ago. I did some research on an incident that was reported regarding the 89th MP Brigade that had been deployed to Iraq. One of the unit commanders (William Steele) was accused of breaching military law by aiding the enemy. He was acquitted of the charges, though subsequently, he was convicted of other charges and dismissed from service. The Brigade has been awarded 3 unit honors since ’65.
With a full MP Brigade (comprising 4 battalions) stationed at Fort Hood, I’m curious about this latest incident. That’s an awful lot of cops! 😉 😀
89th Military Police Brigade
Oops… I should have reworded that last paragraph upon rereading. 😉 The 89th MP Brigade is headquartered at Fort Hood, but the battalions and detachments are scattered all over the place. There are still a lot of cops at Fort Hood but! 😉 One of their roles is 24/7 continuous enforcement and security support of Fort Hood. …Just to clarify… 🙂
BTW, the reason I know something about Fort Hood is that I was required to know about it since it’s the largest active-duty armored command in the USA, and it also stations the 504th MI (Military Intelligence) Brigade with which the organisation I worked for here had some dealings with. I’m sure both the 504th & the 89th will be very busy. And in all seriousness, they really should be able to discover what transpired quite quickly, if they don’t already know. O course, whether that ever becomes public or not is another matter entirely. 😉
Oh… And Ft.Hood has about 71,000 people, some 42,000 or so Army and the rest USAF (usually about 300+ stationed there), the rest are mostly civilians. They also have two of the Army’s newest toys… the AH-64D Longbow, and the M1A2 SEP tank. I like to stay abreast of things. Old habits… 😉
Thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, security on the post is provided under contract, i.e. they don’t use Military Police to patrol the facility. Another point is that there are very few weapons readily available on a military facility in the US, as most are in the armory and have to be signed out. Because I carried around classified, I was an exception and usually had a standard Air Force .38 revolver to balance the briefcase. It was a PITA in the US, one more stop and detail when I went on duty. We had to count and sign for ammunition.
We aren’t going to know what really happened for months, if ever.
I still laugh every time I hear that civilian contractors are providing security for the Military! The irony and stupidity of it just set’s of my *hysterical laughter* button! I am sure most of the moronic masses don’t appreciate the incredible irony of it, but I am equally sure many of *us* do! I can’t stop laughing… really! Talk about disasters waiting… (or even planned… oooh! Conspiracy warning!) …to happen!
Ft. Hood used to have a MP garrison of about a thousand when I was in the biz (and as far as I knew up until they deployed to Iraq).
I was also required to be armed (primary and backup actually, concealed). I had much extra paperwork involved, though in some cases I was required to carry my primary on an open holster to forestall any potential problems.) Amazing how polite people are when they see a quick-draw holster sporting a nasty looking automatic pistol, and especially when they know that the person carrying it knows how to use it well, and will not hesitate to do so.
I’m sure the public won’t know for some time, and I’m also certain that the public will never know the truth (especially given that the USA has no serious investigative reporters these days, only sycophantic gossip mongers.) I could use some remaining contacts here and there… But I’m saving those bridges for a rainy day (about the time the 30 year gag expires actually). Mixed metaphors not withstanding. 😉 Still… I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. 🙂
When they started using MPs for infantry jobs in Iraq they justified more privatization. The US Defense Department is totally screwed up by filling sensitive positions with civilians who have no direct ties to the government, and are generally untrained, so they can be poorly paid, or overpaid if they are on “cost plus” contracts. FUBAR, that’s what the Hedgemony left in its wake.
With what is leaking out, it would appear that the shooter was reacting to treating PTSD patients, and may have picked the secondary form from long contact, and was angry about the discrimination he faced as a Muslim in the military, and being in the military in the Muslim community. He was being isolated by all sides. Then the military decided to send him to Afghanistan, where the situation would be even worse.
Frankly, if you had someone who needed to be seen by a shrink, the individual needed to be out of the combat zone for everyone’s safety. I can’t see the logic of deploying a clinical psychologist to a war zone. You can train a medic, and should train your leadership to spot people in trouble, and ship them out before they get themselves and others killed by snapping under stress.