12 Dead, 31 Wounded

Updated: 13 dead 30 Wounded
Sorry this wasn't updated--sooner:
Here's a video at CNN of the shooter from the morning of the 5th getting his usual coffee and hashbrowns.

(from all the news channels)There was only one shooter, a 39 year old American born Muslim from Virginia who joined the Army and went to medical school to become a psychiatrist on the Army's dime.

"Wielding two handguns, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan stormed into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where military personnel are prepared for war zone deployment, killing indiscriminately and wounding 31, said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, post commander."

According to family members Hasan had wanted out of the Army since 2001. He had had trouble with being taunted about being a Muslim and was scared of being deployed.

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Molano described him as "far and away one of the best psychiatrists I ever dealt with."

A soldier who served two tours in Iraq and is awaiting medical retirement for chronic PTSD and severe mental disorders called Hasan "a soldier's soldier who cared about our mental health."

But, he added, "Hasan hears nothing but these horror stories from soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan -- just hearing it I'm pretty sure would have a profound effect."

Mindy B. Mechanic, an associate professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, said listening to horror stories can indeed have an impact, but was unlikely to have such an extreme one.

The impact on therapists who work with traumatized individuals is known as vicarious traumatization or compassion fatigue, she said. "But they don't go out on shooting sprees," she said. "They might get depressed or have some emotional fallout from it, but to go on a shooting spree is not part of what happens to people from having to deal with trauma survivors all the time."

Mechanic, who did not know Hasan, said people don't just snap. "When you start looking back, there are crumbs that suggest everything was not hunky-dory."

One becomes a psychiatrist to help people and having become a psychiatrist, you above all others should be able to recognize the signs of an imminent breakdown--and seek help--not kill your fellow soldiers. What was the stressor (what event turned his frustration and fear into killing rage) that sent Hasan over the edge? Being female with a fiery temper I can relate somewhat, but being female (a woman's rage has a tendency to turn inward while a man's rage tends to turn outward--a woman blames herself, a man blames others) I can't relate to kill other people for my frustrations. My fear and frustration are caused by my inability to deal with them. Hasan came to the point where his fear and frustration were directed at the Army i e fellow soldiers. Could Hasan, in the end, unable to cope any more, have decided maybe he was wrong, maybe a suicide bomber has the right idea--die for your religion.

Come on, it's not anti-Muslim to consider that you cannot go untouched by the radical side of your religion. It's like anything else, if it is all around you, you can't escape thinking about it, and it can under certain circumstances have a Siren's call: if I do this I go to paradise and so does all of my family. Part of your mind knows it is wrong but another part just wants to stop the noise in your head.