The U.S. Army plans to rename Fort Hood, Texas, a 214,968-acre base “ideal for multifaceted training and testing of military units and troops.” The name change does not alter reality of a terrorist attack that marks an anniversary three days before the midterm election.
At Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan murdered 13 unarmed American soldiers and support personnel and wounded more than 40 others. The massacre marked a failure of political and military leadership, but there was more to it.
The Fort Hood massacre was also the worst failure of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 9/11, which the FBI also failed to stop. The attack could have been easily prevented, long before Hasan, an ally of the Taliban, claimed so many American lives.
Born in 1970 to Muslim immigrants, Nidal graduated from Virginia Tech and in 2003 completed psychiatry training at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Hasan served his residency at Walter Reed Medical Center, where instructors cited his “pattern of poor judgement and lack of professionalism.”
As Lessons from Fort Hood notes, during his residency and post-residency fellowship, Hasan demonstrated evidence of violent extremism and wrote papers defending Osama bin Laden. Two officers described Hasan as a “ticking time bomb,” but the Army promoted the “soldier of Allah,” as Hasan described himself, and considered him competent to counsel soldiers returning from combat.
On December 17, 2008, Hasan visited the website of radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the al Qaeda leader who endorsed deadly violence as religious duty. Hasan sent a message to al-Awlaki and another on January 1, 2009. The messages were acquired by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in the San Diego Field Office. In early January of 2009, the emails were sent to the Washington Field Office (WFO) and FBI headquarters.
In May of 2009, the Army promoted Hasan to Major and two months later sent him to Fort Hood. On May 31, Hasan again emailed al-Awlaki about suicide bombers whose “intention is to kill numerous soldiers,” and “save his fellow people.” As Hasan explained, “this logic seems to make sense to me.” In another email to al-Awlaki, Hasan wrote, “Please keep me in your Rolodex in case you find me useful, and please feel free to call me collect.”
In June of 2009, the FBI’s Washington Field Office emailed the San Diego office that “Given the context of his military and medical research and the content of his, to date, unanswered email messages from al-Awlaki, WFO does not currently assess Hasan to be involved in terrorist activities.” The FBI then dropped the case until November 5, 2009.
At Fort Hood Hasan deployed an FN Five-Seven handgun and carried a .357 magnum revolver in reserve. At the Soldiers Readiness Center, Hasan slipped behind a desk, bowed his head in prayer, then stood up, yelled “Allahu akbar,” and began firing. At first he shot into the most densely packed areas then began targeting individual soldiers, including Capt. John P. Gaffney, Spc. Frederick Greene, and civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill.
Hasan shot Maj. Eduardo Caraveo, Staff Sgt Justin Michael DeCrow and Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, who took a fatal bullet in the back. Hasan shot Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, Pfc Michael S. Pearson, and Capt. Gilbert Russell Seager. Hasan’s head shot took out Pfc. Kham See Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Hasan killed three women, including Pfc. Francheska Velez, 21, who was pregnant and yelled “My baby! My baby!” Hasan shot her in the chest, and her pre-born child was never counted among the murder victims. The wounded included Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford who took seven bullets from Hasan, including shots in the head and abdomen. Soldiers commandeered a table and rushed Lunsford to triage.
Hasan grazed the right side of Staff Sgt. Shawn M. Manning and shot him in the left upper chest, left back, lower right thigh, upper right thigh, and right foot. And so on, for more than 40 others, including civilian police officer Kimberly Munley. She managed to wound the man FBI bosses claimed was not involved in terrorist activities.
Composite character president Obama failed to name or openly condemn Nidal Hasan, and did not speculate about his motive. The former Barry Soetoro called the killings “incomprehensible,” adding that “no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.”
For Hasan, it was fully comprehensible, and he certain believed Islam justified his actions. For the president, the mass murder of unarmed Americans was a “tragedy,” and the commander in chief failed to mention a single victim by name. His Defense Department called the attack “workplace violence,” not even gun violence.
This was an effort to avoid portrayals of the attack as terrorism, and to deny the victims the benefits and medals they deserved. In 2014, president Obama declined to meet with Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford. Those are tough acts to follow but vice president Biden was up to the task.
“Jill and I join the President and Michelle in expressing our sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who fell today,” Biden said in a statement. “We are all praying for those who were wounded and hoping for their full and speedy recovery. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the entire Fort Hood community as they deal with this senseless tragedy.” Vice president Biden failed to name a single soldier who “fell,” the man who killed them, and what motivated Hasan to act.
In his court-martial in August of 2013, Hasan admitted he was the gunman and told a judge he killed the soldiers to protect Muslims and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. On August 23, 2013, the jury found him guilty of all 42 counts and sentenced him to death. The sentence was not carried out, and that too had consequences when Joe Biden occupied the White House.
In his withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden left behind billions in high-tech American weaponry. Biden’s military shared intelligence with the Taliban, and gave them a list of Americans still trapped in that nation. Biden also hired the Taliban for security at Kabil airport, which facilitated the terrorist bomb that claimed 13 American lives.
In his delayed response to the atrocity, Biden mumbled something about his late son Beau but mentioned not a single American victim by name. From his cell at Fort Leavenworth, Nidal Hasan was loving it.
“We have won!!!” the convicted murderer wrote to his attorney. “All praises be to All-Mighty Allah!” adding “I pray to Allah that He helps you implement Shariah Law fully, correctly, and fairly.”
Like Obama, who sent planeloads of cash to Iran, Joe Biden is in effect a financier and arms supplier for terrorists. Like Obama, the Delaware Democrat ignores Islamic terrorism and targets his domestic opposition as the major threat.
Biden’s “woke” military wants to rename Fort Hood after the late Gen. Richard Cavazos, a hero of the Korean and Vietnam wars. The 2009 terrorist attack at the Texas base, part of the ongoing war with radical Islam, could render some better candidates.
Consider Fort Warman, after Lt. Col. Juanita L. Warman, shot dead by Nidal Hasan at the age of 55. Consider also Fort Krueger, after Staff Sgt. Amy Sue Krueger, 29, who took a fatal bullet in the chest. And don’t exclude men like Capt. John Gaffney and Spc. Frederick Greene, who died in a hail of bullets while trying to subdue Hasan.
Also deserving consideration is Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, at only 19 the youngest of Hasan’s victims. Facilities at the fort could be named after the wounded, such as Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, and the heroes who risked their lives to save him.
The attack would not have happened if the U.S. military had rejected the incompetent Nidal Hasan for duty as a psychiatrist and kept him away from Fort Hood. Likewise, the terrorist atrocity could have been avoided if FBI bosses had not looked the other way. That enabled Maj. Nidal Hasan to “kill numerous soldiers,” wound many others, and keep his own life. So the solider of Allah has good reason to cry “We won!”
In 2022 moving forward, the lesson of Fort Hood is simple. The struggle against radical Islamic terrorism is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
They even had complaints that he was treating patients by urging them to convert to Islam and still they ignored it. Didn’t want to be branded “Islamophobic” and have their careers ruined, you know.
And who was the person that gave a speech on our fine shrink/murderer for Allah?
The dynamic General Milley….
And Gen. Casey rushed in with the tired cliché that “diversity is our strength!”
The willfully ignorant fool was worried about backlash based on anecdotal evidence. (Guess he didn’t get the memo about the pampered Nidal screaming “Allah Akbar!”)
Carry a Bible, and it’ll be your ass!
Express hatred for America and do everything announcing jihadist intentions, just short of printing it on business cards . . . Oh, wait . . . he did, and top brass will kiss your ass.
The terrorists at the terror organization CAIR is passing out sweets in celebration today.
**”considered him competent to counsel soldiers returning from combat.”**
THIS IS THE REASON HE KILLED THEM! Returning soldiers, dealing with all types of issues like sleeplessness, jumpy, anger, untrustworthy, PTSD, so they went to see a person who would “counsel” them. This Counselor listens as the soldier describes the bombings and shootings, he took part of… THE KILLING OF HIS FELLOW MUSLIMS!
IN THE FBI TV SHOW, a Muslim agent sided with another fellow Muslim BEFORE HIS OATH TO THE FBI. He was investigating a murder and couldn’t believe his own Imam was part of it so he didn’t investigate that angle. The Black female agent, sided with Blacks. MUSLIMS FOR MUSLIMS! BLACKS FOR BLACKS! Then you have the Law and Order with the main actress promoting HER AGENDA that she’s been interviewed on. IT’S ALWAYS WHITE SUPREMACISTS, RIGHT-WING TERRORISTS that they promote. When there’s a shooting at a protest, BLAME IMMEDIATELY ON RIGHT-WINGERS so they investigate causing a frenzy in the viewing audience. Then it turns out, an insider did it but by then, the goal of HATE for fifty minutes was on RIGHT-WING TERRORISTS!
HASAN WAS AFTER REVENGE! THEREFORE…. I WOULDN’T TRUST ANY MUSLIM IN A WAR, ANYTHING, THAT THEN DEALS WITH OTHER MUSLIMS! RELIGION FIRST… DUTY LAST! If you’re on the battlefield and a Muslim, Gay, Trans, has ONE SECOND of doubt to kill an attacker, THAT ONE SECOND CAN GET THEM, OR THEIR FELLOW SOLDIERS, KILLED!
AND THEN THERE WAS BOWE BERGDAHL! $10,000 fine from an Obama Judge! Bergdahl then demanded back pay of $200,000 plus. (Don’t know if he got that.) REMEMBER that the father and Obama were at the White House.
THAT LEADS ME TO ADD THAT JOHN BRENNAN, Obama’s head of the CIA, a Muslim and a Communist, was in charge of conducting operations around the world AGAINST MUSLIMS AND COMMUNISTS, BUT HE AND OBAMA WERE INSTEAD…. AIDING AND ABETTING THEM!
ENOUGH! Deport all blacks, muslims and illegal aliens.
Irrelevant! The extreme black on everyone else crime rate and the genocidal islamic ideology are in ‘Antithetical, unequivocal diametrical opposition’ to maintaining a peaceful, civilized and Christian country. Deport them all!
The left wants to erase the memory of General Hood.
These leftist pricks wanna erase the memory of America.
The go-along scrum at Arlington National Cemetery actually voted to tear down the monolith of Robert E. Lee – the honorable man & general whose house the cemetery is built on.
So is Biden going to rename Ft Hood Ft Hasan?
Why change the name? Why can’t we remember our history?
And who can forget the brave and beautiful Pamela Geller, whose reporting on this issue was light years ahead of everyone else?
If you go to the website “Find A Grave” and look at PFC Francheska Velez’s page you will find the words “She was filling out paperwork for maternity leave when a disgruntled U.S. Army psychiatrist killed 13 people and injured more than 30 others before he was brought down.”
“a disgruntled U.S. Army psychiatrist”, I’m assuming her family wrote and approved those words. So I’m assuming that even her family is ignorant of or evading the fact that she was killed in the line of duty by a MUSLIM JIHADIST ?!
Mass killers like this should be automaticly ellgible for the Death Penalty no delays,No Pardons No Clemency
Were there awards of the Purple Heart and other appropriate combat medals for the casualties of this attack in the 14 century war against the infidel?
The FBI is no longer the preimminent law enforcement agency in the world. Gone is the relentless pursuit of the nation’s worst human beings, communist spies, and violent gangsters. Standards have been lowered drastically. Politcal correctness and wokeism have replace the once high standards of FBI conduct and investigative zeal. This agency is severely broken, and its leadership is unqualified & unmotivated to fix it. Like Twitter, the FBI needs to be flushed, cleaned out, and transformed into what it should be…the most professional and effective law enforcement agency in the world.
Is this vermin still collecting a salary?…He was…
I think Hassan’s Murder Toll was 14?One of the soldiers he Murdered was Pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THAT is when this moron ends up swinging from a rope! I am so sick of ALL THIS BS! Wanna kill yourselves? Do us all a favor and destroy each other, Allah will love you for it!
First, there,s no good reason to change the name that has stood for 80 years. Second, the deaths were beyond tragic, but being a victim of murder doesn’t warrant enshrinement of a person’s name for eternity. There are numerous medal of honor winners, and others who’s combat valor deserves to be an example for the future.