Eight Feet Deep

UPDATE2: In another press con­fer­ence about 8:30 p.m. Cen­tral, Fort Hood and the Army’s III Corps com­man­der told reporters that the sus­pect in the shoot­ing at the World’s largest mil­i­tary base on Thurs­day after­noon is not dead despite being shot mul­ti­ple times by a female civil­ian police offi­cer. Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said the sus­pect, Army psy­chi­a­trist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was in “sta­ble con­di­tion” and that  his death was not immi­nent despite being shot mul­ti­ple times. Hasan is report­edly a U.S. cit­i­zen of Jor­dan­ian her­itage who received his under­grad­u­ate degree at Vir­ginia Tech. Cone said evi­dence does not rule out ter­ror­ism, but there is no evi­dence to sug­gest the shoot­ings were terrorist-related. This is really going to help out the military’s men­tal health pro­gram at a time when sui­cides in the ser­vice are at an almost epi­demic level. Prozac any­one?

UPDATE: Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, com­mand­ing gen­eral of the III Army Corps and Fort Hood, said at a short press con­fer­ence that at least 12 peo­ple have been killed and 31 wounded in the shoot­ing. Both those shot and the sus­pects are sol­diers, Cone said.

As the hed said, media reports indi­cate per­haps nine peo­ple are dead and more than two dozen have been wounded in a shoot­ing involv­ing at least two sus­pects at Fort Hood, Texas. The mas­sive mil­i­tary post lies about halfway between Waco and Austin, right smack dab in the heart of Texas.

So this means what to me? Well, Ft. Hood was part of my beat back in my days of employ­ment as a news­pa­per reporter. I vis­ited the post many, many times to cover not only mil­i­tary events but for events involv­ing our most recent ex-president. I am watch­ing CNN cov­er­age. Once again, I think for all their short­falls, CNN is still the best at break­ing news.

I have lit­tle to add to the cur­rent news cov­er­age except that I noticed dur­ing my time hang­ing around the Fort Hood area, an under­cur­rent or, vibe, if you will. One might say that’s to be expected since it is a Army base, the “free world’s largest,” as post offi­cials liked to point out dur­ing my time cov­er­ing the military.

But actu­ally, I’ve been on other mil­i­tary posts includ­ing Army posts and didn’t get this same vibe.

Since the begin­ning of the so-called “War of Ter­ror” there have been at Fort Hood as at other Army posts a num­ber of sui­cides reported. Killeen, the city out­side the post, seemed at the time I reported on the mil­i­tary at Fort Hood to have an extra­or­di­nary amount of vio­lent crime. Even before the Afghan and Iraq wars there was the hor­ror of the mass shoot­ing at the Killeen Luby’s cafe­te­ria in which 23 peo­ple were mur­dered after George Hen­nard drove his truck into the restaurant.

One sus­pect has report­edly been cap­tured and another “cor­nered” in the Fort Hood inci­dent. The big ques­tion is — since at least two peo­ple were involved — the motive. Are these guys just nuts or are they some  kind of jihadists? It will be inter­est­ing to learn more. My thoughts go out to those whose fam­ily mem­bers or friends were involved.