12 Killed In Fort Hood As Our Government Continues To Destroy Our Military

What's New: Alleged killer not dead. Toll back to 12.

By ROBERT WELLER

Time, after time, after time, the Army tells us not to worry about suicides, murders, drug use.

An Army major fatally shot 12 soldiers and wounded 31 others at Fort Hood, the nation's biggest military post. Even more incredible is that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist who specialized in trauma including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Fort Hood officials told the Washington Post that an earlier report that Hasan was killed was incorrect. He has been hospitalized in stable condition.

He had worked at Walter Reed and was a member of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. He also held a master in public health. Some psychologists have found that having too many depression patients can rub off on them.

The Army says it was an isolated case. Others might say SSDD. There have been several, probably more than we know of. We still don’t know how Pat TillmanPat Tillman died.

Many previous cases involving deaths, or killings of civilians outside the forts, have involved soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Order.

Most simply put it means soldiers are being sent into combat too often. The Army has stated that never before in its history have soldiers been in sustained combat so long. Even in World War II they would be taken off the front line for weeks at a time.

These heroes are spending up to 1,500 months behind the wire, with only about 20 or so days off. Some have been deployed six times. The Army and Marine Corps aren't big enough to support this burden, only a draft would lessen the strain, or pulling out.

Now they are being pressed not to kill anyone who might seem to be a threat because they could make a mistake.

The Army has held many seminars, met with reporters, tried to get soldiers to watch their buddies for signs of stress: things like being late, easily angered and so on. When a rash of killings of civilians occurred near Fort Carson, and it was clear some of the killers should have been getting counseling but weren’t, no one was held accountable. This reporter pressed and was told this is not the time for that. My retort, “If not now, when,” was brushed off.

No one in the command can say they couldn’t see this coming. Less than a year after we sent soldiers into Afghanistan, four wives were killed at Fort Bragg. Two of their husbands committed suicide.

Although it has been known under many names, it was first officially identified in World War I.

Military doctors knew it was there but it was largely ignored. In World War II the Army Surgeon General said it was severely limiting the time our soldiers and Marines could stay on the front line.

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS OF SYMPTOMS OF PTSD (MedicineNet.com)

The three groups of symptoms that are required to assign the diagnosis of PTSD are recurrent re-experiencing of the trauma (for example, troublesome memories, flashbacks that are usually caused by reminders of the traumatic events, recurring nightmares about the trauma and/or dissociative reliving of the trauma),avoidance to the point of having a phobia of places, people, and experiences that remind the sufferer of the trauma and a general numbing of emotional responsiveness, and chronic physical signs of hyperarousal, including sleep problems, trouble concentrating, irritability, anger, poor concentration, blackouts or difficulty remembering things, increased tendency and reaction to being startled, and hypervigilance to threat. The emotional numbing of PTSD may present as a lack of interest in activities that used to be enjoyed (anhedonia), emotional deadness, distancing oneself from people, and/or a sense of a foreshortened future (for example, not being able to think about the future or make future plans, not believing one will live much longer). At least one re-experiencing symptom, three avoidance/numbing symptoms, and two hyperarousal symptoms must be present for at least one month and must cause significant distress or functional impairment in order for the diagnosis of PTSD to be assigned. PTSD is considered of chronic duration if it persists for three months or more.

A similar disorder in terms of symptom repertoire is acute stress disorder. The major differences between the two disorders are that acute stress disorder symptoms persist from two days to four weeks, and a fewer number of traumatic symptoms are required to make the diagnosis as compared to PTSD.

In children, re-experiencing the trauma may occur through repeated play that has trauma-related themes instead of through memories, and distressing dreams may have more general content rather than of the traumatic event itself. As in adults, at least one re-experiencing symptom, three avoidance/numbing symptoms, and two hyperarousal symptoms must be present for at least one month and must cause significant distress or functional impairment in order for the diagnosis of PTSD to be assigned. When symptoms have been present for less than one month, a diagnosis of acute stress disorder (ASD) can be made.

Symptoms of PTSD that tend to be associated with C-PTSD include: problems regulating feelings, which can result in suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or passive aggressive behaviors; a tendency to forget the trauma or feel detached from one's life (dissociation) or body (depersonalization); persistent feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, or being completely different from others; feeling the perpetrator of trauma is all-powerful and preoccupation with either revenge against or allegiance with the perpetrator; and severe change in those things that give the sufferer meaning, like a loss of spiritual faith or an o

WHAT CAUSES IT: (MedicineNet.com):

Virtually any trauma, defined as an event that is life-threatening or that severely compromises the emotional well-being of an individual or causes intense fear, may cause PTSD. Such events often include either experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury, receiving a life-threatening medical diagnosis, being the victim of kidnapping or torture, exposure to war combat or to a natural disaster, exposure to other disaster (for example, plane crash) or terrorist attack, being the victim of rape, mugging, robbery, or assault, enduring physical, sexual, emotional, or other forms of abuse, as well as involvement in civil conflict. Although the diagnosis of PTSD currently requires that the sufferer has a history of experiencing a traumatic event as defined here, people may develop PTSD in reaction to events that may not qualify as traumatic but can be devastating life events like divorce or unemployment.