By now you have to be a troglodyte to be unaware of the Fort Hood Massacre. A freaked-out Psychiatrist, whose job seemed to involve helping soldiers from The Sand Box deal with their PTSS (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) found his own resolution to the dichotomy of "I am a U.S. Soldier" and I Am A Muslim"; he got a couple of guns and went out to shoot soldiers who were either rotating to, or rotating from, the previously mentioned Sand Box.
I remember the good old days of the Viet Nam War, when the returning veterans had to deal with sputum-expectorating hippies who accosted soldiers in airports and accused them of being "Baby Killers".
[sigh]
I never thought I would say this, but -- those were the Good Old Days.
SO I'm dropping my Geek persona, and moving back 40- years to when I was Sarge.
Guys, Nadal Sand Loser was just another candidate for Suicide By Cop waiting to happen.
What happened?
He killed a baker's dozen Good Guys, and seriously screwed up another 30 of them ... including the lady Rent-A-Cop who returned the compliment by punching his ticket in the most effective manner. Good on her, and I think she should receive a Major Medal plus Congress should give her a munificent Pension For Life.
Hell, they did that for John Murtha, didn't they? Its a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for a congressman; it's a Job Well Done for a cop. (After they plug up the bullet-holes in both legs, which in my personal opinion should earn her a bourbon with a beer-back in any bar in the country, and I would be proud to buy her around and tell my grandchildren about the honor.)
But what's the real story here?
Gun Free Zones -- that's what we're talking about.
In a world of Brass (officers), the only Brass demonstrated was that expended by the Bad Guy's Five-seveN with the mucho-round magazine.
How come we have an army post with 40,000 troops, and they are nothing more than targets?
Looking back to the late 1960's, I recall that when the troops went on stand-down in the base camps, the first impulse of the Brass was to require field soldiers to disarm and store their weapons and ammunition in locked ConEx containers before we could even hit the luke-warm showers, let alone enjoy a single night hitting the EM clubs and NCO clubs. Yes, it didn't matter what rank you held; if it was Stand Down, America did not trust their troopers to carry weapons in a base camp.
Why? Because the Brass were then, as they are now, reluctant to trust their soldiers with weapons in a Base Camp (or a Fire Base ... the difference being a Division vs a Regimental fortification) while they were drinking.
Hmm ... well, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. If the troops weren't disarmed on Stand Down, they might do something radical such as frag unpopular NCOs.
Oh, wait! That happened, didn't it?
But if the NVA or VC hit the base camp, they could be assured that the field-experienced troops had no way to defend themselves; they had to depend on the expertise of REMF soldiers on guard duty.
Hence the near-success of the Tet Offensive, if the Brass hadn't figured it out within a short 24 hours and armed the field soldiers to defend the bases.
(In the actual event, Field Soldiers on Stand-Down were more likely to be fodder for REMFs who would roll the field soldiers on their Drunkards-Walk back to the barracks.)
But I digress.
As Disney had the Crows say in DUMBO: "I've seen a Horse Fly, and I've seen a House Fly, but I've never seen an Elephant fly."
Well, these folks had been been around the world and They Have Seen The Elephant.
Now they have seen the Elephant fly. Or more accurately --- they have seen the Elephant, and they have fled the field, with various degrees of success.
All the time, Major Nadal Malik Hasan was shooting them in the back as they scrambled ... often unsuccessfully ... to exit the Kill Zone.
Nobody charged the murderer despite their training which ground into their psyches the basic Infantry Aphorism: "Run away from a 'far ambush', run toward a 'near ambush'".
Their training presupposed that they would be armed when they were ambushed. Their command had deserted them; they were subject to a 'near ambush', but they were dis-armed. What part of Military Training could possibly have prepared them to be ambushed when they were dis-armed?
It's preposterous. They weren't expecting to be attacked in their home base, in their DEROS station, on American Soil.
"I didn't read this in The Manual! What am I suppose to do now?"
Those soldiers in Fort Hood found themselves in the Kill Zone, when they thought they were safe. And they had every reason to belief that they were safe.
Didn't they?
Their commanders thought they were safe ... although there were no steps taken to ensure their safety. Nasal End Zone knew that he could bring firearms on base with no fear of detection.
Their commanders let them down.
Loyalty up, Loyalty down. That's the way it should be. That's what they were taught.
So, who's going to find their ass in a grinder over this. Certainly not their commanders. Certainly not ... well, how long is it going to take before someone begins blaming the victims?
Today, the base commander -- the egregious General Robert Cone -- described the attack as "... an isolated incident..."
Incident?
You have a maverick Islamic Officer who has protested being assigned to "fight his brother Muslims", who is a unanimously described 'loner', who has visited mosques where the imam was a Radical Muslim, and who the CIA knew had been attempting to contact Al Queda, who has publicly stated that Suicide Bombers were "right" to kill Americans, who spend the morning of the attack giving away his possessions (and a few Korans) to his neighbors, and upon whom you didn't even bother to watch closely ... and you call this "an isolated incident"?
Maybe he just fell through the cracks, eh?
Yeah, and the Grand Canyon is only the crack in the wall which you covered by hanging a big mass-printed reproduction of "The Scream".
I have no expectation that General Cone will ever be indicted for his failure to exercise his command efficiently. We can only hope that he will be quietly retired six months from now, which will be reported on Page C-13 of The New York Times as "choosing to seek new challenges in the Public Venue" and he will take an advisory position in some Washington Think Tank and be paid about a half-million bucks a year.
Bbecause I know, and maybe you know, that General Cone was only exercising the policies handed down to him from his commanders, which explicitely include not allowing soldiers on American soil to be armed on base.
We've talked before about Gun Free Zones:
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun in a shopping mall?
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun in a Church?
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun at a University?
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun at a Child-Care Center?
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun in a Restaurant?
- Why would anybody need to carry a gun at (fill in the blank _________________)
Why don't they carry a gun?
Because the Nanny State thinks It's A Bad Idea.
What if somebody who is allowed to carry a gun in a "gun free zone" happened to shoot somebody? That Would Be Bad, right?
What if that person they shot was someone who was trying to kill as many civilians (or troops!) as they could in the shortest time possible?
Oh, well .... that would be bad, too.
That's what the police are for; To Protect and to Serve.
This is the second massacre in the past year which was stopped by, essentially, a Lady Rent-A-Cop. Thank God we still have a few of them left.
My solution: arm the ladies. They're Hell On Wheels when it comes to protecting The Flock.
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