A Waking Nightmare

It's a large room, deep in the heart of Texas. There is a large crowd of men and women on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan, many for their second, third or more tours. Suddenly shot ring out and men and women around you start to fall. You hit the deck and try to get behind something, anything. At the same time you try to shield someone, that's what you do when you're a warrior. And you start to pray and to curse the people who decided all the weapons need to be locked up, for safety. Safety.

This is what our bothers and sisters faced down in Fort Hood. A stateside military base is a gun free zone. The guns are kept locked up except when the brass want the troops to do something. And most of the time when the troops do have the shootin' irons, like when they get trained in marching around and such, the ammo is locked up. The Armed Forces are terrified of the idea that soldiers will go around shooting each other over two dollar bets and who gets first crack at that slightly overweight divorcee working the swing shift at the Dew Drop Inn.

The brass didn't think that an Army Major, a doctor who got all his training on the US taxpayers dime, would start shooting. The soldiers and the brass need to review and rethink the contract. Here is the deal...I sign up and agree to wear funny, unflattering clothes and get really bad haircuts. I agree to do what I'm told and go where I'm sent. I agree to put my life in danger getting into all sorts of really silly predicaments. I agree to go where a whole slew of complete strangers want to kill me for reasons I do not fully understand. I agree to try to kill or capture those strangers under rules of engagement that makes said killing more difficult.

Now you, the brass, agree to a few things, also. The most important is that you agree to not make my risks, and my life worthless. You also agree that, when you have me place my life in danger, I be the best armed, best equipped guy on the block. Now, brass, if you are going to put people like this Nidal Malik Hasan guy in the middle of the largest Army base on the continent, give me an effing gun! I would really prefer that, once you discover that Major Hasan is writing blog entries proud of what the homicide bombers are doing you let him practice his profession of Psychiatry in a slightly better place, one more suited to his talents. Like maybe inside the Federal Max Security Prison in Marion Illinois. Or perhaps on our government since it sure seems as if they need a shrink. Anyhow, brass, you are not supposed to put me, unarmed, into a big room with a nutcase armed with two pistols and God only knows how many loaded magazines and me and my pards nothing but our butts hanging in the breeze. Remember, brass, if my life doesn't mean much to you it still means a lot to my family.

Oh, and brass, please tell the FBI that it was too a terror incident. Okay, maybe this clown didn't belong to alQueda. It's quite probable he was acting alone. Please, brass, tell the FBI to look at the pictures of those wives and husbands waiting for word of their spouses and ask them again, was it terror? If they again say no, hit them in the face with a shovel and get some Federal cops with half a brain.