Hasan
Wednesday was a mixed bag for Major Nidal Hasan…
The Army psychiatrist was sentenced to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Ft. Hood. He managed to fire 146 times, kill 13 and wound 32 others – including an Olathe girl – completing the worst mass shooting in U.S. Military history.
At the end of the shooting Hassan himself was wounded and left a paraplegic. Small consolation, but hey, it’s something.
Hasan heard the unanimous decision handed down by 13 senior officers. It took less than 2 hours to reach the verdict – most likely made before they left their jury seats – but they had to make it look good and deliberate at least a little.
Hasan currently sits in the gate area of the Ft Hood airport awaiting the first available flight to Ft. Leavenworth.
Aren’t we lucky?
On one hand, he gets his dream come true; death as a martyr. In his belief system, as the needle goes in, he goes out on the express train to heaven screaming “Allahu akbar”; God is great, to his highest reward, 72 miscellaneous virgins in the afterlife.
You have to find some humor in the fact that he’s doing this as a paraplegic. Tough luck.
Hasan
But giving Hasan his dirt nap won’t be an overnight process.
“If he really wants the death penalty, the appeals process won’t let it happen for a very long time,” said Joseph Gutheinz, a Texas attorney, United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. “The military is going to want to do everything at its own pace. They’re not going to want to let the system kill him, even if that’s what he wants.”
No active-duty service member has been executed since 1961. Hasan may never be executed, but he’ll join 5 other death row customers on the base when his flight arrives.
The biggest surprise of all?
With Hasan’s death sentence comes the end of the military pay gravy train. That’s right; he’s been getting paid all this time. How much, you ask? He’s cashed in $278,000 since the shootings plus a promotion.
Had Hasan been a military civilian, his pay would have ended seven days after the incident.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, his shooting victims have an equally hard to understand problem. They are fighting to get benefits and care associated with being wounded in combat because the Army refuses to classify the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” or a “terrorist attack.”
Why’s that matter?
Short of that designation, the shooting victims are not given combat-related pay, are not eligible for Purple Heart retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded in war or even during the 911 attack.
Burdette
Retired Army Specialist Logan Burnett, a reservist who was about to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three times. “I honestly thought I was going to die in that building,” said Burnett. “Just blood everywhere and then the thought of — that’s my blood everywhere.”
Burnett, who nearly died, has had more than a dozen surgeries since the shooting, and says post-traumatic stress still keeps him up at night. But it wasn’t a “terrorist attack” or “combat wound” so Burnett and the other Fort Hood victims are missing out on thousands of dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.
The shooter admits to being Muslim, admits wanting to kill even more than he did, screams “Allahu akbar” while shooting, but it’s not a terror attack?
Don’t you love our Government?
“You take three rounds and lose five good friends and watch seven other people get killed in front of you. Do you have another term that we can classify that as?” asks Burnett.
The Army has categorized the shooting as a case of “workplace violence.”
“Sickens me. Absolutely sickens me. Workplace violence? I don’t even know if I have the words to say,” adds Burnett.
“There have been times when my wife and I cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford gas in our car,” Burnett says. “Literally, times where we ate Ramen noodles for weeks on end. This (that Hasan is still earning a paycheck) makes me sick to my stomach.”
Burnett has since retired and moved to Arkansas to live with family and joined other Fort Hood victims in a lawsuit against the Army demanding the benefits they believe they’ve been denied.
“I refuse to continue letting Nidal Hasan win. And I leave the “Major” part out, because even though, unfortunately, he’s still being paid better than I am, he doesn’t deserve that rank,” Burnett says.
Take a moment and give this some thought.
If you’ve never written a letter to your Congressmen, this would be a good time to start, as I have. Just because the President thinks he’s brought an end to terrorism, just because he can’t bring himself to call it a terrorist act, doesn’t mean we have to be equally complacent.
Time for all good Americans to wrap themselves in the flag and hide behind a bible.
What the hell is terrorism or a terrorist? In England it would be George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and those other scoundrels from the colonies.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero.
FBI agents who railroaded petty KC thieves into murder convictions in the firefighter deaths, murdered a young man and his mother at Ruby Ridge, fire bombed women & children at Waco were promoted and honored. The same bunch were at all three incidents.
Sand Creek, Wounded Knee were great victories according to the government and army.
With the exception of WWII, we have treated soldiers/sailors/Marines as riff-raff or worse.
“I care nothing for principles — they are lumber and rubbish. What concerns our happiness and welfare, as affectable by our fellow men, is conduct. ‘Principles, not men,’ is a rogue’s cry; rascality’s counsel to stupidity, the noise of the duper duping on his dupe. He shouts it most loudly and with the keenest sense of its advantage who most desires inattention to his own conduct, or to that forecast of it, his character. As to sin, that has an abundance of expounders and is already universally known to be wicked. What more can be said about it, and why go on repeating that? The thing is a trifle word worn, whereas the sinner cometh up as a flower every day, fresh, ingenuous and inviting. Sin is not at all dangerous to society; what does all the mischief is the sinner. Crime has no arms to thrust into the public treasury and the private; no hands with which to cut a throat; no tongue to wreck a reputation withal. I would no more attack it than I would attack an isosceles triangle, or Hume’s ‘phantasm floating in a void.’ My chosen enemy must have something that has a skin for my switch, a head for my cudgel – something that can smart and ache. I have no quarrel with abstractions; so far as I know they are all good citizens.” Ambrose Bierce
Orphan, I took note of your comment on the Sheppard boys and the Fire Fighter deaths.
Did you know those guys, or did you just come to your conclusions based on the articles in the Star?
I had met JJ Mahoney shortly before he died. I know principles in the River Quay thing. CRIMEMAGAZINE site.
I believe that is where I originally learned of what truly is a scapegoating/coverup. I know people who grew up with the Sheppards and the very heavily influenced my opinion. From Martin City.
The Star did a singular piece on the entire disaster that you can (I believe) still click on and read.
I knew some of the players since high school and beyond, it is an interesting story, but the first step to understanding what really happened is the KC Star story. I hate on the Star frequently, but they did yeoman like work here and deserve accolades for leaving no stone unturned.
Frank, Bryan Sheppard et al, are part of a local mystery that has yet to be really understood, and, maybe yet to be solved.
I’m convinced it was the disappearing security guard that admitted to setting fire to her truck for the insurance money.
Mahoney worked at the Star at the time so he was probably involved in the early writing. They sort of recapped his efforts not long ago after the court ruling.
You might know Mike, he played ball with one of them too. We’ll talk when Wilson sets up the blind date for us all.
Love finding this kind of gritty KC history in the comments. I was in grade school when this incident happened and never heard about it…
We will talk.
🙂
Thats very screwed up.
You know the difference between our government, and organized crime?
One’s organized.
Lib, I enjoy your comments! Im convinced you could smack me silly in a comment opposed to all I’d said and it would still leave me smiling.
Well Paul, your entries seem to be the best reading around these here parts.
Chalk me up as a fan.
Wow, have you been drinking? That was a nice compliment. Thanks.
I can’t determine who is worse in this case, the dirtbag murderer or our dirtbag government and military. I call it a draw.
That is a ridiculous outcome for the folks who, unexpectedly found themselves in harm’s way, were injured. For chrissakes, give them the money.
Someone has to profit from the good hearts and good will of the American people’s charity first.
Then the crumbs can be scattered amongst the flock.
When you write for Hearne are you required to do that silly business with italicized sentences for emphasis…or does he add that in for you?
Mysterious, while this position affords me enormous power in the local media and fabulous riches, Hearne refuses to give me my own italic key. He’s even disabled “Control I” on my laptop, so I have no say or control over what does or does not get italicized. We’ve fought over this for months but he remains firm.
I am, however, allowed to pick one line I would like BOLDED; I usually reserve that for my name.
Editors; can’t live with um, no blog without um.
HEARNE: *from between the castle crenellations of a new Lawrence Xanadu* “You may approach the Aztec/Lawrence Sun God!!”
PAUL: *hops outta his 57 Nomad* “Hey Hearne, I was thinking maybe I would dangel a participle on that Pastor Brooks story.”
HEARNE: “I see my enemies scatter before me and hear the lamentations of their women.”
PAUL: “Did ya see those pictures? Jeeze, they were so nasty.”
HEARNE: “I’m gravely dissapointed”
PAUL: “Thats from ‘Mad Max II’. Jesus, who doesn’t love The Great Humongous?”
HEARNE: “Jack said I would like that movie.”
PAUL: “So, I dangle the participle, if ya know what I mean?”
HEARNE: “They may take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!!!!”
PAUL: “I was so glad they tortured him in the end. Never thought I would say this Hearne, but it might be time for still ANOTHER vacation.”
HEARNE: “Listen, when I was a little girl I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I’d just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me. ”
PAUL: “Under The Tuscan Sun”. The Great Humongeous did wear some pretty nifty chaps. Gotta jet Hearne, Rock Chalk and all that…”
Ive had to read this about 5 times before I could get all the way through without tears in my eyes……. thanks, made my Friday.
🙂
Thanks for the answer. I was pretty sure it was Hearne doing that to everyone.
You are correct, Mysterious…. thanks for letting me have fun with the answer.