A Lesson from Fort Hood

Look hard into the tragic shooting at Fort Hood and, amidst the carnage, you may see an important lesson that is not readily apparent: a blurring of the line between veteran and civilian.

At first glance, this may seem absurd. Major Nidal Hasan was an army officer working on an army base. His horrific crime was carried out on the largest military installation in the country. All but one of his victims were in the military. Stories in the press repeat the mantra of how this has impacted the close knit Fort Hood “military family.” But, I contend that if we look deeper, we will see that this tragedy is about much more than yet another peril in the life of our military personnel. It is a problem for us all.

Major Hasan had not been in combat. He was well educated and serving in a professional capacity. Yet, as he was exposed to daily accounts of those who suffered the personal trauma of war, he ultimately could not bear it and exploded in a rage that was antithetical to his professional training, his religious upbringing or even his own best interests. This explosion was prompted by his proximity to post traumatic stress disorder.

How is Major Hasan different from the spouse who is steadily assaulted by abuse from her husband who just returned from combat? Or the confused toddler, who feels abandoned by his mother returning from Iraq withdrawn and distant? Or the parents of someone killed in a car accident by a vet who is DUI? Or members of a congregation or a union hall who experience a shooting rampage by a veteran who can no longer live with the demons they experience on behalf of the civilian population in whose name they fight? These are life-altering consequences to those of us often far removed from the battlefield.

PTSD impacts us all; it has intergenerational ramifications. How many Vietnam vets do you know who never talk about their combat experience, even though the war ended 30 years ago? In his brilliant and courageous OpEd piece in the NY Times by former Senator and Vietnam War hero Max Cleland, “Wars are not over when the shooting stops. They live on in the lives of those who fight them…the soldier never forgets. Neither should we.”

PTSD has been around for as long as warfare itself. There are even hints in Homer. But, there is a difference now. Medical technology allows many to live who, in the past, would have perished from their wounds. Statistics show as many as one-third of those returning from our current wars may suffer from PTSD and we are only on the initial wave of this problem. Now is the time that we—civilians and veterans alike—must address the core issue, which is not how we “fix” PTSD in returning vets, but rather how war afflicts the very soul of our society.

At Intersections, we are engaged in a social healing process—civilian/veteran dialogue—led by my colleague Scott Thompson, that helps both communities engage each other in deep and profound ways around the cost of war. This Friday, we will host Vietnam Vet Larry Winters’s play, Nothing Means Nothing, highlighting the hidden issues that veterans face in our society. These are small steps, but as the tragic events at Fort Hood revealed, we must come to grips with what Max Cleland calls “the forever war of the mind,” and recognize that its impact is on us all.