President Visits Fort Hood For Memorial

In a few hours, President Barack Obama will depart Washington D.C. to travel to Fort Hood, Texas for a memorial service for those killed in last weeks shooting rampage. People all across America are still in a state of shock over last Thursday's shootings at Fort Hood, by an Army officer that seemed to show signs of extreme anti-American behavior. Today, the national news media is trying to figure out why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a troop preparation room on Fort Hood and started killing everyone that he came into contract with and at the same time asking hard questions about why Maj. Hasan was allowed to remain on active duty even though he used hate speech when referring to the United States and the U.S. Army.

It's at times like these when I feel bad for the people in the Army chain of command that were in charge of judging the conduct of Maj. Hasan. In reality, those people were in a no win situation no matter what they did when it comes to the perception of the U.S. news media and some of the American public. If for example, the U.S. Army took a proactive approach in dealing with Maj. Ndal Hasan's anti-American rhetoric, then they would have been accused of trying to control his free speech by many special interest groups around the country. However, now that it is known that Maj. Hasan was a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, the U.S. news media will try to find someone in the chain of command in the Army that was over Maj. Hasan to blame.

I guess it's just human nature that when people are killed by some crazed individual that everyone's first response is to find someone to blame for all those deaths. From my personal point of view, there is someone to blame for the injuries and murders that took place on Fort Hood last Thursday afternoon and that person's name is Ndal Hasan. Too many times, the U.S. news media and some Americans rush to try to find a bad guy other than the person who commits a crime. I don't know why human nature is filled with the need to blame someone other than the shooter when an act of mass murder like this is committed, but that need to blame more than one man is definitely woven into the thought patterns of some Americans and is a mainstay in the U.S. national news media.

While Texas in not considered Obama country when it comes to politics, I am glad that our President will be visiting here on Tuesday to pay tribute to the fallen at Fort Hood. When I heard that President Obama would be attending Tuesday's Fort Hood memorial service, I wondered if President George W. Bush would attend as well? As most people already know, President Bush's Crawford Texas ranch is only about 40 miles away from Fort Hood Army base. I am hoping that along with President Obama's visit tomorrow to Fort Hood that President George W. Bush will attend too. Tuesday will be a sad day for people in Central Texas, nationally and around the world who look at the U.S. Army as this nations best line of defense in a troubled world.