Armed Forces.

When I first saw the front page of the Boston Metro on Friday, November 6, my blood ran cold. Now, I had heard that expression before, but I had thought it hyperbole until it happened to me. There had been a shooting spree at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, the same base where my best friend Harry Dery was stationed. That was when I felt the chill, that gravel-in-your-guts horror that makes everything else insignificant. I spent the rest of my hour-long commute to school frantically trying to call and text Harry to find out if he was okay, but I couldn’t get a hold of him. I knew that Fort Hood was a big place, and that the odds were slim of Harry being one of the 13 dead, or even one of the 30 wounded. I also knew the horrible detail that the shooting had taken place at a processing center where troops receive medical treatment before going overseas, and since Harry wasn’t scheduled to go overseas any time soon, that also helped his chances. I knew these things, but they didn’t help. I was still gripped with the irrational terror of a horrible situation.

Eventually, I got to a computer on campus and saw a note from his sister on his Facebook page saying she was glad to hear he was okay (proof that Facebook is good for something other than tagging embarrassing pictures of your drunk friends). Later still I received a text message from Harry simply stating “Yea I’m good bro.” I could finally relax. But the horror wouldn’t go away.

I recall thinking later that day that I hadn’t been so horrified by a news item since the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India. It was then I realized that, while it felt like a long time, those attacks happened less than a year ago. Why do these things happen? What, exactly, is wrong with the world? The fact that this happened so close to Veteran’s day seems like the punchline to a sick joke that nobody will laugh at.

People will theorize, of course. Bob Herbert of the New York Times offered an article entitled “Stress Beyond Belief” that reads as passionate, if misguided. Herbert is just one of the many that have drawn connections between shooter Nidal Malik Hasan’s actions and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, something my parents who grew up during the Viet Nam war still refer to as ‘Shell Shock.’ Now, certainly PTSD is an extremely serious topic, as is the treatment soldiers may or may not receive for it. I am glad that more attention is being paid to the subject. But drawing this tenuous thread between PTSD and Hasan, and going so far as to imply that it’s the reason for Hasan’s rampage, seems a bit irresponsible. What Herbert and so many other journalists are failing to acknowledge is that Hasan had yet to do a tour of duty overseas. He was scheduled to go on his first deployment – a tour of Afghanistan – in the coming months. When discussing the event in my Criminology class that Friday morning, a fellow student asked “Is there such a thing as Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” It’s not a bad question.

So we can’t blame PTSD for Hasan’s actions. Hell, according to ABC News, Hasan “completed a fellowship in Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry at the Center for Traumatic Stress.” So should we blame those who treat PTSD for his shooting spree? Of course not. In the face of a tragedy like this, it can be hard for the disturbed public to accept that they’re looking for solutions where there are none to be found. Just like the shootings at Columbine or the Oklahoma city bombing, people will try to single out one factor as a cause, be it “dangerous” literature, “dangerous” music, or, in what’s already showing itself to be the case, a “dangerous” religion. It’s hard to accept and impossible to explain, but sometimes people just snap. The best we can do is try and gain a better, more scrutinizing knowledge of events as they unfold. And we can truly respect the soldiers in our armed forces, not just as a passing trend that fades with the memory of tragedy, but as an ongoing understanding that transcends mere patriotism into a true compassion for our fellow man.

-Michael James Roberson