Photo
by: LM Otero
The
U.S. flag flies at half staff in front of the Army's III Corps
headquarters at
Fort Hood, Texas, on Friday, Nov. 6, 2009.
(AP Photo/LM Otero)
|
By Susan
Crabtree-The Washington Times Thursday, October 18, 2012
The U.S. flag
flies at half staff in front of the Army’s
Benghazi
isn’t the first time the Obama administration has struggled with whether to
call an attack on a U.S. post a terrorist attack. Nearly three years after the
fact, the Defense Department still calls the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, an
act of workplace violence, despite the suspect’s ties to al Qaeda.
A coalition
of 160 victims and family members of the deadly rampage at Fort Hood in 2009
sees similarities in the Obama administration’s reluctance to label the attack
on the U.S. Consulate in Libya as a terrorist act and wants government
officials to belatedly deem the assault in Texas as terrorism as they now have
done with Benghazi.
“To have it
not be called terrorism is a slap in the face,” said Shawn Manning, who was
facing his third deployment the day authorities say Army psychiatrist Maj.
Nidal Hasan shot him six times.
The assault
on the army post in Killeen, Texas, was the most lethal terrorist attack on
U.S. soil since 9/11, leaving 13 dead, more than 30 wounded by gunshots and
dozens more injured. Survivors, many who suffered from multiple bullet wounds,
have spent the past three years trying to rehabilitate their bodies and rebuild
their lives. Maj. Hasan, 42, is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty if
convicted.
For the
service members who died and those who were wounded, the terrorism distinction
would mean that the military considered that their injuries took place in a
combat zone, making them eligible for Purple Heart medals and access to medical
care and benefits similar to what soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan
receive.
Civilian
victims, such as Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer employed by the
Army who shot Maj. Hasan four times and is credited with bringing him down and
helping prevent a bigger massacre, aren’t eligible for Purple Hearts. But Mrs.
Munley said the designation would recognize the severity of the attack and
provide her and others with much-needed closure.
“To be honest
with you, it would just help everyone, including me, start to be able to have
closure and start to heal,” she said. “To this day, mentally and emotionally, I
don’t think any of us have started to heal.”
Mrs. Munley
was wounded in both legs and her wrist during the close-range gunfight and her
injuries prevented her from remaining in the police forces’s Special Reaction
Team. She starts a new job as a researcher for government background checks
Nov. 5, the third anniversary of the attack at Fort Hood.
Calling the
attack as terrorism would show “that our sacrifice meant something that day —
that it wasn’t just a random act of violence,” Mr. Manning said. “We were
fighting a domestic enemy. It would mean that the Army or the government
finally recognized that what we went through was important. Everybody who was there
that day was headed out for deployment.”
Mrs. Munley
and Mr. Manning and several other victims appear in a newly released video “The
Truth About Fort Hood” in which they give testimonials and express their
frustration with the government for calling the attack “workplace violence.”
In the video,
the victims point out that Maj. Hasan had several email exchanges with top al
Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki about the attack, about whether the attack was
justified to “protect our brothers” and followed al-Awlaki’s advice to scream
“Allah Akbar” (“God is Great”) to invoke fear before starting to shoot. Until
his death by a drone airstrike in 2011, Yemen-based Awlaki was one of the
United States’ top enemies.
Mr. Manning,
who was medically discharged from the Army because of his wounds, recently was
denied additional retirement benefits because his injuries were not classified
as having occurred in a combat zone.
Another
victim, Sgt. Rex Stalnaker, suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder,
or PTSD, from the incident. As a medic, Mr. Stalnaker treated many of the
victims and when he left the building late that day, his uniform was soaked in
blood.
Mrs. Munley,
who is in close contact with many of the other Fort Hood victims, said top
Defense Department and Obama administration officials have never contacted her
or any other victim that she knows of about their desire to have the federal
government classify the attack as terrorism.
Army
Secretary John M. McHugh gave her an award at a ceremony on the first
anniversary of the attack, but there was still an ongoing investigation into
the Fort Hood shootings at the time and no resolution on whether the government
would label it as terrorism.
Earlier this
year, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter T. King, New York
Republican, and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee
Chairman Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, introduced legislation that
would allow domestic attacks on service members to be reviewed the same way as
international attacks when it comes to awarding the Purple Heart.
The coalition
also has the support of two Republican congressmen from Texas who wrote a
letter to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta this month citing detailed evidence
of al Qaeda involvement in the attack and asking him for the designation.
“Based on all
the facts, it is inconceivable to us that the DOD and the Army continue to
label this attack ‘workplace violence’ in spite of all the evidence that clearly
proves the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terror,” Rep. John R. Carter and
Rep. Michael T. McCaul wrote.
The
congressmen cited independent investigations by the Army, the Senate, and the
Webster Commission, each showing that the Fort Hood attack was an act of
terrorism. They also said military colleagues were well aware that Maj. Hasan
was unstable and a radical Islamist but the military promoted him anyway
without investigating complaints about his suspicious activity because they
were afraid of being seen as biased against Muslims.
The Fort Hood
victims “should not be ignored or mistreated now because of a misplaced and
inappropriate practice of political correctness,” they wrote.
Mr. Panetta’s
office did not respond to a request for comment.
From The Washington Times story by Susan Crabtree, "Fort Hood victims see similarities to Benghazi"
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