Posted by
EWRoss on Monday, November 09, 2009 7:00:00 AM
This Veterans Day, the victims
and heroes of the shooting at Fort
Hood, Texas on
November 5 will be much on the minds of those who take time to think about and
honor American veterans. We understand and appreciate the risks they take in
combat zones, but we don't expect them to come under attack on a secure
military base in the United
States. We certainly don't expect the attack
to come from one of their own.
If there is anything positive
to reflect on in this tragedy, its the way our military personnel and their
civilian counterparts reacted to it. Despite the large number of casualties at Fort Hood,
it appears that the number could have been much higher. Major Nidal Malik Hasan
is reported to have fired more than 100 rounds from his semi automatic pistol
into a crowd of 500 soldiers. The quick reactions of Department of the Army
police officer Kim Munley and her partner Sgt. Mark Todd and their close-range
gun battle with Hasan prevented him for killing and wounding more than he did.
Speaking of Munley, LTG Robert Cone, the senior commanding general at Fort Hood,
said "It was an amazing and an aggressive
performance by this police officer."
Munley and Todd weren't the
only heroes. LTG Cone cited numerous other acts of heroism by soldiers who used
their combat life-saving skills on wounded soldiers until the first ambulances
arrived. Other soldiers responded instinctively, leading their buddies out of
the danger zone.
We've
come to expect this kind of behavior from our brave men and women in uniform,
but we should never take it for granted. Since 9/11 we seen all too often the
great sacrifices our military veterans and civilian first responders so often
are called upon to make. As they in the past and will in the future, at Fort
Hood the worked side by side to stop the killing and save lives.
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