On November 5, 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychologist who adheres to the teachings of Islam promulgated by Anwar al-Alawki, is alleged to have walked through a building on Fort Hood, Texas, shooting soldiers preparing to deploy overseas, and chanting “Allah Akbar” while doing it.  He is currently going through the legal system, where the latest development is that he will indeed have to shave his beard before his trial, probably because the presence of untrimmed facial hair would have caused instant madness in a military jury.

During his alleged rampage, 13 people were killed and 32 more were wounded.  In the days following the incident, the Obama administration decided that the allegations that Major Hasan was a radical Islamist, consorted with the enemies of the country he had sworn to protect and defend, berated and prosthelytize to the soldiers he was supposed to be caring for, and shot up a group of soldiers while chanting “God is Great” in Arabic didn’t point toward an act of terrorism.  To the astonishment of just about everyone, they labelled the attack as “workplace violence”, and tried to move on.  I guess you can guess that I disagree with that characterization.  Soldiers being shot by someone screaming the war cry of our enemies aren’t victims of workplace violence; they are casualties of war.

One of the side effects of not being declared casualties of war is that these soldiers aren’t eligible for the Purple Heart, which is the award given to those who are wounded as a result of enemy action.  During his weekly radio program “Dark Secret Place” this week, Bryan Suits went into depth on why that is an important omission to these soldiers and their families.  You see, soldiers who are hurt, but are not given the Purple Heart, will probably end up in the Veteran’s Administration hospitals for care after they are discharged, but without a Purple Heart, they will be prioritized lower than someone who was hurt in combat.   That means that care they need will be delayed as they wait for their number to come up, prolonging suffering and delaying recovery.  Mr. Suits, himself a veteran of Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Iraq and a holder of the Purple Heart, made an excellent point that the soldier who was shot six times at Fort Hood will be given a lower priority than someone who had relatively minor wounds in Iraq or Afghanistan.   I urge all of you to listen to Mr. Suits entire program from October 20 for more details on this.

Members of Congress, notably Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut  and Congressman Peter King of New York have proposed legislation that would award servicemen who are wounded during terrorism in the continental United States the Purple Heart, along with all of the honors and privileges that go with it, and would award it specifically to those who were hurt at Fort Hood.  If you find this issue important, I request that you reach out to your Senators and Congressman to get these bills moving along after the election.

Our wounded, no matter where the enemy finds them, deserve better than that.  A politically correct cop-out by this administration dishonors the sacrifice of those shot at Fort Hood, and the decision needs to be reversed.  To treat these soldiers as if they broke their arm during PT is disrespectful and stupid.  Our enemy actively recruits American Muslims, and in at least this situation, they were successful.  We can expect that at some point in the future, they will succeed again, and the precedent set now in how we treat those at the sharp end of that particular stick will impact how those who are injured by sleepers and turncoats in the future are treated.  We are better than this, and we need to prove it.