12 killed in shooting at Ft. Hood Army base in Texas

A shooting at Ft. Hood Army base in Texas this afternoon has left at least 12 people dead and 31 wounded.  ABC News identified the shooter as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. [Update: A previous version of this post stated that there were other shooters.]

Army deputy chief of staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli has been at the head of the efforts to reduce the number of Army suicides, which hit a three-decade high in 2008. [Update, 5:01 p.m.: A previous version of this post said Gen. Chiarelli was headed to Ft. Hood today. The Army tells us he is not.]

News organizations are offering updates as quickly as they can. Twitter users are also expressing their concern and speculation on the social network, using the hashtags “#fthood” and “#forthood.” Topping the trending topics, which show the most popular topics at any given time, are “Fort Hood,” “Texas” and “Major Malik Nadal.”

Here are some of the tweets about the shootings:

Lizzs_Lockeroom: Why does it always take a tragedy to bring attention to a long standing problem on soldiers mental health...

TormentedOne: They give us: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage.

Swineheart: A guy would have to "have his head on straight" to get to Major. Seems more likely an ideological issue.

How did you react to news of the shooting?

-- Kelsey Ramos

Photo credit: Reuters

Comments

[Misty]

in response to Swineheart...just bc someone makes it to maj doesnt mean they have their head on straight especially when most of these guys are told to bury their problem a good soldier does that..and yes i am speaking from personal experiance

[Crystal Phillips]

My heart goes out to all of the Ft. Hood Families of this tragedy

[Lynn]

I lost a friend fighting for our freedom in Iraq several years ago. This is not what he lost his life for. My thoughts and prayers go out to these soldier's families. May God Bless Them All.

[Lance]

While I don't question that mental health could be at issue, he is also a psychiatrist who has a long-standing beef with the war on ideological terms. My guess is he just got sick of the US being on muslim soil.

[Moiz Bayer]

USA is fighting with a Muslim country and its wrong to have Muslim soldiers in the army. Israel excludes Arabs from her army, because its normal that Arabs will not want to fight against Arabs.

[yes, awake]

And people are more concerned about his name than the fact that his profession is entrusted with the "mental health" of US society? Psychiatry is hideous, there's no doubt this guy is on pharma drugs, these atrocities don't ever seem to happen without them.

[Saffy]

This is a simple situation of a sane psychiatrist who feared that he would develop PTSD and be treated the way his patients were treated. He did not have mental illness, but was afraid of developing it. People with mental illness are four times less likely to kill someone than people who are always sane. Psychiatrists know how they treat their patients, and they would not want to be treated that way themselves.

[mizzle]

An American soldier is a person who has volunteered to kill anybody his or her commanders tell them to no matter who the victims might be, including women and children (let's not bother arguing this point, the military constantly uses weapons at a distance where nobody can be sure who is going to die). Major Hassan, a devout lifelong Muslim, apparently decided that he could not even SUPPORT doing that to other Muslims (he's a psychiatrist, he wasn't going to kill anybody himself unless you believe in Scientology), so he decided to kill a bunch of his fellows randomly without knowing who they were or what religion they might be. So who is more insane? I can't say, but what is already clear is that the Major is major coward. He should have just killed himself.

[Suzi]

This is very sad. But to say that Muslims can't fight in wars and be
in the US Military is wrong. There are Christians who kill too.
Just because they are Christians they are OK.
All religions have good and bad people in them.
No one can judge the Muslin world or the people who worship.
If this had been a Christian then Christians should not serve our
country either. That does not make sense.
Do not judge someone because they are Muslim or any other
religion. Christianity also has their bad too.
I'm just saying do not judge by religion.

[Suzi]

Praying for the families.

[David]

What is Barrack Hussein Obama going to do about it? Absolutely NOTHING except meaningless speeches just like his campaign and presidency so far!!! Ugh!!!

[Stutz]

I have read a few arguments that say something along the lines of "it's a big deal when Malik Nadal Hasan goes on a killing spree, but nobody makes a big deal when other non-Muslims go on killing sprees." The freaking reason is because Muslims consist of approximately 7-8 million of the US population. That is 2.5% of the population. With all the statistics regarding terrorist attack demographics given the population variations between 295 million non-Muslims and 7-8 million Muslims, it proves that Muslims are overwhelmingly more likely to commit an act like this on Americans. I'm sorry that you have to endure hardship because you are Muslim, but the statistics are going to dictate how people feel about you.

[yes, awake]

**Mizzle-(he's a psychiatrist, he wasn't going to kill anybody himself unless you believe in Scientology)"**

Didn't he just kill a bunch of innocent people? I saw a PBS documentary on Psychiatry this week, I don't think Scientologists are the only ones who think they are harmful..

[OC Bandit]

I mean if you don't believe we have become a society of the overly politically-correct. How the heck did our Army allow a Muslim that made documented threats to America before stay on his job. Obviously somebody in the higher -up feared the Army would get bad press or be sued. God help America for being a bunch of soft hearted wimps who would rather make our enemies comfortable than protect our own citizens.

[Liz]

Ahh... but if it had been a Christian doing the shooting - his religious back ground would never have come up at all.

[sam]

any service man or woman that shows dissent in going on active service should be court martialed and serve 2 years in Leavenworth with a dishonorable discharge, end of story

[rando]

It really does take a tragity to show the truth behind one issue

[mike c. okereke]

This incident now provides fodder for extremists like our former Vice President, and still greedy oil man, Mr. Dick Cheyney. He will be saying now, I told you so.
Mike C. Okereke

[PE]

As someone who lost a beloved family member to murder, I can only but stop and pause and think of all of those people who have lost loved ones here.
In all of the hubub and with all of the agendas that are going to emerge around this tragedy (like reactions to the killer's name) I hope we remember to care for the families.
Losing someone to murder is different from anything else. The loss is so sudden and unjust, the emotions so strong, it takes a toll like nothing else. I say this as a mental health professional as well as a survivor.
For the survivors, the struggle has just begun.
I wish I could help somehow!

[Brent in New Hampshire]

According to a member of his family, he wanted out of the military because he was treated disrespectfully for being a Muslim.

Imagine the impact of this guy on the other Muslims in the US military. His selfish and cowardly act just made life unbelievably hard for them. Islam's worst critics don't do as much harm to Islam's reputation, as one of its members doing something so crazy and malicious.

[beebee]

The article says "one shooter was killed and two others apprehended." What? Is that from some completely different story? I'm confused.

I am under the impression there was only one shooter, and he is still alive. Is there some debate about the facts?

[Norman Dvorak]

When I came home from Vietnam in 1971 I was just thrown to the wolves. I recieved no kind of re-indoctrination or debriefing to get acclamated back into civilian life. Police officers who go through any type of critical situation recieve a debriefing. If every Veteran recieved some type of debriefing before and after going to war they may adjust. But remember this, every Veteran will be a prisoner behind open doors for the rest of his life. 30 years after coming home from Vietnam I still have nightmares and flashbacks.

[Mallarde]

Indeed, our Republic is in deep trouble if you base your assessment on the media coverage (and some of what we read on the net).

During WWII, how long would we have allowed an avowed Nazi with German parentage to remain in the army? In this more enlightened era, we promote this guy and ignore his hostility to the U.S. All in the name of diversity.

The reporting on this story shows that imbecilic "reporters" will offer up every limp explanation for this butchery. They talk about insensitive ethnic ridicule at work. They talk about PSD -- even though he was trained how to treat PSD and was never even in combat. But they cannot bring themselves to admit that Muslims -- even "Muslim Americans" -- can be hostile to the U.S. in a way that other nationalities are not.

[Jake]

I was born and raised on Fort Hood before my parental guardians retired. I saw and experienced some pretty bad things on base and in Killeen, many of which the media never picked up, nor did the military allow them to.

This sounds like a national crisis to many people, but for me, it was just a Thursday.

As always though, my sympathy is with those affected.

P.S. I should mention this was from the late 60s, 70s and early 80s... you know... the Cold War Era?

Dam kids.

[AL Paglia]

If the Major was a devout muslim, I have a hard time understanding why he would not sympathize with his countrymen. He simply felt the overwhelming urge to take it out on innocent local soldiers as his pent-up anger overtook him.

Why was he ever allowed to be a US Mulitaryman, let alone a field grade officer. When are we going to wake up???