n Thursday, Fort Hood, America’s largest U.S. military post, was home to a brutal shooting by one of its own. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist at the Texas base, is in custody now; he is allegedly the man who opened fire at a military processing center, killing one civilian and 12 soldiers. Hasan was originally reported to have been killed in the firefight; but it was discovered on Thursday that he is in fact alive and in stable condition after being shot multiple times.
Hasan, 39, is an American of Jordanian descent. Born in Virginia, he became a licensed psychiatrist and worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Though never deployed outside the United States, Col. Steven Braverman explains that Hasan had received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. Some suggest that over the years, Hasan became increasingly disenchanted with America’s military mission.
The shooting occurred at Fort Hood’s “readiness centre”—one of the last places soldiers stop before being deployed abroad, and one of the first places returning soldiers visit. Col. Braverman says that Hasan was in
uniform when he opened fire.
