Surviving Fort Hood

It’s hard to understand why the U.S. Army doctor allegedly killed 13 soldiers and wounded 30 at Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, Texas, Thursday. But, it’s possible Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan snapped because of all the sufferings of the victims of war the psychiatrist had helped at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
"Warfare has a way of making us into something that we are not," Joseph A. Kinney, a decorated Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War, said.
Because post-traumatic stress syndrome often goes undetected, it can torment a soldier for a lifetime. But, P.T.S.D. support groups have helped, especially when the facilitators are combat veterans, rather than clinicians. --The New York Times, Nov. 6, http://homefires.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/surviving-fort-hood/
Among those killed was Army Spc. Kham Xiong of St. Paul, Minn., while he waited in line at the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center. For five months, Xiong, 23, had prepared to deploy to Afghanistan in January. His brother, Nelson, 18, is a Marine in Afghanistan. Their father from Laos, Chor Xiong, fought the Vietnamese with the CIA in 1972. Xiong, who loved fishing on the St. Croix River, is survived by wife Shoua, three children under five and 10 siblings (AP Photo).
While preparing to deploy to Iraq at the Readiness Center, U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Keara Bono Torkelson, 21, of Otsego, Minn., was shot in the back of the shoulder and scraped her head while on the phone with her husband, Joe Torkelson.