The shooter was a psychiatrist

it's no telling what images those he counseled put in his head.

Nightmare.

A psychiatrist MUST have a medical degree.

have listened to in the last 6 years or so...it would have to affect you.

to stress or to mental breakdowns. I think the remark was an observation. Working with people who are under severe stress is stressful itself and good mental health practitioners are taught how to care for their own mental health. It does not alway prevent one from breaking though.

People are drawn to the profession for a variety of reasons, sometimes because it is something they have personal experience with.

I can't imagine hearing it on a daily basis from thousands.

I've not yet found his medical license to confirm this, but it is what I've been reading.

I shudder to imagine what he's been through since these wars began.

...have struggled with it themselves.

My experience is admittedly limited, however.

That mental health practitioners/social workers/etc. themselves need therapy due to the horror stories they hear and must deal with, day in and day out.

based merely on what he HEARD. The vast majority of soldiers with a REAL reason to have PTSD do not even approach this scale of slaughter or violence.

and wanted to prevent any more from happening.

I honestly wish we had more info on this man now.

I really hope he left something behind that can help us understand and prevent further horrors like this (and like the horrors he was told about day after day)

Just more reason to get our people the HELL OUT OF THERE!

stopping others from living through the horrors of war?

and the trauma living them caused then it's possible he wanted to stop them from having them by any means. Maybe in his mind it was better to kill them now then have them go through the experiences...idk.

being so TORN UP over soldiers' war stories as a motive is just as premature as assuming it had something to do with his Muslim conversion.

It's just speculation. And i'm not sympathetic towards any three of the killers just trying to wrap my head around this like everyone else.

How is that merciful?

would be better off if they no longer suffered. In this case they shot people who were finishing paperwork to be deployed. He would be stopping their future suffering.

And no it's not merciful obviously, but if he was fucked in the head then his logic was probably tossed out the window.

Per MSN Encarta: Somebody bringing help unexpectedly: somebody who brings welcome assistance.

Or Dictionary.com:

1. one of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God. In medieval angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities or princedoms, archangels, and angels).
2. a conventional representation of such a being, in human form, with wings, usually in white robes.
3. a messenger, esp. of God.
4. a person who performs a mission of God or acts as if sent by God: an angel of mercy.
5. a person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.
6. a person whose actions and thoughts are consistently virtuous.
7. an attendant or guardian spirit.
8. a deceased person whose soul is regarded as having been accepted into heaven.
9. Informal. a person who provides financial backing for some undertaking, as a play or political campaign.
10. an English gold coin issued from 1470 to 1634, varying in value from 6s. 8d. to 10s. and bearing on its obverse a figure of the archangel Michael killing a dragon.
11. Slang. an image on a radar screen caused by a low-flying object, as a bird.

------------------

I don't argue that he was obviously mentally disturbed though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Mercy_(serial_killer)

An attitude likely to leave us open to other such incidents, so empathic, so understanding as it is.

and to the families and friends of those he fucking murdered in cold blood.

It's a pity you don't seem to.

really know is what he did for a living, and his name and rank? Did you feel that way toward Timothy McVeigh?

Because I have seen not a fraction of what this man had seen and heard and yet I have images that haunt me.

Because I have friends who experienced PTSD from military service and who have dedicated their lives to helping others with the same. And I have seen their struggles.

That's why.

I am simply willing to offer compassion and empathy until it's absolutely clear none is deserved, rather than the other way around.

assume he carefully planned to have enough ammo and weapons, and was completely full of hatred and rage. Cold, calculated murder of as many fellow soldiers as he could manage before some HERO gunned him down. I'll wait for a reason to sympathize, thanks.

I find sympathy more soothing.

I'm sure I'll switch to anger at some point, but I hope that I come back to sympathy.

several military bases, my husband works at one every day. These families undergo enough stress as it is. Anger is right.

I'm training to be a doctor. We have to care for everyone, regardless of what we think about what they've done and how they live their lives. Anger is not right for me, sympathy is.

it all because you're studying to a doctor. It's called delusion.

Just a different vantage point.

He claimed what he saw in Poppy Bush's Iraq invasion, followed by the federal assaults on Ruby Ridge and Waco, led him to do what he did.

Does that justify his actions? Fuck no. But if a guy volunteers such information, you really should give it some serious consideration, and think about how to avoid something like that happening again.

having sympathy for the killer, or making excuses for him, before all the facts are known.

Excellent post.

and I haven't seen YOU express one word of "empathy" for anyone but the killer.

I am addressing points I find relevant to the topic at hand.

I do.

:thumbsup:

Yes, by all means, let's just throw out the "murderous fuck" label and leave it at that. No need to learn anything about what made him snap so we can prevent it from happening again. No need to learn more about PTSD. It's not a problem, after all.

That's what I hear you saying.

but frankly, I don't have a lot of compassion for mass murderers. And you have no fucking idea whether he had PTSD.

I don't know how he handled what he heard and saw. The evidence seems to suggest he did not handle it well. Or he could have just been really angry about being sent to Iraq. It does seem, however, that if he was in his right mind and just didn't want to go to Iraq, defection would have been a more rational solution.

If we Stick our heads in the sand and refuse to investigate what was behind the act-- sure way to be certain we'll see more of these.

Or whatever one wants to term his reasons for having done what he did.

Being able to understand, and, yes, even perhaps feel some sympathy for the man, as to why he did what he did takes nothing away from the empathy we feel for the victims.

Time will tell where all my emotions line up, but for the moment I'm not ruling out a possibility of feeling some sympathy for the man if it ends up he was sick and deranged, and yet he was still being pushed by the military to fulfill his obligations.

I admit I don't feel sympathy at the moment, however. I don't know enough about the reasons to feel much of anything yet other than shock and horror.

:scared: :hide:

This incident, which highlights the danger of the "suck it up" mentality, will unfortunately encourage more soldiers to do just that.

A psychiatrist that specialized in traumatic stress disorders open fired on them.

"When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you."

People who deal with horrors have to be very careful I believe. This goes for anybody who works with the awful remains man can leave behind both physically and mentally.

They are probably some of the people who need to be checked most often. I imagine it would be very hard for them to admit anything voluntarily. Again, this is not just for military personnel.

Imagine though. If a police officer shoots one individual, their gun is taken and the entire event scrutinized. They are asked or told to get counseling. Yet we send out people who may do who knows what on any given day with little way to compensate. I don't care if they are trained as soldiers. Everybody has some point they reach unless they are psychopaths.

and common sense.

few years, could have internalized part of what he was hearing. No wonder he didn't want to go.

That doesn't justify what he did, but it is a clue as to why this happened, especially within an organization that may not tolerate officers with PTSD very well.

while the gun they USED is taken, the dept. must provide a replacement gun. disarming the officer is not done unless there is some reasonable basis to believe the shooting was not justified.

However, I'll bet they still look at what happened closely.

we have a team of officers who assist (kind of like lay counselors) and are available at any time.

we also have a very good dept. psychologist.

and a good policy about critical incident debriefs, etc.

my dept. is incredibly backwards (imo) about physical fitness, but very proactive in regards to mental fitness

"Stiff upper lip" is not a reasonable mental health program for people who too often "stare into the abyss."

If there's any silver lining at all, maybe this will be the event that gets soldiers the mental health care they need--in the way that the 2007 Walter Reed AMC neglect scandal brought attention to their physical health.

:shrug:

This guy apparently moved to Fort Hood in May and likely lost much of his support network in the move. Then they turn around and want to send him to Iraq, the source of the horror he's been counseling people through. Sounds like he was reaching out about his feelings too.

Yes, an absolute nightmare. This is just too devastating to say anything else other than that.

I'm going to guess this guy didn't make it to Major by bitching and moaning about his assignments. So when a guy of that rank starts doing so, yeah, I think it's probably safe to assume something serious is up.

really depresses me.....

Being callously seen as defective is exactly why people suffering from these problems don't seek help.

guy who blew away 12 people and injured dozens of others. Thank god for the civilian cop who shot and killed the murderer. My deepest condolences to his family. He was killed stopping the murderer.

You might extend a little of your oh so great compassion to the murderers victims.

You better want to understand why he did it or why other people do such things. You better at least want to understand in order to find out why. That may help prevent other situations like this.

You don't have to mix sympathy and compassion with understanding. That's up to you. Understanding better not be left behind in all the chaos.

It's all speculation.

What we do know is he, a trusted major and psychiatrist, gunned down 43 innocent people.

I can speculate, too... I can wonder if any of those soldiers had been counseled by him before, if they were his friends, if they were only 18 years old, if they had children, if they had a pregnant wife at home...

If there is any way to find a why, it might help stop another such situation. I said might, but any clues can be helpful. I am not offering a why. I don't know, but I am saying it is worth a look.

You don't have to mix sympathy and compassion with understanding. They are not the same.

That he did not get the mental health assistance that he so clearly needed. I felt empathy for the Columbine shooters for a similar reason.

Feeling sorry that someone felt they needed to choose such a horrible, loathsome path does not signify agreement with their actions.

That would suck.

But by all means keep berating people for being sympathetic by nature.

If it helps you feel better, I understand.

;)

to the same result--killing large numbers of people. Why sympathy for one and not the other?

I don't know what could have motivated his apparently deep-seated hatred in women.

I do feel sorry for him that he was apparently consumed by so much hatred.

(based on a true story from Korea, btw) wherein the Korean American war hero from WWII cracks up totally when told his injuries would send him home.. He tries to commit suicide and the psychiatrist, Sidney Freedman comes in to treat him.. Seems the soldier's heroism in Korea had actually been multiple suicide-by-enemy attempts. He could face fighting non-Asians in Europe during WWII, but to shoot those of his own cultural ancestry in Korea gave him horrendous guilt that was turned inward, resulting in suicide attempts. He wasn't freely accepted as an American by his colleagues and thus felt he had a lot to prove which required his gunning down those who most resembled himself- though they didn't accept him either. The guilt he felt was turned inward...

Well, I think there might be a lot of truth in that.. After all, how difficult would be to be sent to kill Iraqis for an Muslim American.... Not to mention his work and history of hearing from soldiers--perhaps even some Muslim American soldiers-- who had already faced the horrors he'd soon share.

Not defending the act, nor the man, at all, though I can still feel some compassion and sadness for him, based on what I suspect may have been contributing circumstances. But, I argue strongly that we need to understand--find the reasons and work to change the system to prevent these actions.

is in the armed forces.

Yes, it stresses the doctors too... and obviously there is not enough screening.

Oh and this is the proverbial chickens coming home to roost in some ways.

Unless you can point to more than one instance of mass murder by military mental health professionals.

Canary, mine... you know the drill

That's in a population of about 50,000. According to MSNBC that's very high for a given population of that amount.

issues....

And soldiers who have left the service have also killed themselves.

You're that angry/freaked out, why take out on innocents? I guess it has to do with the need of many males to control people around them.

Did you really have to go there? Did you have to go in to an anti male rant? May be his wife didn't make him lunch today.

I don't get it. And it is something that does seem particular to men.

to discuss the "control" issues that men have. There would be a good place for this kind of discussion--a mens issue sub-forum--but a lot of people (Women, because they are the ones objecting to it) have a problem with the creation of such a forum.

You do bring up a good point, but since the powers that be don't want to set up a place where substantive discussion can be held, I am sticking with the notion that he was mad that his wife didn't make him lunch today.

gun down two, five, ten or twenty people.

fill screens with speculation.

Usually, we jump to all kinds of conclusions. This is so serious, we need to be serious ourselves and not go off in a dozen different emotional directions.

We'll learn more if we stay with the facts and not feed and spread our imaginative speculations.

+1

You better damn well care why he did it. You better care so that something like this may be prevented if what he was thinking can offer any clues.

You can curse these people until the end of time and not show a whit of compassion. More fool you and much more tragic not to try to learn something.

If calling him names and just shunting him into one big pile of 'donotgiveadamn' makes you feel better, so be it. I think sometimes people are afraid to find out because it hits too close to home. Then you may have to look at yourself or someone else more closely.

graduated from Virginia Tech.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33695256/ns/us_news-military/

Just says "born in Virginia" about half way down.

Good grief.

that therapists are usually "nuts", too. And some of them by professionals who should know better.

Yes, shrinks are real people with the problems real people have.

And shrinks are also subject, their whole working life, to contamination. It's like being a bomb defuser only there's no armor you can wear against the danger.

Geeze.

plus they can get drugs...

Wonder if he was on anything (SSRI's?).

...due to a personal experience with mental illness?

If so, may I ask why?

My cousin has done three tours of Iraq. He's in his late 20's now and used to be a nice kid. Now he's got issues, bundles and bundles of them.

He hates Muslims. He thinks we should bomb the entire middle east "into glass". He lost some buddies over there and his anger and hatred is really something to behold. I feel sorry for him but I don't let him spew hatred around me, either.

How many kids like my cousin did this psychiatrist counsel? How much anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, "bomb them into glass" crap did he listen to day in and day out?

If he had just killed himself, I can see that perhaps the tales of war might have gotten to him and he cracked. But he didn't. He took out a whole mess of soldiers like my cousin (who was also based at Ft. Hood for a time).

I'm not excusing what he did - not at all. I'm horrified by it and feel terrible for these soldiers and their families. I'm just wondering if there isn't a pretty obvious explanation for it.

that must have been extremely difficult for him.

But he should have got out.

I keep thinking maybe he was on SSRI's or meds for the stress he was under and that made him snap.

But I hope we get the "why" for this as soon as possible.

I wonder how many returning soldiers in all have committed suicide as a result of PTSD.

I'm thinking "no", considering the facilities serve such different purposes.

I wonder if the shooter's experiences at Walter Reed prepared him for what he dealt with at Fort Hood.

This incident has certainly brought PTSD to the forefront, that's for sure.

A major on a military base who engages in random shooting of dozens of soldiers knows he's going to be shot dead. I'm not sympathizing with the guy (although I don't know what drove him to this, if anything) but it's an act we need to try to understand. It doesn't appear to be politically motivated or done in the commission of another crime or in pursuit of some ulterior motive, like robbery. It was done against his fellow soldiers, of the same army whose returning vets he was treating at Walter Reed. Sometimes family members kill the very ones they profess to love in murderous, suicidal acts. It seems senseless and dreadful.

Was it just the pending deployment?

Quite possibly yes.

Was it to do with dealing with a more raw form of PTSD at Ft. Hood than he likely saw at WR?

Could be.

Was it losing a support structure that he has at WR?

Could be that too.

That might have triggered it.

Just asking...

he was saving the people he was shooting...

We'll have to wait and see.

Anger
Sadness
Sympathy
Fright

However you feel is related to whatever personal lens you are viewing this event through. I may not agree with you, but you have your reasons.

My point is that whatever my feelings about this person, I still want to understand why. I want to understand if possible in order to use the information to try to prevent this from happening again if it can be used.

Understanding doesn't mean it has to be mixed with sympathy or compassion. Understanding or finding the reason does not mean absolution or exculpation.

has anyone seen anything related to his motive yet?

Maybe he stumbled across something in his practice that he'd decided the world should know, or maybe he got tired of cleaning up after Haliburton, or maybe he was just convenient. But I have little doubt that "shooters" in most high-profile assassinations and mass shootings are manipulated and assisted by "special forces."

Sorry, I'm not buying it. I saw too much in the last eight years to ever believe anything, and I do mean anything, reported by any branch of the USG or the US media, particularly anything to do with the permanent war economy.

and Obama's escalation did not help any.
We should be bringing ALL these troops home, not sending them to hell for bullshit

we will be paying the price for these wars for generations and I hope Obama GETS this.

If he were bringing troops home this may well NOT have happened.

But I know that is just one opinion which may not be too popular here

That's got to be some of the worst nightmares soldiers bring back with them from a war zone. I'm talking about shooting innocent civilians by mistake such as at check-points.

He counseled returning Vets.

I find an eerie parallel between this and that book.

nt

Kay scarpetta is in search of a serial killer who removes his victims eyes,and pours sand into them,and seals them shut.he mutilates them by evisceration.

As it turns out,the guy is back from Iraq,third tour,severe ptsd from seeing his buddy blown up by an ied,him holding his buddies guts in while his buddy begs-"don't let me die"
the sand is from iraq,it is meant to simulate the horrible sandstorms they would have-he went by the name"sandman"

:(

i think. Counselor of some sort.