Ft Hood - The Answer!

Well here I go again. Seems I am always against the grain, but this time I think in a good way.

I think everyone knows I support the right to bear arms. Not going to go into the 2nd Amendment as I believe far too many people skew the real meaning. Nor am I going to rant about the fact weapons do not kill people. Let me just quickly repeat myself. It takes a deliberate act of squeezing the trigger to make any gun go "bang." So, the person attached to the finger is the cause of a weapon discharging a round.

In the past few days a lot has been printed and reported about the Ft Hood shooting. Many are appalled that soldiers were not armed to defend themselves. Many are questioning that fact. I am not going to discuss Maj Hasan. Why he snapped or what made him execute such a horrific plan, we may never know. So I'll allow you to speculate and draw your own conclusions.

Let me quickly address why the solders were not armed. Being a veteran of 24 years, all Infantry, I have quite an extensive weapons experience base to draw from.

If this happened on an Air Force base or a Navy ship at sea, would the question still be why weren't the Air Force and Navy personnel armed? I think not.

I really don't think Americans look at the Air Force and Navy in the same light they do the Army and Marine Corps.

For some reason we never really relate guns and combat to the Air Force and Navy.

So why weren't the Ft Hood soldiers armed? For the same reason Air Force pilots do not take their fighter jets home! Or why Navy Commanders aren't leisurely floating their big grey ships in the local lake! Just not feasible.

What if IBM had all their employees toting weapons, or Ford Motor Company armed everyone on the assembly line, would we accept this? An emphatic and resounding no!

Military personnel, regardless of service, prepare to defend a great country against foreign or domestic threat. Never a thought to defend the place you work.

If all our military walked around carrying a weapon, it would be more of a street gang with sophisticated weapons rather than a well regulated militia.

I cannot recall an incident during my twenty-four years of service that required us to be armed, locked and loaded, on any installation I was assigned. Quite possibly, the 9-11 incident may have been one tragedy that caused all military installations to lock down and their Rapid Response Units to be placed on alert.

The incident on Ft Hood came unexpectedly, just as 9-11, the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, to name a few.

There is no defense against such an act of violence. I do wonder sometimes why all these so called psychics we have in this country cannot see stuff like this before it happens!

If the unexpected was expected, we could prepare for it. Sadly, it is always just that, unexpected.

Maybe Murphy gave us the most profound observation ever. "If anything can go wrong, it will; and at the worst possible moment." Maybe we need to add "and with horrific consequence."