Thank you, Congress, for fixing a terrible injustice from the Pentagon that has gone on too long. Last year’s National Defense Authorization Act redefined the category of who was eligible to receive a Purple Heart and the associated benefits. Now the service personnel who were shot by the self-described “Soldier of Allah” Nidal Hasan can get the lifelong medical treatment that some really need.
Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford was shot seven times by Hasan and appeared on Fox News Saturday morning, remarking, “As service members, we put our life on the line so that we can live free in life with the pursuit of happiness, but to be treated the way we were treated in the aftermath, that’s just not right. But we’re trained to be focused, disciplined with the result that we won this battle.”
The change of status for the victims is a small victory against the Obama administration that has insisted that the mass murder was “workplace violence” despite the Allahu Ackbar shrieks of Hasan (a son of Palestinian immigrants) as he shot down the unarmed soldiers.
General George Casey Jr. [pictured], the Army chief of staff, said on Sunday that he was concerned that speculation about the religious beliefs of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wounding dozens of others in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, could “cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”
“I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” General Casey said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union. “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.”
General Casey, who was appeared on three Sunday news programs, used almost the same language during an interview on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” an indication of the Army’s effort to ward off bias against the more than 3,000 Muslims in its ranks.
“A diverse Army gives us strength,” General Casey, who visited Fort Hood Friday, said on “This Week.”
Along that line, the Pentagon’s own report in 2011 of the mass murder was a shameful whitewash based on the “workplace violence” meme.
Senator Lieberman stated, “…our investigation found that employees of the Department of Defense and the FBI had compelling evidence of Nidal Hasan’s growing embrace of violent Islamist extremism in the years before the attack should have caused them to discharge him from the U.S. military and make him the subject of an aggressive counter-terrorism investigation.”
Has the military learned anything from this terrible jihad attack on the homeland, in one of their own bases? Maybe. But the administration is sticking to its policies of support for Islam despite its 1400 years of mayhem and conquest.
At least the For Hood victims are getting a little justice at a late date, no thanks to the Pentagon. The jihad massacre shows that not only is Muslim immigration a very bad idea, but admitting Muslims to our military as soldiers is even worse.
FORT HOOD — Victims of the 2009 post shooting will finally get Purple Hearts, the Army announced Friday.
“This is a long time coming. It’s a day we’re going to celebrate,” said U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, during a news conference Friday outside Fort Hood’s main gate.
A policy change to the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law Dec. 19, deems service members who are victims of an attack that was inspired or motivated by a U.S. State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization eligible to receive the Purple Heart Medal.
The provision is retroactively effective as of Sept. 11, 2001.
“We awarded it on 9/11 to the people attacked at the Pentagon. That, in my opinion, set the precedent that you don’t have to be on the battlefield,” Carter said.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh said Friday he approved awarding the Purple Heart and its civilian counterpart, the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom, to victims of the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting at Fort Hood, following the change in the medals’ eligibility criteria mandated by Congress. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the attack by Nidal Hasan, who was convicted in August 2013, of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.
“The Purple Heart’s strict eligibility criteria had prevented us from awarding it to victims of the horrific attack at Fort Hood,” McHugh said. “Now that Congress has changed the criteria, we believe there is sufficient reason to allow these men and women to be awarded and recognized with either the Purple Heart or, in the case of civilians, the Defense of Freedom medal. It’s an appropriate recognition of their service and sacrifice.”
Carter, along with other local representatives, long advocated the decision, which also makes the shooting victims eligible for more benefits.
“Today’s announcement is great news for the men and women whose lives were forever altered after the terrorist attack,” said Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin. “I am grateful for the joint efforts in Congress with Rep. Carter, Sens. (John) Cornyn and (Ted) Cruz and our colleagues who helped push for a legislative fix. … Though this will not bring back those 13 innocent Americans and one unborn child we lost that day, it will restore the benefits and treatments the victims and survivors earned and deserve.”
Carter said the legislation for the policy change received 225 cosponsors in Congress, though it only needed 219.
“This was a bipartisan agreement that this was a mistake being made,” he said. “Today, we’re happy to announce that mistake is being corrected.”
Texas’ Republican senators also praised the long-awaited decision.
“Since the days following the attack in 2009, the victims, their families, the Fort Hood community and so many of us have recognized that fateful day for what it was: an act of terrorism against our country and against our men and women in uniform,” Cornyn said in a statement.
Cruz said, “We can never undo the events of that day, but we can properly honor the courageous patriots who protect our nation and remain forever grateful for them.”
Though the victims are now spread throughout the country, Carter said he would be honored if he received the chance to be part of giving them the awards. The Army has not yet announced a timeline for when the Purple Hearts will be awarded.
To the victims and families, Carter expressed condolences for the wait.
“We stayed on top of it, reintroduced bills every year, in every new Congress, and I’m just grateful we’ve finally gotten what they have deserved since the day it happened,” he said.
Victims and their families also were pleased with Friday’s announcement.
“For five years, the White House and the political echelon at the Department of Defense pushed the workplace violence line. And it’s a lie,” said Reed Rubinstein, an attorney for some of the victims. “To admit the truth — that it was a terrorist attack by a jihadist — is a small but important first step toward making the victims whole.”
Howard Ray, 34, a retired Army sergeant who survived the attack and now is a graduate student in criminal justice, said he hopes to one day craft legislation “to help soldiers to not have to deal with something like this ever again.”
