The dust has settled from the tragedy at Ft. Hood. With it, little else is known about why Major Nidal Malik Hasan felt compelled to take so many innocent lives in a storm of bullets at the deployment center. As I wrote last week, it is possible that Hasan was attempting to go down in a blaze of glory for the sake of God, or perhaps by what he perceived as God’s command. In an unusual ending to this type of attack, the shooter remains alive. Although, reports of permanent paralysis may explain why he was unable to turn the gun on himself during the chaos.
A fact that did not get as much attention as his religious affiliation, but may be equally connected to his behavior, is Hasan’s role as a psychiatrist for soldiers returning from tours in the Middle East. If you believe that we move toward, and become like, that which we think about, then his violent behavior may be slightly more understandable. Hour after hour, day after day, of hearing and processing accounts of death and carnage in a messy war would take a toll on even the healthiest of doctors. But the attack earlier this month may have been the price for this exposure to vicarious violence for this psychiatrist.
Most psychiatrists will help patients to filter through their thoughts and behaviors, classifying some as normal and healthy, and other as disruptive or negative. For soldiers preparing to return to civilian life, the rules of war that have become second nature to many of them, are not the same rules of life in America, and the psychiatrist helps the soldier to come to terms with that. The psychiatrist helps the patient to build new thoughts and plans for action in a future of non-violence and a stable civil and judicial structure. For Hasan, this breakdown of normal thoughts and actions for the future of a civilian must have been truly dissonant in his mind, knowing that his future was likely to include the violence of these soldiers’ pasts.
Even though he was born in Virginia, there have been reports that Hasan felt more of a connection to his Middle Eastern heritage than the Red, White, and Blue of his true homeland. Perhaps in his personal thoughts of the war battles, he put himself in the shoes of the local Iraqi or Afghan fighters. The best memory training techniques and methods for developing your subconscious hard drive include visualizing yourself doing something in first person perspective. If Hasan’s thoughts drifted from: “How terrible it must be to kill someone!” to “How terrible it must be to be attacked on your own soil?” perhaps he did imagine himself as a local fighter of the Americans from the homeland.
Of course, the connection to his religion is still key, as many people see themselves as a Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc. first, and an American, Iraqi, Afghan, etc. second. With the declaration of jihad from many terrorist groups, a holy war would trump any connection to his profession, his country of birth, and even his connection with mankind, as God’s will is supreme. Devotion to Islam coupled with regular exposure to the love and charity of fellow Muslims and those outside of the faith should not result in violence. But any religious beliefs that are combined with images of repression, invasion, or a divine mandate for murder often times will.
Perhaps the saying “Violence begets more violence.” is proven true once again. Even if the original violence is just in one’s mind.
