Surviving fort Hood from New York Times

[saxman]

http://homefires.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/surviving-fort-hood/

[Dee]

Such a horrible thing to have happened, Mike. My prayers go out to the friends and families of the survivors.

[coffeegyrl]

I have been truly shocked and saddened by the recent violence in our country, and indeed in the whole earth. This incident at Fort Hood not only hurt numerous soldiers, but has terrorized all on the base and many others as well. I am overwhelmed by all of the "bad news" that I read about daily.

In response, I suggest that we look for positive news and events happening in the world. It is out there. There are miracles and healing going on that don't get the attention that they deserve. Here is a website that I discovered that is putting out positive stories that give us hope. Please check it out regularly. It could alter your outlook for the better.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/

Comfort and peace my friends.

[DaveM]

Our soldiers died in the line of duty--not fighting an enemy of this nation but gunned down by some lunatic while completely unable to protect themselves. It seems almost incredible that a civilian police officer finally stopped the assassin....no one in that part of the base was armed or in a position to do anything but try to get out of the way.

The victims were men and women who had volunteered to protect this country and to lay their lives on the line, if necessary, in the course of doing so. They did not sign up to stand in the line of fire of a maniac. The military has numerous means to insure that homicidal nuts do not end up on active duty on its facilities. In a hideous irony, the shooter was one of the people who screened soldiers for mental stability. The old question rises anew: who guards the guards?

We owe these men and women the same honored memory as any other American servicepeople who have died in the service of their country. And we owe them, and ourselves, immediate steps to insure that nothing like this ever happens again.

For the moment, I am extremely ill at ease over a recent discovery. The Fort Hood shooter carried a pistol firing a special cartridge which was originally designed for use in military carbines and which, in its original military configuration, is more than capable of penetrating light to medium-weight body armor (the Secret Service and other authorities carry pistols and carbines which use this cartridge). "Armor-piercing" pistol ammunition is unlawful in the United States (one may argue about such laws, but this is not the time or place), and so when pistols for this cartridge were developed, the manufacturer removed all military specification ammunition from the market. A significant amount of the original "armor-piercing" ammunition remains in private hands. Since the Fort Hood shootings, prices for the stuff have skyrocketed, with boxes of 50 cartridges currently selling for $350 or more.

A line from one of the terrorist groups of the 1970s comes to mind: "we have madmen waiting".