Shooting at Army Base, Texas

[Theodotos I]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572305,00.html

At least seven are dead after gunmen opened fire inside Fort Hood. At this point it looks like one gunman is in custody and one still at large. The gunmen were dressed in army fatigues. Sheesh, deployment is bad enough. . .

[Thanatos]

So much for military bases in the homeland being safe.

[Mr. Scott]

this has happened before. How is the military supposed to know whether or not the soldier hates america?

In fact, I'm suprised that terrorism isn't rampant in america or europe. It's not difficult to be one. All a terrorist would have to do is grab a gun, find a crowd and just start shooting. This is a case like this. There's no way to really stop it.

[s.rwitt]

I've spent alot of time at Fort Hood training with my USMCR unit. It's a huge base and I've always wondered why it was guarded by old, fat civilians. One time we were coming onto the base around 3:00 am after convoying from Austin in a Humvee. When we got to the guards, everyone but the driver covered their faces with T-shirts tied like insurgents and looked asleep. The guard looked inside, asked the driver if he had ID, and sent us on our way. Right before we took off, one of my Marines yelled "See, Akmed, I told you they wouldn't care, drive!" in a bad arab accent. It was pretty funny ****.


Anyways, I've always thought that base needed far better security than chain link fences and fat retirees. Not sure if that factored into this yet, as it could very well have been two soldiers who lived on base, but a point nonetheless.

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So much for military bases in the homeland being safe.

There is no way to prevent this kind of thing (assuming it was carried out by soldiers), and they aren't designed to do so. No one ever said they were impregnable, as I said before Ft. Hood is surrounded by chain link fences, if a civilian wanted to detonate a car bomb somewhere on many military bases it really wouldn't be that hard to do.

[Mikelus Trento]

I'm hearing now 11 fatalities, 30 wounded.

[Amry]

I've spent alot of time at Fort Hood training with my USMCR unit. It's a huge base and I've always wondered why it was guarded by old, fat civilians. One time we were coming onto the base around 3:00 am after convoying from Austin in a Humvee. When we got to the guards, everyone but the driver covered their faces with T-shirts tied like insurgents and looked asleep. The guard looked inside, asked the driver if he had ID, and sent us on our way. Right before we took off, one of my Marines yelled "See, Akmed, I told you they wouldn't care, drive!" in a bad arab accent. It was pretty funny

Please tell me that you guys are putting better security measures around your nuclear weapons.

[Jabberwock]

Please tell me that you guys are putting better security measures around your nuclear weapons.

Here at Kirtland AFB, the underground nuclear storage facility (one of the biggest in the world) is guarded by military personnel.

[motiv-8]

Please tell me that you guys are putting better security measures around your nuclear weapons.

Bill, did I drop the key to the silo in the parking lot?

Ah, who cares? Let's get some beer!

[s.rwitt]

One gunman dead, the other in custody from what I just heard. I also heard they found someone dead at the Dollar General which is located in the town next to the base.

Please tell me that you guys are putting better security measures around your nuclear weapons.

Of course. There's nothing at Ft Hood but shooting ranges, barracks, and some tanks. All of the weapons are kept in armories and the tanks aren't just sitting around in parking lots. I don't know why people picture stateside military bases as impregnable strongpoints. They are much more like towns with civilian cars, buildings, and people walking around everywhere. This is especially true of Ft Hood.

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General Wesley Clark is saying the gunmen were wearing army fatigues but not actual soldiers. It's all wait and see really.

[Ahiga]

MOOSLEMS. THEY WERE MOOSLEMS. MOOOOOSSLEEEEMS. MUHAMMADEANS. ISMAILITES. HAJJIS. OTHER PLURAL NOUNS BASED OFF OF ISLAMIC WORDS.

Above is sarcasm, nothing's been said of motive, ethnicity and so forth and I heard that they don't think it was Terreresm. Tragedy and shocking that so many were wounded and killed by just three soldiers or paramilitaries on the base.

[Amry]

MOOSLEMS. THEY WERE MOOSLEMS. MOOOOOSSLEEEEMS. MUHAMMADEANS. ISMAILITES. HAJJIS. OTHER PLURAL NOUNS BASED OFF OF ISLAMIC WORDS.

Boy will you be embarassed if it turns out that the gunmen are either Middle Eastern or recent converts to Islam.

[Ahiga]

Boy will you be embarassed if it turns out that the gunmen are either Middle Eastern or recent converts to Islam.

I imagine you will be if they turn out to not be. I was jumping ahead of the likely rabble-rousing of thinking another Ay-rab shot up the troops.

And he's an islamic convert who came from my state, joy. AL QAEDA PLOT! KICK THE AYRABS OUT OF THE MILITARY!

[the_mango55]

I've noticed Ahiga hasn't been back after the shooter was identified.

Wonder why?

MOOSLEMS. THEY WERE MOOSLEMS. MOOOOOSSLEEEEMS. MUHAMMADEANS. ISMAILITES. HAJJIS. OTHER PLURAL NOUNS BASED OFF OF ISLAMIC WORDS.

Above is sarcasm, nothing's been said of motive, ethnicity and so forth and I heard that they don't think it was Terreresm. Tragedy and shocking that so many were wounded and killed by just three soldiers or paramilitaries on the base.

I imagine you will be if they turn out to not be. I was jumping ahead of the likely rabble-rousing of thinking another Ay-rab shot up the troops.

And he's an islamic convert who came from my state, joy. AL QAEDA PLOT! KICK THE AYRABS OUT OF THE MILITARY!

Anyway, sad day for the soldiers and their families.

[Oldgamer]

I imagine you will be if they turn out to not be. I was jumping ahead of the likely rabble-rousing of thinking another Ay-rab shot up the troops.

And he's an islamic convert who came from my state, joy. AL QAEDA PLOT! KICK THE AYRABS OUT OF THE MILITARY!

Someone has probably mentioned this to you, by now, over the course of this thread. The shooter was a Muslim, who regularly complained to his Imam that Obama wasn't pulling troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan fast enough.

I'll allow you to make up your own mind about "kicking the AYRABS" out of the military.

In the Second World War, German- and Italian-Americans ... thoroughly assimilated into American values and culture ... fought in both theaters of war. Japanese-Americans (who were closely tied to the Japanese homeland) were allowed to fight only in the European theater of war. Perhaps, this might be a wise policy to re-institute? For example, Muslim soldiers in places like South Korea.

Of course, this incident happened on the final day of a viewing of Band of Brothers. Major Winters, this fellow was not ...

@Motiv-8
You're quite right about the firing squad ...

[s.rwitt]

Tragedy and shocking that so many were wounded and killed by just three soldiers or paramilitaries on the base.

It was one shooter and two "suspects" from what I've seen now, and I'm shocked that more weren't killed.

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A Lt Col at Ft Hood just confirmed that it was one (dead) soldier that carried out the shooting and two more "suspects" (also soldiers). Wesley Clark should have kept his mouth shut, he's STILL implying that they weren't real soldiers.

[Poach]

The British news is awash with a similar story, 5 of our soldiers gunned down by an Afghan policeman whilst they were off duty, claims that the Afghan police are full of Taliban sympathisers and calls to pull out (again). Though I suppose inside a base in the homeland is worse, closest we had recently was 2 soldiers in N.Ireland killed by an IRA (I think?) chap just outside their barracks.

Edit: The Ft Hood story is on the BBC Evening news now (On BBC One, not the BBC News channel!).

[s.rwitt]

Boy will you be embarassed if it turns out that the gunmen are either Middle Eastern or recent converts to Islam.

I doubt it.

[s.rwitt]

I imagine you will be if they turn out to not be. I was jumping ahead of the likely rabble-rousing of thinking another Ay-rab shot up the troops. I've got nothing to be embarrassed about.

One of the very first things that was released after this happened was "The FBI doesn't believe terrorists were involved". In fact this is literally how I found out about it (text messages)

My girlfriend: shooting at Ft Hood, 7 killed 11 wounded
Me: No ****? Terrorists or soldiers?
My girlfriend: Don't know.
Me: Probably soldiers, this ****'s happened before.

I'm predicting the captured soldiers blame it on "untreated PTSD".

[Amry]

I'm predicting the captured soldiers blame it on "untreated PTSD".

Any chance that this will either:
a) seized by the Democrats to show that how we need nationalized healthcare so that we can insure and treat everyone, or

b) seized by the Republicans, who will blame Obama for failing the troops and not providing enough for their welfare?

In other words, what are the chances that this issue will be politicized?

[Captain Jin]

Any chance that this will either:
a) seized by the Democrats to show that how we need nationalized healthcare so that we can insure and treat everyone, or

Military covers your healthcare entirely, so that really isn't a talking point for them.

Please tell me that you guys are putting better security measures around your nuclear weapons.

Yeah man, stuff like that is very highly guarded. Bases themselves, many of them, like Ft. Hood or Camp Pendelton, are open to the public. It's not that hard to get onto to a base, but getting into secured locations on that base is where that changes. Think of a base like a big huge area with many little multiple bases all over the place. Some have higher security than others depending on what's going on there. Getting on a base overseas is much more difficult, even in Germany.

This is damned unfortunate, and I agree, the scum bag will probably blame it on PTSD which is complete bs.