How the Obama adminstration failed the victims of the first Fort Hood attack
Although Hasan is an avowed jihadist with links to Al Qaeda, the Pentagon labeled that incident "workplace violence"—a term that seems more fitting for last week's attack based on the sketchy details that have emerged
about the alleged shooter, Spc. Ivan Lopez.
The decision to brand the event workplace violence has had profound consequences for survivors of the first Fort Hood shooting, many of whom say they've had difficulty providing for themselves and obtaining medical care due to the lack of benefits. (The Army declined to answer questions about specific services victims allege they were denied, but in a written statement to
Mother Jones said that it "provides emergency treatment and long term access to care to all of our beneficiaries, regardless of the circumstances under which these injuries took place." An Army spokeswoman also noted that the Fort Hood victims are eligible for a number of financial benefits, including life insurance and funeral allowances.) In late 2012, nearly 150 Fort Hood victims and their family members
filed a lawsuitagainst the Department of Defense, accusing it of "reckless disregard" for the victims' lives and emotional wellbeing. They're seeking unspecified damages for their suffering and lost benefits.
Among the plaintiffs is former Army reservist Keara Bono-Torkelson, who was shot in the back by Hasan. She recalls the nurse at the Army hospital where she was rushed for treatment patting her on the head and telling her she was fine. Only weeks later, when she visited her family doctor in Missouri, did she discover that she also had a bullet lodged in her head.
With her injuries, Torkelson—who suffers from back spasms, PTSD, and crippling headaches—found it difficult to do her job. Rather than send her to a special unit for wounded soldiers, as it usually does with reservists wounded in combat, the Army pulled her off active duty and sent her home. She says her paycheck subsequently shrank from $1,400 a month to roughly $200 and she lost her military health insurance, leaving her no access to medical care.
"Having to fight for benefits on top of the injuries and the money worries has made things far worse."
In 2010, after months of fighting the Army for treatment with mixed results, she reached out to Ross Perot, who has quietly helped other wounded soldiers with their medical expenses. The billionaire Texas businessman and former presidential contender paid for Torkelson to go to the Mayo Clinic, where doctors quickly pinpointed the source of her headaches: Besides the slug that had been removed from her scalp, she had multiple bullet fragments in her skull—something her military doctors could have detected with a simple x-ray.
The "workplace violence" label has also kept victims of the first Fort Hood attack from being honored for their heroism. Private First Class Amber Gadlin, who was 19 at the time, braved gunfire to drag other soldiers to safety, even after being shot in the back. During the 2009 Fort Hood memorial, the president
praised her for her valor. But because of the way the shooting was classified, Gadlin isn't eligible for awards, such as the Purple Heart, or the accompanying benefits, which include extra pay, priority access to medical care, and, in certain cases, free in-state tuition for the honorees' children.
Gadlin, who says she can only sit for a half hour at a stretch because of severe back pain, scrapes by on her $1,400 a month disability payment from the Department of Veterans Affairs and has struggled to get treatment for her depression and PTSD. "Having to fight for benefits on top of the injuries and the money worries has made things far worse," says her mother, Lisa Bahr Pfund. "There have been plenty of times I've been expecting a phone call saying she's gone. Meaning, you know, she's taken care of her problems permanently."
Other survivors have similar stories. Retired Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, a 6-foot-9, 300-pound North Carolina resident, was shot seven times during the 2009 attack, including once in the head. Even as he lay bleeding in the parking lot with medics attending to his wounds, Hasan kept firing at him.
Several months after the incident, Lunsford tried to check into an Army PTSD clinic near El Paso. But he says he was turned away on the grounds that he wasn't injured in combat. Eventually, Lunsford, who served in the Army for 22 years, managed to get into a Navy clinic in San Diego. The Army was supposed to pick up the tab. But instead, he says, it deducted most of the expenses from his paycheck.
Nothing to say on the topic, just your usual hateful spew. Carry on.
