A meeting was going on about mental health issues

November 6, 5:36 PMSpokane Homicide ExaminerDoyle Wheeler

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A meeting was going on about mental health issues while the slaughter was occurring

President Obama was holding meeting about the mental health issues in the military when the tragic slaughter was taking place at Fort Hood.

There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered about Fort Hood shooting rampage.  Was it just the deranged act of a mentally ill soldier?

Was it a one man terrorist act as there is information floating around that he was found to be in a chat room talking about suicide bombing in the not too distant past?

If he was mentally unstable was it caused by “Transference?”  As a mental health professional he would have constantly be listening to horrific stories from combat veterans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it possible he allowed their pain and guilt to be transferred to himself?

This is called “Transference” and has long been a concern in the mental health field. Everyone working in the mental health field has studied the phenomena as it a very real danger to their own mental health.

When you listen to others pain and suffering for eight hours a day if you are a compassionate person it hard for it not to affect you.

It had to be well planned usually not sort a thing someone that just snaps and does. First of all he had to have smuggled the weapons on to the base because by military regulations all privately owned weapons have to be locked up in the armory with the duty weapons. That is why there were no weapons available for people to defend themselves.

Well there are things that make it look like mental illness there are also things that make it look like a well planned and executed terrorist act.

There is a huge concern about the mental health of our fighting forces. Well there should be as we have never been involved in conflicts like the ones we are currently engaged in.  PTSD was big problem for veterans of the Vietnam War.

But now they finally realize it was huge problem in World War II, Korea, and like every war of any length.

It was just not recognized and named until Vietnam came along. In WWII it was called battle fatigue or shell shock. 

In these current wars the service personnel just keep getting deployed time and time again. Every minute they’re outside of the (FOB) forward operating base they are subject to attack. But perhaps more dangerous to the human mind is the constant threat of (IED) improvised explosive devices.

We’ve been at war for eight plus years in these wars.  We were in Vietnam for ten years, but in Vietnam unlike today the majority of troops did one 12 month tour and that was it. Oh there were some career soldiers that did more than one tour but it was not the same as today. 

There are many soldiers that have done four tours. If you are in the Rangers or Special forces your tours are shorter, about four month at a time, but some of these troops have deployed ten times or more.

Suicides are at an all time high in both the Army and the Marine Corp.  The suicide hot lines for the military are receiving as much as ten times the volume they were before the wars started.

While there are no concrete numbers while crime is going down in almost all areas, serious crimes, such as murder, and murder suicide are going up among military veterans.

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