This article affected me greatly. I found it to be profound, and true. Thought I would share it...

"http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/06/greene.fort.hood.killings/index.html"

The fog of war envelops Fort Hood
By Bob Greene, CNN Contributor

Editor's note: CNN contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose new book is "Late Edition: A Love Story."

(CNN) -- It is a phrase that has for centuries been associated with human conflict:

"The fog of war."

It refers to the uncertainty and confusion that accompanies battle -- both the violent encounters themselves, and the planning that puts soldiers onto specific fields of combat.

The fog of war -- frustrating, endless, lethal -- can be haunting, an enemy in itself.

At Fort Hood in Texas this week, the fog was present. The November afternoon was clear and bright, yet the invisible fog covered everything.

From the first reports of gunfire at the Army base, to the contradictory accounts about where on the base the killing might be going on; from the frenzied uncertainty about how many assailants there could be, to the initial speculation that outsiders with deadly intent may have made their way onto the grounds; from the announcement that the suspected gunman was dead, to the revised statement hours later that he was still alive. ...

The fog of war -- frustrating, endless, lethal -- can be haunting, an enemy in itself.

The ubiquity of the fog was understandable. Chaos does not adhere to a timetable; chaos does not follow orders.

But it was a sobering reminder that the old definitions of theaters of war -- bound geographically, determined by generals, kept at a safe distance from the people back at home -- no longer necessarily apply. A theater of war, it sometimes seems, can be as large as the world itself. The screaming of sirens, the announcements to take cover, the house-to-house searches: all of it inside a secured military base in the state of Texas.

We fool ourselves into believing that we can comprehend our world with digital precision; if a man is suspected of being the source of carnage and mayhem, we turn to surveillance-camera videos of him in the hours or minutes before the massacre, as if that will somehow lead us to some satisfactory answer -- all the while knowing that in anguished moments like these, no answer will ever bring solace.

We tell ourselves that the mysteries of warfare have been rendered less murky because we have diminished the concept of distance and isolation. When our parents and grandparents went off to Europe and the Pacific to fight the Second World War, sometimes many years passed before the people who loved them in their hometowns heard their voices again, saw their faces.

Now, with satellite communication and Web-based mail, our soldiers, we attest, can be here and there at the same time. We don't believe it, even as we're saying it; we try to assure ourselves, and the sons and daughters who fight our wars, that they are never far from home, but in the fog both they and we know that it's a well-intentioned lie.

Those soldiers, many of them so young, are sent back into the fog again and again. The fog of war becomes, by default, their oxygen. The repeated deployments, the promises of an end point somewhere up the road, the cacophony of voices back at home saying that what we are asking them to do is right, saying that what we are asking them to do is wrong. ...

And then comes a day like the day at Fort Hood this week, when nothing makes sense, when the people we ask to fight our wars for us are cut down inside the very encampment where they should have had the absolute right to feel protected.

We will hear, in the days ahead, about the lives of the people who were killed at Fort Hood. We will be told about their parents, about their childhoods, about their friends and schoolmates. We will be made to feel as if we know them.

And that is only right. That is how it should be. We will honor them by finding out, most of us for the first time, who they were.

But there are other young soldiers on that base, the ones we won't hear about because they had the good fortune not to be killed this week.

The ones who will soon enough be sent off to war zones.

If the awful confusion of warfare was a part of their lives already as this dreadful week began, the confusion has to have multiplied, as the week ends, because of what has transpired on the base where they live.

So, even as the ones they left behind at Fort Hood are laid to rest, we might do well to say a quiet prayer for those who are on their way overseas.

Into the war.

Into the fog.

Really? Looks alike a bunch of drivel by someone trying extremely hard to be PC and ignoring the evidence of which is becoming more clear everyday.

This one affected me.

quote:

Veteran Tom Kenniff said "with all due respect to Dr. Phil, having been through the war in Iraq and having seen what these soldiers go through, with respect to this incident, I need to take a giant step back from all the psychobabble I've been hearing for the past few hours." Kenniff said "this looks a lot less like PTSD and a lot more like terrorism."
<http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/11/...take-giant.html>

The claims of PTSD aren't sitting well with me. The Major never deployed and there is no information about him experience significant trauma.

quote:

Originally posted by Fishstyx:
Really? Looks alike a bunch of drivel by someone trying extremely hard to be PC and ignoring the evidence of which is becoming more clear everyday.

This one affected me.

quote:

Veteran Tom Kenniff said "with all due respect to Dr. Phil, having been through the war in Iraq and having seen what these soldiers go through, with respect to this incident, I need to take a giant step back from all the psychobabble I've been hearing for the past few hours." Kenniff said "this looks a lot less like PTSD and a lot more like terrorism."
<http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/11/...take-giant.html>

The claims of PTSD aren't sitting well with me. The Major never deployed and there is no information about him experience significant trauma.

I'm kinda of wondering the same thing to. If it is true he was saying goodbye and giving things away prior to this, I believe it was premditated. I think that means it qualifies as a capital offense. Another alleged clue...if he was yelling the ol' "Alla Akbar" during the alleged offense, I submit we can make the point it was indeed a terrorist attack.

PTSD This guy is nothing more than a piece of terrorist $hi+. Judging by the stuff they've already dug up on this guy (and I would hate to jump to conclusions ) its unfortunate he lived.

I normally don't watch Larry King (and certainly not Dr Phil!), but I happened to be in a hotel with horrible TV options, and I did watch this interview.

The claims just didn't fit. As all the reasons stated above. And the young lady on the show seemed to be really hard over on her version of events, although it was no more substantiated than this gentleman's theory.

I recall Dr Phil talking about stereotyping. And how you can't just assume because of his last name. But how many times have we seen EXACTLY this sort of thing happen when it is a person involved in some sort of abortion protest violence? It's automatically some radical Christian. Other options are never explored. (e.i. maybe there is some really mad father or husband out there who is mad at this doctor.) You also see this with gun violence. He's automatically a Rush-listener, NRA-member. But, for some reason, when it comes to situations like this, it is suddenly not okay to stereotype.

Yes, I think PTSD doesn't fit very well. And I think the young lady on the show really hurt her cause. She was totally emotional, not very logical, uncontrolled outburst... She wasn't listening to arguments at all; she was forumlating her response the entire time rather than listening.

quote:

Originally posted by Fishstyx:
Really? Looks alike a bunch of drivel by someone trying extremely hard to be PC and ignoring the evidence of which is becoming more clear everyday.

This one affected me.

quote:

Veteran Tom Kenniff said "with all due respect to Dr. Phil, having been through the war in Iraq and having seen what these soldiers go through, with respect to this incident, I need to take a giant step back from all the psychobabble I've been hearing for the past few hours." Kenniff said "this looks a lot less like PTSD and a lot more like terrorism."
<http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/11/...take-giant.html>

The claims of PTSD aren't sitting well with me. The Major never deployed and there is no information about him experience significant trauma.

What?! The author of this article never even mentioned PTSD! He's speaking of the soldiers that were affected BY the Major, not about what affected the Major... holy crap. I didn't think that the article was difficult to interpret but apparently it was...

quote:

Originally posted by JekelKat13:

What?! The author of this article never even mentioned PTSD! He's speaking of the soldiers that were affected BY the Major, not about what affected the Major... holy crap. I didn't think that the article was difficult to interpret but apparently it was...

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it read.

quote:

What?! The author of this article never even mentioned PTSD! He's speaking of the soldiers that were affected BY the Major, not about what affected the Major... holy crap. I didn't think that the article was difficult to interpret but apparently it was...

They were talking about the PTSD claim referenced by another poster....

Who somehow tied in Bob Greene's article with some freedomlighthouse website, to completely tarnish the fact that there ARE Americans that still care about the troops on our soil? What was the point of highjacking the thread and making turning it into a negative tone saying that the author of the article I posted was PC? That's the only thing I'm curious about... just makes no sense to me either way.

Simply put, there is no fog. As more and more evidence comes to light, its pretty damn clear, at least to me, what happened at Fort Hood. As I said, its only foggy to those refusing to see it for what it is. The enemy, hit us behind our lines.

Now, perhaps I was bit too harsh on the article and could very well be misinterpreting it. Perhaps it was just the constant barrage of diversion that immediately followed and continues that was counter to my gut on what occurred.

quote:

Originally posted by Fishstyx:
Simply put, there is no fog. As more and more evidence comes to light, its pretty damn clear, at least to me, what happened at Fort Hood. As I said, its only foggy to those refusing to see it for what it is. The enemy, hit us behind our lines.

Now, perhaps I was bit too harsh on the article and could very well be misinterpreting it. Perhaps it was just the constant barrage of diversion that immediately followed and continues that was counter to my gut on what occurred.

You're definitely misinterpreting the article. It's not a "fog" as in confusion which is what you're spinning it. He means FOG. The fact that these kids are walking into a war without being able to see. If you want to - you could say the Ft Hood shooting IS the "fog of war"... an enemy on OUR turf... again. It was hard to see because people didn't want to see it.

There is a fog of war. Read the article again.

quote:

The claims of PTSD aren't sitting well with me. The Major never deployed and there is no information about him experience significant trauma.

Maybe he suffered from Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder.