Fort Hood killings don'€™t reflect military norm

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people — 12 of them soldiers — and wounded 28 in a rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, this past week. The shootings took place in an area of the fort where military people were getting ready to transport to war zones or were there after returning from war zones.

Apparently the major didn’t want to go to war.

Perhaps there are some naive youngsters who look forward to facing battle because they aren’t aware of its toll, but most people probably wouldn’t look forward to facing war’s dangers. But they go anyway. They do their jobs and hope to come out of it alive.

Maj. Hasan denied 12 soldiers their duty and they died anyway.

In incidents like this, the question is always: Why not just kill yourself and let others live out their lives?

It’s somewhat amazing, perhaps, with all the weapons available to military personnel that this kind of thing doesn’t happen more often. The reason it doesn’t is because people committed to the modern military have an honor about them that wouldn’t allow them to kill without provocation.

Today’s military may be the best since World War II simply because they want to be where they are, serving their nation in war and peace.

For those old enough to remember the Vietnam War, lots of people in that long-running campaign didn’t want to be there. They were drafted. What resulted were some tragedies. “Fragging” came into our lexicon when soldiers would throw grenades into officer’s tents. The My Lai massacre was committed by men led by a guy with no scruples.

Those men and those incidents certainly didn’t define the military then any more than Maj. Hasan defines the military of today.

What he did do is reinforce the notion that soldiers, sailors and airmen don’t always die in combat. They die while training. They die like some of us — car wrecks, heart attacks, disease. Or they die because somebody goes crazy.

The difference, though, between soldiers, sailors and airmen and the rest of us? They know when they put on the uniform they are committed to going into harm’s way if ordered.

That’s why we should attend one of the Veteran’s Day events this coming week. Those events recognize the people who chose the right path. They didn’t choose the path of cowardice as did Maj. Hasan.