A Case of Real Military Injustice
ABC, one of the of the usually lame-stream media networks, has a real story about denied military benefits that all the media should be following instead of the fabricated Esquire article that has garnered so much attention. Amazingly, ABC is actually reporting on the inability of the victims of the Fort Hood shooting to obtain needed medical care because of political games being played by the Obama administration.
It seems that the White House’s insistence that the attack by Major Nidal Hasan was not a terrorist attack but rather an incident of workplace violence is creating bureaucratic difficulties for the victims of the shooting and their families. One of the two Fort Hood police officers who confronted Hasan, former Sgt. Kimberley Munley, who was seated next to FLOTUS for Obama’s SOTU three years ago, is mincing no words in an ABC interview. She says Obama broke his promise to see that the victims would be well cared for.
“Betrayed is a good word,” former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”
“Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” she said. “In fact they’ve been neglected.”
According to the report, even in the face of evidence that Hasan was communicating with the now droned dead terrorist leader, Anwar al Awlaki, who encouraged Hasan to carry out his mission of Jihad, the government’s word games have had very serious consequences, so serious that Munley and dozens of others have filed suit. They claim that because of that workplace violence designation they are not receiving the care they would be were the attack properly identified as what it was, a terrorist attack. Because of political semantics, they claim they are being denied combat-related care and benefits they would be entitled to were the shooting properly classified.
One of the victims, who was shot six times and still has two bullets lodged in his body says:
“These guys play stupid every time they’re asked a question about it, they pretend like they have no clue.”
“It was no different than an insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan trying to kill us,”
Manning’s injuries were initially ruled combat related by a medical review board but that was overturned by Army brass higher up in the command structure, Manning says that has cost him $70,000 in lost benefits.
To get the full effect of how this administration’s politically-correct insistence on denying the obvious go read the full article at ABC News website. Whereas the dubious Esquire story is being roundly denounced by military personnel, their response to this blatantly unfair treatment will likely be much more supportive and be readily seen as political interference originating at the very top of the chain of command.
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Thanks, Poetrooper. There went my bloodpressure again.
The really ridiculous part of all this? Fifty years from now, historians will label Hasan a terrorist, and his attack, an extention of the war at home. Why can’t we do that now? What IS all this nonsense where this attack is concerned??
If it does get ruled as a combat related injury, then a LOT of upper level brass are going to have to explain why they allowed Hasan to stay in the service. Better that his victims suffer instead of letting that happen.
Where exactly were ABC News’ balls about 6 months ago? I just find it more than a coincidence that the FIRST negative story from the MSM comes AFTER Obama’s election to his second term. Wonder if they had sat on this story??
Poetrooper: Manning?
This administration fails to call terrorism what it is, and cannot recognize it when it does occur. It certainly won’t do a “180” and classify the Ft. Hood shooting for what we know it really is.
It is unconscionable that the official position of the Pentagonals and the other obamnistas is that the Ford Hood terrorism attack was workplace violence. According to OSHA, workplace violence includes verbal threats, verbal abuse, as well as physical assaults. Thus, according to the lunatics in D.C., what happened at Fort Hood was akin to the screaming, swearing, waste-paper basket kicking going on somewhere in a US workplace right now. That is pure insanity. How do those knuckleheads in the Pentagon sleep at night?
Whatever became of the victims of the attack on the 101st officers tent in 1991? Were they treated any different?
@4 Hondo,
Poetrooper left the full name out of the quote, Shawn Manning was the soldier shot 6 times that was quoted….
“These guys play stupid every time they’re asked a question about it, they pretend like they have no clue,” said Shawn Manning, who was shot six times that day at Fort Hood. Two of the bullets remain in his leg and spine,
I would not tie this to the Obama administration as much as to an overtly political decision from a national, not party perspective. The George W. Bush Administration would have made the same call. To define this as terrorism vice workplace violence would represent a fundimental shift in US policy with regards to how we treat radicals in our own country. This is just the pendulum swinging between the two extremes: combating terrorism like a traditional law enforcement problem or something that calls for a total, scorched-earth warfare solution. The second and third order effect is that these Soldiers get screwed.
@4Hondo: My apology for not identifying Manning as the soldier shot six times and quoted in the previous paragraph. I was planning to hyperlink his name to the article and forget to do so. Old Fart’s disease strikes again.
I say they should sue the government. That mother fucker screamed “Allah Akbar” as he shot his fellow soldiers–making this a terrorist attack…PERIOD.
Need some educaton here, please. Is there really a different level of medical care for military personnel receiving line of duty injuries in or outside combat zones? If so, I have some serious heartburn about that because I just do not see that it matters WHERE an injury occurs when it is in the line of duty.
Beyond the immediate and ongoing medical, and what we all owe in that regard to those who suffer any kind of injury on our behalf, there is plenty of room for discussion of the particulars of situational variations – for instance, for more life insurance paid for combat deaths. But, I seem to be stuck at the idea that no matter what the source of an injury might be that the label would have an impact on the medical care we give the victims?
Or is the argument over additional benefits above and beyond basic care any member of the military would receive?
(My confusion is likely from having spent a career in the Air Guard where we had to maintain our physical standards at our own expense and seldom had access to military health care of any sort.)
Frosty…I get what you are saying, but this is just not acceptable, no matter how reasonable you make it sound!!!
Shows how deeply the muslims have infiltrated not just the pentagon but the entire federal government.
FrostyCWO: I have no idea what you just said, even though I read your comment thrice. If you would not tie the workplace violence categorization to the obama administration, then to whose administration would you attribute it? I have looked at a few US definitions of terrorism and I have read specific incidents of terrorism described at the FBI website and I’ll be damned if I can understand how Fort Hood was not domestic or even international terrorism.
Old Tanker: thanks – I did not know that. Makes sense now.
FrostyCWO: don’t think so, amigo. The Bush Administration had no problem prosecuting Jose Padilla on terrorism charges in the “dirty bomb” plot, or in declaring that a terrorist operation. I seriously doubt they’d have declared the Hassan case to be “workforce violence” and would have instead called it what it was – an act of terrorism committed by a US citizen.
Richard Reid (“Shoe Bomber”) also comes to mind.
OWB – although their current and immediate medical needs are covered in full, once departing the service they are entitled to VA benefits. There are designations for combat related injuries as opposed to any injury sustained while on active duty. The VA assumes any injury sustained while on AD to be service connected. However there are special compensations for injuries incurred in combat.
What about that moron that shot up a couple of new recruits outside of a recruiting station? Wasn’t that designated as a terrorist act?
Going to ask a real dumb question, even though I am sure it’s been answered some where. Was Police Officer Sgt. Kimberley Munley a military member? I’ve never seen her portrayed as an MP. Not that it should make a darn bit of difference in how her medical treatment is taken care of, she was protecting soldiers. Not sure how it works for a DoD civilian as opposed to a service member.
Jerry920, reports say she’s former Army, and married to a Soldier at/from Ft. Bragg. She was a Dept of the Army civilian LEO on duty that day. She joined the force in 2008 after she got out of the Army.
@21, Gotcha, thanks for the info!
kmie67: Thanks. That pretty much confirms what I thought.
@16: Yes; Jose Padilla, a US Citizen, was taken into custody by FBI agents after getting off a plane in Chicago and held without criminal charges or trial (or even an attorney for almost the first year) in a US Navy Brig. He was later transferred to regular custody, tried and convicted in Federal Court in 2007. Whether you want to blame the the Bush Administration for overreaching, ACLU for making a stink, or just think that the federal justice system was going too far to protect the right of the individual (“Better to let 10 guilty men go free….etc), the point is this: I don’t know what the threshold should be to determine when a US citizen has reneged on his rights guaranteed in the first ten amendments of the Constitution, but I am not comfortable with any administration having the ability to make that determination. NBC News just outed the Obama Administration’s legal finding that the administration has the exclusive right to determine when a U.S. Citizen simply plans to do something bad while on foreign soil and if that determination is made it may take the opportunity to make a decision to assassinate them! WTF? Are we not paying attention here? Please don’t misunderstand me: I think there’s a special place in hell for people like Hasan and Padilla. They’ll have their own suite right across from Hitler’s next to the break room filled with fat-free, sugar-free donuts, decaf coffee and kegs of O’Douls. I am just saying that these are heady, complex issues and I am a Christian and an American and a Soldier and I am deeply uncomfortable that we have not even begun to reach a consensus about how to fight this war 12 years in. A war that means our very way of life and will determine whether or not my children grow up in a free country. If we take away one @**hole’s freedom, it will have a net positive on dozens of our fellow Soldiers and their families. It seems like an easy trade and we want it to be. I… Read more »
So, under this logic, do the MP’s involved rate Purple Hearts and CABs due to this originally being ruled “combat related”? I know in country one can get a PH for friendly fire incidents while in combat or perceieved combat (between friedly forces) and being Hasan was an active duty Major when he did this would it rate enemy/fratricide(FF)?
You would think this would follow if they were granted disability from the VA.