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Dr. Grier blogs about Narcissism and other current topics.>
Tragedy at Fort Hood
November 9, 2009
Since this blog is about personality disorders and the role they play in the workplace, it seems appropriate to talk about what happened recently at Fort Hood, Texas.
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Major Nidal Malik Hasan was described as a loner, an unmarried man who steered clear of female colleagues. Although deeply religious, he listed “no religious preference” on his Army records.
Before his reassignment to Fort Hood, he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and Walter Reed psychiatry staff, and he was a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda military medical school in Maryland.
He spoke openly of his deep opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He made statements to soldiers in classes where he argued that the war on terrorism was a war on the Muslim religion. He invited controversy and interpreted it as harassment.
Dr. Hasan came to the attention of authorities six months ago because of Internet postings ascribed to him that discussed suicide bombings and other threats. One posting equated suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the life of his comrades. “To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. It is more appropriate to say that he is a brave hero who sacrificed his life for a more noble cause.” He claimed that "scholars paralleled this view to suicide bombers whose intention by sacrificing their lives was to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers."
This intersection of thought — that the war on terrorism is a war against Islam and that suicide bombing is a noble act — is the same justification used by Muslim extremists to exploit members of their faith who are psychologically frail or depressed to become suicide bombers.
It was reported that Major Hasan attended a mosque led by a radical Muslim cleric when he lived in Virginia — the same cleric who taught at a mosque frequented by three of the 9/11 hijackers. And the CIA now says that Major Hasan tried to contact Al Qaeda through electronic means. I suspect we will eventually learn that Major Hasan was a regular "visitor" to and ultimately influenced by extremist websites.
But herein was the moral dilemma troubling Dr. Hasan: “Am I willing to commit an immoral act by going to Afghanistan in support of my fellow Americans who are fighting against Islam?”
His solution was to try to get out of the military. The Army refused his request and moved him from the care facility at Walter Reed hospital to an operational unit at Fort Hood. When faced with the realization he would soon have to deploy to Afghanistan, his moral dilemma became urgent, and the urgency to find an answer became acute.
Professionally and ethically, if Major Hasan felt that the trauma of his patients was in turn traumatizing him, a term professionals call secondary or vicarious trauma, his training required him to seek help. But his patients were his job. What was he to do if he lacked the competence to treat his patients because of factors beyond his control?
Did secondary trauma prevent Dr. Hasan from recognizing that he needed help? Why did safeguards put in place by the mental health community to detect problems and protect caregivers and ultimately their patients not work?
Despite Major Hasan's controversial views and correspondence with a radical Islamist, an official investigation was never opened.
Was the Army worried that investigating a Muslim who openly opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might lead to charges of prejudice in the Media? Was political correctness a factor?
The Associated Press tells us that Dr. Hasan’s giving leftover frozen broccoli to a neighbor and calling another to thank him for his friendship are common courtesies and routines of a departing soldier on his way to a warzone. But let’s put these actions in the context of what happened afterward.
Was it madness for Dr. Hasan to worry about the broccoli in his freezer, while planning to kill hundreds of U.S. Army soldiers later that morning? For the suicide attacker who has made a decision to die, his actions were perfectly consistent. He was closing out the normal part of his life, and there was no indication of what was to follow. Just like the Columbine killings and the London bombings, methodical preparation and normal everyday living preceded the deed.
The patients Dr. Hasan worked with at Walter Reed were severely wounded, physically and mentally. But when he came to Fort Hood, the people he was working with were healthy and strong and either returning from or ready to go to war. They were dramatically different from the wounded at Walter Reed. They were the aggressors who would bring physical and mental torment to Muslims in Afghanistan.
No longer able to resolve or even coherently discuss his personal problems, Dr. Hasan retreated further into the isolated world he had built for himself. A murky world where the knowledge of good and evil no longer prevailed. A world of extremism where the unthinkable was logical. A world where his cry to the Army that "You're not hearing me!" translated into horror.
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Pundits say it is a good thing that Dr. Hasan survived. It is difficult to understand the thinking of people who believe that a man who planned to die while committing mass murder will articulately provide a compelling rationale for his actions. Mentally ill people are irrational, and attempting to reason with them as if they are like you and me is destined to fail.
Even if he were to respond to treatment, the best Dr. Hasan may ever be able to do is offer an apology. Maybe that's what the pundits are hoping for?
It may be that his injuries have caused Dr. Hasan to forget everything that happened. What then? Can the families of the fallen bear that burden?
I say it in my book, Narcissism in the Workplace, and clearly it requires repeating: Zero tolerance and a willingness to act must be the guiding light for supervisors when subordinates actively undermine their organizations or maliciously antagonize their coworkers.
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