Victims of Nidal Hasan’s rampage at Ft. Hood are praising Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) and two central Texas Republican Congressmen, John Carter and Roger Williams, for introducing the ‘Honoring the Ft. Hood Heroes Act’ which would declare that those who were shot in November of 2009 were ‘casualties of war in the face of an armed enemy,’ and were not victims of ‘workplace violence’ as the Pentagon has claimed, 1200 WOAI news reports.
“The bill’s plain declarations that the Ft. Hood attack was terrorism, and that the Islamic extremist Nidal Hasan is a traitor to the United States, are especially welcome and long overdue,” said Reed Rubinstein, who is an attorney for the men and women who were wounded at the families of those who were killed.
“This simple honesty is a strong antidote to the nearly four years of obfuscation, denial, and spin that the Ft. Hood Heroes have suffered at the hands f the DoD, FBI, and other parts of the Executive Branch.
Support for the measure is bipartisan, with several Democrats signing on to the measure.
“We are a nation at war, and the location in which our men and women in uniform come under hostile fire from a terrorist should not unduly prejudice them and their families from receiving full honors, recognition, and benefits associated with their courageous service,” Cornyn said.
Hasan is now in the U.S. Military Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas, awaiting the outcome of the automatic appeal of his conviction and death sentence.
Testimony at the trial indicated that Hasan claimed to be an Islamic extremist, even claiming that he ‘switched sides’ in the War on Terror. But evidence indicated that his extremism was a convenient excuse for his cowardice in not being willing to deploy to a war zone and, significantly, when he ‘switched sides’ he did not give up his Major’s pay, which was paid to him up until the day he was sentenced.
Even Benedict Arnold had the honor to give up his General’s pay he received from the Continental Congress when he ‘switched sides’ and began working for Lord Cornwallis and the British.
The bill will not only enable the military victims of Hasan’s madness to receive the Purple Heart medal for active duty military personnel and the Medal for Defense of Freedom to civilians, it will open up a wide range of benefits which the Ft. Hood victims have so far not been eligible for, including combat-related special compensation, special pay for subjection to hostile or imminent danger, combat-related injury rehabilitation pay, and meals at military treatment facilities.
The Pentagon has hinted that it may be willing to reverse it’s opinion on Hasan’s status now that his trial is over. Department of Defense lawyers said they steered away from referring to Hasan as a ‘terrorist,’ because there is no crime of ‘terrorism’ under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Other people who have been convicted of ‘terrorism,’ from Timothy McVeigh to ‘twentieth hijacker’ Zacharias Moussaoui, were tried in civilian federal courts, where the crime of ‘terrorism’ exists.