Daniel Zwerdling
NPR

Two years ago, a top psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was so concerned about what he saw as Nidal Hasan's incompetence and reckless behavior that he put those concerns in writing. NPR has obtained a copy of the memo, the first evaluation that has surfaced from Hasan's file.

Officials at Walter Reed sent that memo to Fort Hood this year when Hasan was transferred there.

Nevertheless, commanders still assigned Hasan — accused of killing 13 people in a mass shooting at Fort Hood on Nov. 5 — to work with some of the Army's most troubled and vulnerable soldiers.

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Boots, rifles and helmets stand tribute to the military victims of the Fort Hood massacre.

Tom Kenniff
Special to CNN

Just hours after the first reports of the tragedy at Fort Hood surfaced, a divisive dialogue was developing on the talk shows and in the Internet blogosphere.

On one side were those arguing that shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's apparent bloodlust was an unfortunate byproduct of an overtaxed military forced to fight a multifront war against an uncertain enemy.

Television doctors expounded on the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans, often without indicating that Hasan had not been to war or suffered any obvious trauma that could explain the gruesome manifestation of his "stress."

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Brian Todd
CNN Correspondent

A Washington-based imam told CNN on Monday that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan approached him for help finding a wife.

Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, said Hasan came to him at least two years ago as the cleric conducted services at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

"He said he wanted someone to help him serve, deploy and be understandable and understanding of his own military career," Hendi said. "He saw himself as someone ... continuing his service with the U.S. military till the end of his career."

The imam said he spoke with Hasan on at least two occasions about his search for a spouse.

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Time

On November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire in the Soldier Readiness Center of Fort Hood, the most populous US military base in the world, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. Take a look inside the home of the Fort Hood gunman.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

Nancy Gibbs
Time

What a surprise it must have been when Major Nidal Malik Hasan woke up from his coma to find himself not in paradise but in Brooke Army Medical Center, deep in the heart of Texas, under security so tight that there were armed guards patrolling both the intensive-care unit and checkpoints at the nearest freeway off-ramp. This was not the finalé he had scripted when he gave away all his earthly goods — his desk lamp and air mattress, his frozen broccoli and spinach, his copies of the Koran. He had told his imam he was planning to visit his parents before deploying to Afghanistan. He did not mention that his parents had been dead for nearly 10 years.

And who denied him his martyrdom? That would be Kimberly Munley, the SWAT-team markswoman nicknamed Mighty Mouse, who with her partner ran toward the sound of gunshots at the Soldier Readiness Center, where men and women about to deploy gather for vaccinations and eye exams. It's practically been a motto stitched on their sleeves — "Better to fight the terrorists there than here" — except now they were at home, and there was one of their own, a U.S. officer, jumping up, shouting "God is great" in a language he could barely speak and then opening fire.

For eight years, Americans have waged a Global War on Terrorism even as they argued about what that meant. The massacre at Fort Hood was, depending on whom you believed, yet another horrific workplace shooting by a nutcase who suddenly snapped, or it was an intimate act of war, a plot that can't be foiled because it is hatched inside a fanatic's head and leaves no trail until it is left in blood. In their first response, officials betrayed an eagerness to assume it was the first; the more we learn, the more we have cause to fear it was the second, a new battlefield where our old weapons don't work very well and our values make us vulnerable: freedom, privacy, tolerance and the stubborn American certainty that people born and raised here will not reject the gifts we share.

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CNN Senior Political Contributor Ed Rollins

Ed Rollins
CNN Senior Political Contributor

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed the 11th day of the month as the first commemoration of Armistice Day.

It was the first anniversary of the end of the "Great War" and it was hoped we would never go into battle again. Unfortunately that is not how history turned out. The "Great War" became known as World War I. Many conflicts followed. Many more Americans went to war and many gave up their lives.

November 11 was renamed to honor our veterans in 1954 by one of America's greatest military leaders, 34th President Dwight David Eisenhower.

How strange that on the very eve of this day, President Obama was addressing a memorial service for the slain soldiers of last week's massacre at Fort Hood before the thousands of men and women who served with them on the Army's largest military base.

The president is the commander in chief and the task of sending young men and women into combat is the most serious duty he bears. As he ponders the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, he saw the men and women of our Army up close. These are the soldiers who will be part of whatever decision he makes. And they are fabulous soldiers ready for whatever duty he requests of them.

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