Program Note: Tune in tonight for more on religious preference in the military and whether or not certain red flags regarding Mah. Hasan were ignored. 10 p.m. ET.

AC360°

People who knew and studied Maj. Nidal Hasan say he was a loner who had no luck finding a wife, and a criminal profiler said the Fort Hood shooting suspect fits the profile of a mass murderer better than that of a terrorist.

Investigators are searching for any missed "red flags" that might have prevented last week's fatal shooting, which left 12 soldiers and one civilian dead and 40 other people wounded. However, the FBI has said its investigations indicate the "alleged gunman acted alone and was not part of a broader terrorist plot."

"A lot of people are jumping to the conclusion because this man spouted violent Islamic ideology that this is a terrorist attack," criminologist Pat Brown said.

Since last week's shooting at Fort Hood, Pentagon officials are faced with difficult questions regarding religious affiliation among the ranks.

Pentagon statistics compiled in August of this year show that there were 3,409 Muslims in the active-duty military. But since military personnel have no obligation to disclose their religion, many officials believe the actual number of Muslim soldiers could be at least 10, 000 higher than the Pentagon statistics.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, for instance, did not identify with a specific religion on his military record. This made us wonder about the breakdown of religious preference in the military.

More than one quarter of the personnel (26.3%) are identified as having indicated no religious preference or unknown.

Source: U.S. Department of Defense

CNN

Bob Greene
CNN Contributor

The woman's Halloween costume featured a Third Reich motif.

This was last weekend in a sprawling bar-and-restaurant complex near U.S. 41 on the west coast of Florida. I had made the miscalculation of stopping by in pursuit of a quiet cheeseburger, not realizing that adults in trick-or-treat costumes were making the rounds on this sultry evening.

The woman (or the costume shop from where she had purchased her uniform) at least had the good sense to omit the actual swastikas, but that was the only bit of subtlety. The Heinrich Himmler high-fronted military cap, the boots, the swagger stick she kept slapping against her palm. . .some of the customers, playing along, did little comic goose steps as they passed her.

I looked up from my newspaper and tried to surmise if anyone was going to be offended enough by this odious display to leave. She beat them to it; she and her friends made a few quick passes through the aisles of the place, then returned to the night, ready to continue their revelry elsewhere.

Halloween in the United States is an increasingly odd holiday, no longer child's play, but on this evening I was thinking about another holiday, this one official, that is coming up this week: Veterans Day.

And, having unexpectedly encountered the woman in her getup, I found myself wondering what, six and seven decades ago, they would have made of it: what the 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during World War II, who were sent across the ocean to defeat a brutal enemy, would have thought about this scene.

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Soldiers gather outside of Fort Hood.

Arsalan Iftikhar
AC360° Contributor
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

First of all, as an American, my heart broke into two pieces tonight when I heard of the tragic mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas earlier this evening when a U.S. Army soldier opened fire on a military processing center at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday; killing at least 12 people and wounding at least 31 others, according to Army officials in a report to CNN.

Secondly, as a Muslim, my heart further broke into another two pieces when it was learned that the Fort Hood shooter was a Muslim mental health care professional medical doctor who (similar to the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre) used two handguns during his mass murder rampage.

Thus, with my heart currently broken into four distinct pieces right now, needless to say, I am completely speechless (and bumfuzzled) by this latest tragedy at Fort Hood.

According to CNN, the gunman (who was apparently captured alive by emergency personnel) was later identified as U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39.

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Department of Defense

U.S. troops speak to an Iraqi child in Baghdad

Linsay Rousseau Burnett
LA Times

In the military, I learned to expect screw-ups, especially when it came to money. So maybe the Department of Veterans Affairs is just trying to ease my transition to civilian life by doing things the military way in its handling of Post 9/11 GI Bill education benefits.

Student veterans began applying for education benefits in May, and we were supposed to have our tuition paid and receive our housing and book stipends in August. That didn't happen. Instead, more than two months into the school year, most of us have received nothing, although the VA is graciously offering to advance us emergency checks of up to $3,000 to ease the economic burden of not yet receiving the money we were promised.

Along with healthcare, job experience and a steady paycheck, the GI Bill was one of my primary reasons for joining the Army in 2004. I went into the military - and spent a year in Kirkuk province in northern Iraq - with the express intention of pursuing graduate studies when my contract was up. Truth be told, I wouldn't be writing this column right now, as a student at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, were it not for the GI Bill. Or at least for the promise of the GI Bill.

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U.S. troops on patrol in Paktika Province, Afghanistan

Ed Hornick
CNN

While President Obama's war council deliberates its strategy toward Afghanistan, the ghost of Vietnam is often invoked as a warning.

Afghanistan, U.S. and coalition forces have been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years and until recently the war had been overshadowed by the one in Iraq. In March, Afghanistan will become America's longest war, surpassing the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War, which cost 58,000 American lives, is the one most often invoked when U.S. troops are committed overseas.

While some say Afghanistan is "Obama's Vietnam," experts say there are several major similarities and differences between the two wars.

Eric Margolis, a veteran journalist and former Army soldier who served during the Vietnam War, said the biggest problem the United States is facing now - as in Vietnam - is fighting the mostly poor, rural insurgents who live among Afghans.

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CNN

The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East and Central Asia visited Pakistan on Monday as the Pakistani army battled Taliban militants in the country's northwest, U.S. Embassy officials said.

Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, held meetings as U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also arrived on a separate visit.

Details about their visits were not immediately available.

Petraeus' and Kerry's arrivals came on the heels of Pakistani troops launching a massive ground offensive backed by air power over the weekend in South Waziristan, a refuge and power base for insurgents operating in Pakistan and along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

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GE reported sinking profit and sales, but said it sees signs of stablization.

Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer

Bank of America proved no match for the ongoing recession as the nation's biggest bank reported a steep loss today.

With Americans continuing to default on their credit cards and mortgages, BofA said it lost $2.2 billion in the third quarter, which included several charges related to the government's move to rescue the firm over the past year.

The results come at a particularly difficult time for both the bank and its CEO, Ken Lewis.

Last month, Lewis announced plans to step down amid ongoing scrutiny over his role in the company's controversial purchase of Merrill Lynch during the height of the financial crisis.

And just yesterday, he agreed to a deal not to accept a salary or bonus this year as CEO in an effort to deflect some of scrutiny the firm faces, after some not-too-subtle prodding from the Treasury Department's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg. In fact, Lewis will have to repay Bank of America the more than $1 million he has already earned in his final year on the job.

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Adam Levine
CNN

Women were dismissed from the military for being gay at a greater rate than men last year, according to new statistics obtained by a California research group.

All the services kicked out a disproportionate number of women under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The center studies gender and sexuality in the military.

The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, implemented in 1994, bans troops who are openly gay from serving in the military.

In the Air Force, a majority of those removed were women, the first time a service has had such a record since the implementation of the controversial law in 1994, according to Palm Center senior research fellow Nathaniel Frank.

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