Ft. Hood Victims Shamefully Denied Purple Hearts
Investor's Business Daily ^ | April 1, 2013 | IBD EDITORIALS
We have a medal for those who remotely operate drones, but the Pentagon claims awarding the victims of the 2009 shooting with Purple Hearts would jeopardize the shooter's chance at a fair trial. We recently noted that the Obama administration's shameful designation of the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, by Major Nidal Hasan as "workplace violence" had denied survivors benefits they would have been entitled to had the attack been properly labeled an act of terror.
For example, Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning was shot six times but was denied benefits that would accrue to a soldier injured in an act of terror or a battle overseas.
Manning says the "workplace violence" designation has cost him almost $70,000 in benefits that would have been available if his injuries were classified as "combat related."
One would expect that when a self-proclaimed "Soldier of Allah" shouting "Allahu Akbar" opens fire on dozens of U.S. citizens and soldiers, killing and maiming as many innocents as he can, it would have been called an act of terror.
FBI and Congressional investigations have found that the Ft. Hood attack, like Benghazi, was indeed an act of terror in the midst of a war on terror, but the politically correct Obama administration persists in playing word games rather than honoring America's heroes.
Now the Army and the Defense Department is trying to ward off legislation that would correct this injustice, designate the Ft. Hood attack an act of terror, and authorize the survivors to receive the full benefits and Purple Hearts they earned.
The U.S. Army, on Good Friday of all days, when the fewest possible people would be paying attention, formally declined to award Purple Heart medals to the victims of Maj. Hasan's shooting rampage at Ft. Hood, saying the move would damage his ability to receive a fair trial.
The Army in a position paper said that awarding the medal to those wounded and posthumously to those killed in the November 2009 attack would "set the stage for a formal declaration that Major Hasan is a terrorist" because the medal is presented to military members who are "wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States."
Let us stick our neck out here and say that Maj. Hasan was in fact an enemy of the United States and the dead and wounded of Ft. Hood were killed and wounded in action involving that enemy.
The massacre at Ft. Hood was no more "workplace violence" than 9/11 was a "man-caused disaster." It's one thing to use squishy language to describe our ongoing conflict with fundamentalist Islamists, but quite another to imply that the conflict simply doesn't exist.
Still the Army and Defense Department say to the Ft. Hood victims that to treat them fairly and honorably would taint the jury pool by having the government put Hasan on trial and, in effect, declaring him guilty in advance, thereby removing the presumption of innocence in the case.
The Army formalized its ongoing opposition to awarding the Purple Hearts in response to language inserted in the Defense Authorization Bill, which would require the Secretary of the Army to award the medal.
In addition, some of Hasan's wounded victims and families of the deceased have filed a federal lawsuit. Among the demands is that each of the victims be awarded financial compensation and a Purple Heart.
"This is a cynical travesty," Neal Sher, the New York-based lawyer for the Ft. Hood victims, said.
"The only thing the government has done is guarantee that anything done to help the victims will effectively impair and prevent Hasan's prosecution," Sher added. "These victims have been given the back of the hand by their government."
We concur and feel they should instead get a salute, full benefits and the Purple Heart.
A ceremony in the Rose Garden, Mr. President?
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