SFTT’s mission is to insure that our frontline troops have the best available leadership, equipment and training.   With the growing incidence of PTSD and TBI among military veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, SFTT recently launched their “You are not Alone” initiative to provide greater focus on diagnosing and providing better treatment for our brave warriors who suffer from these debilitating injuries.

While not shy to tackle issues affecting the well-being of men and women in uniform, we do try to avoid subjects which do not directly contribute to the fulfillment of our mission.   On occasion, one of our readers will submit a question or offer an opinion which causes us to scratch our collective heads and wonder at the absurdity of it all.  Found below is one of those questions.

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After reading the headlines about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony. I’m not condoning or trying to mitigate the severity of what was done, but there is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury. Yet “our” Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allahu Akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: “slay as many infidels as possible.”  So we have a guy in a war zone who had suffered a traumatic brain injury and does the unthinkable, and he must be executed immediately. But this Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys, and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome from listening to real soldiers who had actual battle experience.

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Clearly, both crimes are heinous, but should our actions as a society be any different in dealing with these situations while protecting the rights of the accused.   On the surface, Major Hasan’s criminal behavior seems to be the most reprehensible – not because of the nationality of the victims – but because it appears to have been premeditated.

In the case of Sgt. Bales, I have yet to see any evidence that his actions were premeditated.  In fact, the overwhelming evidence is that he simply snapped.  If so, why is Sgt. Bales on the fast track to judgement by a military court?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I would certainly hope that in the case of Sgt. Bales it is not a “rush to judgement” to appease some mistaken perception of our system of values as determined by world opinion, let alone prop up the self-serving interests of the wholly corrupt Karzai regime in Afghanistan.