Editorial: An act of terrorism by one of our own

Defending one’s community is instinctive, so it’s understandable if Wiregrass residents’ first reaction is that what happened last week in Fort Hood, Texas, would never happen at our own Fort Rucker.

We hope that’s true. But the reality is that a lone gunman can go on an unexpected rampage anywhere; the carnage left by a similar deranged shooter in Samson earlier this year is proof.

Details of the Texas incident are still sketchy, but what we do know is alarming. U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who had joined the service right out of high school and had gone through college and medical school at Army expense, opened fire at the military installation, killing 12 service members and a civilian, and wounding 31 others. Hasan was wounded himself, shot by a law enforcement officer.

It will be days, perhaps weeks, before the truth is known — if ever. But in the hours after the rampage, a disturbing portrait of the shooter emerged. Hasan was born in the U.S. to Pakastani immigrant parents, and was a devout Muslim who was terrified by his impending deployment.

While his motive is unclear, his modus operandi is not — Hasan acted as a domestic terrorist on a misdirected, suicidal mission, not as the career officer and psychiatrist the U.S. Army had invested with so much training.