An American Lion

III US Corps Patch

If the Major Nidal Hasan’s work was substandard, then why was he promoted to higher rank?

Military investigations into the Nov. 5 shooting spree here intensified Tuesday, with the arrival of two former top officials leading a Pentagon probe into what could have been done to prevent the shootings.

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused of opening fire in a crowded facility when soldiers went to complete last-minute paperwork before heading overseas. He has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder.

While the military pursues a criminal case against Maj. Hasan, a psychiatrist who was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan, the Pentagon is also probing whether officials could have done more to prevent the shootings.

One of the leaders of that investigation, former Army Secretary Togo West, said Tuesday that one of the main purposes of the investigation was to look at “policies and procedures that have to do with service members that may cause trouble or harm to their fellows.”

Former colleagues of Maj. Hasan said he espoused fervent Islamic beliefs and a deep-seated opposition to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Former medical colleagues also said his professional work was substandard. The probe will look at whether military policies failed to identify Maj. Hasan as a potential threat and whether his patient care was acceptable.

I’m able to identify one thing that needs to be fixed right now—standards MUST be raised across all of the services in the U.S. military, not just the United States Army. Whoever is responsible for promoting Major Hasan has ZERO credibility now and shouldn’t be allowed to promote another soldier, period. That decision to pass him on and up was a fatal one, and should have gone the other way. And the other way was, kick his worthless, sorry rear end out of the military and save others the trouble.

If that means that more people need to be put out of the service, so be it. If that means that thousands of substandard performers and marginal leaders need to be taken out with the trash or held back or kept from being placed into positions of authority or responsibility, fine and dandy. If there is no one worth promoting, then don’t promote anyone. If there’s an absence or lack of qualified personnel in a military unit, then that’s a problem for the civilian leadership, not a harried commander who has to try to get by with lunkheads and widebody slapfaces.

We should not expect a hollowed-out military to make do with less when it comes to the everyday and the routine. I won’t speak to what a commander in a combat situation has to do to get by—that is within the purview of that leader and should not be second-guessed. Major Hasan was what they call a REMF, and a REMF who never did anything in the military. He is exactly the sort of person who should have been given a bus ticket home and a bill for the cost of keeping his uniform clean. There wasn’t anything on it anyway.