The mf is shooting up innocent people not firing at him while yelling “Allahu Akbar”. And what you are worried about is how much experience the guy has? Well, continue to ask about military experience, as if it matters in this incident and marks some bar as to whether someone can comment on this event.

What matters to me is my brother-in-law, a Sergeant about to deploy, was involved in a FTX at Ft. Hood during the shooting and was safely out of harms way. His wife and two little boys at least have that happy bit of news.

Fletcher Christian said: The first point is that is quite likely, bearing (in my admittedly unqualified opinion) on certain, that the freedom of religion clause was designed to allow freedom to choose which version of Christianity with the possible addition of Judaism was practised; it may well never have crossed the Founders’ minds that the USA would ever be anything but overwhelmingly Judeo-Christian.

You are correct in your assessment: you are most unqualified to make any such statement. Many of the Founding Fathers, in particular Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were NOT Judeo-Christian: Franklin was mostly Deist, and Jefferson was mostly atheist. The freedom of religion clause was always intended to erect the “wall of separation” between church and state. See, for example, http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html for an examination of the subject, including the full text of Jefferson’s famous letter.

For whatever reason, it seems to be a fairly common thing to falsely claim military experience. Maybe the guilty party gets more drinks in bars or something. Can’t be that useful in blogs, but I gather it happens in them on occasion.

In any case, Major Nadal didn’t come in as a major. This aspect never really mattered to anyone in this thread (unless someone really was claiming Al Qaeda is sticking majors in the US Army). And nobody really has a real argument one way or another on whether a doctor can start as a major or not. All we can say is that it doesn’t seem to happen much, if it happens under normal conditions. So this whole line of argument seems rather futile.

My suspicion is that something like appointing a doctor as a major (or even higher rank) would only occur in case of a serious national health emergency, say something like the 1918 influenza pandemic when a doctor with world class experience in some dire health threat needs instant and considerable military authority.

For example, in 1917 a Dr. Victor Vaughan obtained (at the age of 66!) a commission as lieutenant (O-3) and was shortly thereafter promoted to major (O-4).This was so I gather well before influenza was even on the radar. But the US had good reason to fear other diseases of the time. I think during the early stages of the pandemic there may have been medical doctors installed at even higher rank than major, but I don’t recall enough to say.

Obviously the circumstances don’t exist now, but it has happened. Given that the US Army is suffering significant casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that certain exceptional doctors (with great skill and organizational/leadership experience) have indeed been commissioned at the rank of major. But from what I’m hearing in this thread such cases are pretty rare.

Perhaps you would care to state what military experience (if any) you are relying on to make your statements?

So what?

Apparently you think others claimed he was a 90-day wonder. But nobody did in this forum. I certainly didn’t. Again, your lack of reading comprehension is the problem. You claimed he absolutely had 8 years of experience because he was a Major. Others corrected this assertion of yours:

Last time I checked, Majors in the Army were commissioned officers and career soldiers. You need at least 8 years in to make that rank.

You are wrong. No amount of showing Hasan’s years of service corrects your misconception.

Just admit it. Because you are making it very easy to point out your illiteracy.