Never One of Us

          I have been in combat and, on one particular night, known that moment when my life might have been snatched away in an instant.  When all you want to think about are those you love and may never see again, but you must push them from your mind and do your duty even if it is the last thing you do.  I tell you this not to boast, because my time in combat was short and, for such duty, relatively easy.  I tell you this so that you know that I have been there, both in the military and at the point of the spear.  So that when I say what I must, you know that it comes from the heart of a man who has worn the uniform with pride and done his duty for his country. 

          Years ago, General Douglas MacArthur said to West Point cadets, “The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.”

          Nidal Malik Hasan chose to put on the uniform and pretended to serve his country, but clearly he never understood the motto of West Point.  He had sworn to defend his country and, as a physiatrist, taken an oath to do no harm, but by his actions, he revealed that he was a man without honor.  He turned his back on both his military and Hippocratic oaths and murdered fellow soldiers.  A native-born American he showed complete disregard for his country and his fellow citizens because, as he apparently stated and believed, he was a Muslim first and American second.  

          Hasan was not a West Point alumnus so the long gray line has not failed, but in my mind, the ghosts of the honored dead linger in the air of Fort Hood.  They are not there to remind the living of those sacred words, Duty, Honor, Country.  The men and women of Fort Hood need no such reminder.  The ghosts have already welcomed the fallen into their midst and now await the spirit of Nidal Malik Hasan so they can thunder the epitaph, “Your oath was a lie, your honor stolen.  We band of brothers do not know you.  You were never one of us.”