Mental Health in the Military

Last Thursday, a gunman opened fire at Fort Hood Army post in Texas, leaving 13 dead and 30 wounded. Our deepest sympathy goes out for the men and women who have fallen and to their families. The victims will always be remembered as heroes who died courageously while serving their country. This tragedy has deeply saddened us, and we hope that, as details emerge, we will become better equipped to prevent similar incidents going forward.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, the alleged shooter, was to be transferred to Afghanistan on Friday to serve as a psychiatrist for troops stationed there. There is little doubt about the severity of mental stress soldiers face on the battlefield. Moreover, the work of military psychiatrists is invaluable to soldiers’ well-being. In the aftermath of this attack, what comes as a shock, however, is just how understaffed the U.S. Army is with regard to mental-health specialists. Currently, only 408 psychiatrists are serving over 550,000 soldiers. Not only is the Army understaffed, but little attention is paid to the psychiatrists themselves, who can be mentally affected by the trauma described by their patients. While we are hesitant to guess at Hassan’s motives, the case has exposed this real lack of mental-health resources in the military.

Evidence has surfaced that Hassan had been previously troubled by the accounts of war veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Records further indicate that he had been upset about being assigned to Afghanistan, possibly due to his religious beliefs. Still, media and government officials should refrain from jumping to conclusions concerning the role of Maj. Hassan’s religious background in this incident. Some rashly speculated that this was an organized terrorist attack, but such claims have since been disproved. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, for instance, suggested that Hassan had become extremist in his views. Whether this drove his actions, though, is for an investigation to prove.

What is most worrisome is that a very troubled individual could be left to treat soldiers suffering from mental-health issues. Holistically, this reveals a structural problem in the Army’s health services that should be investigated. And while these deficiencies in no way excuse Hassan’s actions, we do hope that his trial will allow for an examination of the system of mental-health offerings in the Army—much like the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 caused many colleges and universities to reevaluate their mental-health support. The Army must consider the mental and emotional well-being of its soldiers to be just as important as physical well-being.