International version: Malik Hasan: Soldiers' psychiatrist who listened to stories from frontline

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/06/nidal-malik-hasan-fort-hood-shooting1
He was not a soldier returning from deployment in either Iraq or Afghanistan, suffering from stress or combat fatigue. Nidal Malik Hasan, although 39 years old, has never served in a war zone. Instead, his horror of war came secondhand. He was a psychiatrist who listened to the harrowing stories of his comrades at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC, and latterly at Fort Hood, Texas.

Unusually for a soldier, Hasan appeared to have little taste for violence, at least up until yesterday. His cousin, Nader Hasan, said: "He was someone who did not enjoy going to the firing range." That may have been a consequence of the stories he had heard in the hospital wards from the returning soldiers.

Hasan became an unhappy soldier as his career progressed, according to his family and colleagues.

Nader said his cousin, though born in America, had suffered harassment from fellow soldiers who questioned his loyalty to the US and commented on his Middle East ethnicity. As a Muslim, he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Nader confirmed that he had been resisting deployment in either war zone.

He had been scheduled for deployment to Iraq at the end of the year and had told colleagues repeatedly he did not want to go. He felt trapped, looking at ways to buy his way out, even going to the extent of hiring a lawyer to see if he could leave military service honourably.

U.S. version: Troubling portrait emerges of Fort Hood suspect

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood_shooting_suspect
His name appears on radical Internet postings. A fellow officer says he fought his deployment to Iraq and argued with soldiers who supported U.S. wars. He required counseling as a medical student because of problems with patients.

There are many unknowns about Nidal Malik Hasan, the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Most of all, his motive. But details of his life and mindset, emerging from official sources and personal acquaintances, are troubling.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, Texas, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing his career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.

While an intern at Walter Reed, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

He was also having trouble finding a wife.

BREAKING: Ft Hood Shootings - 13 Dead, 30 Wounded (updated)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/11/ft_hood_shootings_7_dead_12_wo.html
Ft. Hood is the largest Army installation in the country, and one with one of the highest suicide rates in the country in the years since the War on Terror began.

Shooter(s) are in uniform.

On this day in 2004: American military deaths in the Iraq War reach 1,000

Start:	Sep 7, '09
Location:	Iraq

As of Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009, at least 4,337 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes nine military civilians killed in action. At least 3,466 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is equal to the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 179 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.