Seven days ago, four people were killed and 16 were injured in a shooting rampage done by Spc. Ivan Lopez on the Texas military base Fort Hood. The base is familiar to many due to the 2009 shooting spree carried out there by Maj. Nidal Hasan, a radical Muslim jihadist that had infiltrated the U.S. Military as a psychiatrist. While the motives of the two shooters are seemingly unrelated, the result is the same—senseless deaths due to the military’s refusal to recognize the emotional psyche of its ranks as a possible enemy.
Lopez was a 34-year-old Iraq war veteran, husband and father of four.
Seemingly inconspicuous amongst the military’s many, could Lopez have been identified earlier as a threat and stopped before he went on his rampage? Not within the military’s current culture that idolizes violence and ignores or ridicules those suffering from poor mental or emotional health.
Illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which are often present together, are seemingly intangible when compared to losing a limb.
An unfortunate many within the military who suffer from PTSD are ashamed of their condition and the stigma attached to it by their fellow soldiers. Those in the military often refer to emotional disorders as “fake problems,” “weakness,” “people trying to get attention” or “being over-emotional and not tough enough.”
Ironically, Lopez commented on the Newtown shooting over Facebook, calling for reformed evaluations of mental health as he said, “It is stupid to me that anyone can have easy access to powerful weapons without being mentally evaluated. This makes the government an indirect accomplice.”
Lopez had a medical history that included treatment for depression coupled with anxiety; and, as these are cornerstones of PTSD, he was being evaluated for the disorder at the time of his shooting rampage. Lopez served four months in Iraq but according to military personnel saw no direct combat, making them hesitant to consider him as someone suffering from PTSD.
According to another post made on Lopez’s Facebook profile, however, he suffered an extremely traumatic wartime experience stating, “It has been exactly one year and two days since I left Iraq, seeing in Fallujah the most brutal explosion. I was left paralyzed … (Those) were hours of agony waiting for an attack.”
The clear divide here is that the military has a criteria for what constitutes a traumatic battle experience that does not take into account the soldier’s personal interpretation of the event.
In determining whether or not a soldier has PTSD, it must be the symptoms that are analyzed for their effect instead of a focus on the status of the incident, as not all people will experience war environments in the same manner.
Many in the military community, such as Medal of Honor recipient and PTSD survivor Sgt. Dakota Meyer, fear that classifying PTSD as the cause of the shooting rampage would put “a stigma on all veterans” and that “the media will label this shooting PTSD, but if what that man did is PTSD, then I don’t have it.”
Again, the issue of nonconformity within the military arises.
PTSD is different for all people and must be evaluated on an individual basis.
Whether or not Spc. Ivan Lopez ultimately suffered from PTSD or another mental illness is still to be determined. What is certain at this time is that the military must begin to view soldiers who suffer from mental health disorders as wounded and to see emotional trauma and brain damage as the adversary it is.
Whitney Greer is a sophomore English major from Medford, Ore.
