(What it Might Have Been Like for Victims)
by David Blakeslee
I got up. I got dressed. I hugged my children. I called a friend. I went to work. I packed my bag for a prolonged business trip. I went to lunch. I then went to the doctor’s office for a final check on my health and then, to get my teeth cleaned.
I was traveling for my work to a place where it might be hard to get medical attention. I sat down in the waiting room. I found a magazine, Sports Illustrated, to read. I flipped the pages and I looked around the room. I saw some friends from other parts of the company, smiling and talking to each other. Every few minutes a person left the room and every few minutes a new person came in the room. It was a strange feeling, not knowing all of them, but being bound by similar work and a similar mission.
I glanced down at my magazine, the Raiders continue to lose and look terrible. The Phillies are behind in the World Series, I know better, they already lost.. Pop…Pop Pop…Pop…Pop. Scream, crash. Pop…Pop…Pop, Pop, Pop. I know the sound. I am on the ground. I look in the direction of the Pop sound, a man with two guns commands the attention of the room. He is dressed like me. He looks like me. I look to others dressed like me, some are groaning, some wailing, some are whimpering, curled up in the corner as he approaches. Pop…Pop…Pop. I am panicked now. While his attention is turned I jump and run farther from him and push a small table down as a barrier. I realize that most of my co-workers have huddled in the far corner with me. Some are escaping through another door and down a hallway. Pop…Pop…Pop…Scream. Whimper. Moan. I know I am alone. I know this uniform he is wearing says I should trust him…I lunge…Pop. Pop Pop Pop.
This is what it may have been like for many of the victims yesterday at Ft. Hood.
Many words will be written about the events of yesterday and the overwhelming majority will be about the middle-aged man who knew where to find a group of trusting colleagues and then systematically betrayed them and murdered them. Many “explanations” or hypotheses will be written. Here is one: a narcissist, narcissistically wounded, acts out his wound in the most terrifying and humiliating way on people completely unprepared to defend themselves and trained to trust him. And he enjoys it. For a brief few minutes his subjective feelings of being small and a “victim” are extinguished in a gratifying hail of bullets and moans and death. It goes just the way he planned and he enjoys it.
Narcissism is rampant in this culture.
It is time to make it’s victims real, three dimensional. To narrate their motivations, their lives, to interview their friends and family and to hear what obstacles they overcame and how much they loved their country. They are small, unimportant people in this culture of celebrity. But they are deeply loved, deeply loved. And right now, everyone they loved is feeling destroyed.
Utterly destroyed.
That is what narcissism can do.
(I spent the early years of my career at a small Air Force base as the base psychologist. It was humbling to see how hard everyone worked and how devoted to the mission they were. I learned there how many different kinds of people were better than me, stronger than me and kinder than me. For a medical officer to betray his troops is the worst kind of evil).
–David Blakeslee, Psy.D. is a psychologist in West Linn, Oregon.
So here it is, there was plenty of evidence to warn people that Hasan was becoming “radicalized” as far back as during his medical training:
Found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42017230/ns/us_news-security/
Blaming the brutal murder of 20 innocents and assaults on 80 other victims on Pastor Jones for his Koran burning is absurd.
Found here: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0411/ahlert.php3
(He gets Senator Reid’s constituency wrong, Nevada, not Arizona).
David Blakeslee# ~ Apr 6, 2011 at 10:23 am
“Blaming the brutal murder of 20 innocents and assaults on 80 other victims on Pastor Jones for his Koran burning is absurd.”
As I mentioned on another thread, Jones is certainly not directly responsible for the violence in Afghanistan. However, his reckless, offensive act did contribute to it. Further he has greatly contributed to the negative image muslims (particularly outside the US) have of americans (and christians). the muslim world will certainly know about the US christian minister who burned the quran. but how many US religious leaders, who condemned Jones for what he did, will those muslims know about?
Think about your own comments on Jones, David. the 1st thing you said about it (here anyway) wasn’t “what Jones did was wrong and unchristian”, but rather “what Jones did wasn’t as bad as people are making it out to be.”
Ken,
Thanks for checking in on this.
I don’t agree that one needs to predicate comments with condemnation of Jones.
Free speech is a right, no matter how absurdly carried out; condemning it makes no sense.
I am one who believes that censoring ourselves, even for absurdity, in an effort to keep violent haters from acting out is a failed enterprise.
These people hate and kill because they want to…
Please refer to the article I cite: they hate and threaten good liberals who are just practicing their craft…and liberals are understandably intimidated and go into hiding.
David Blakeslee# ~ Apr 6, 2011 at 1:02 pm
“I don’t agree that one needs to predicate comments with condemnation of Jones.”
If you don’t want to be misunderstood as agreeing with what Jones did, then you should. You seriously can’t see how your statements could easily be construed as supporting Jones, rather than simply disagreeing with the hyperbole about what Jones did?
which btw, you still haven’t clarified your opinion about what Jones did.
“Free speech is a right, no matter how absurdly carried out; condemning it makes no sense.”
It makes perfect sense. While I support Jones’ right to do what he did, I do not support his actions, in fact I condemn them. And recognizing that a lot of people have a hard time understanding that distinction (esp. with statements like the one you made about it), clarifying the issue makes sense to me.
Further, YOU were just complaining in another thread about how christians are misrepresented. Well, when christians don’t stand up and say “Jones does not represent my religious beliefs” then people like Jones end up being the only “voices of christianity” that the world hears.
Ken…
Behavior like Jone’s is meant to provoke, one way or the other is fine…that is the point.
Commenting on it beyond saying he is absurd just feeds the narrative further…gives him and those who wish to react to him more oxygen.
There seems to be a demand that bad behavior needs to be condemned first before any other responses can be made.
I think that puts people into boxes. Say what you want…respectfully.
Rough justice for the Imam who counseled and inspired the Fort Hood murderer
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/09/30/va_mosque_has_mixed_reaction_to_al_awlakis_death_1317400842/
I wish he would have returned to the states to stand trial for being a co-conspirator; but he preferred to wage jihad from afar.
Now…an american counterpart in Afganistan. Articles theorize, but the fact is the victims’ story will never be told with the same interest.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/seeking-roots-u-soldiers-shooting-rampage-004248437.html