Ft. Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Hasan joined the Army right out of high school. The armed forces financed his schooling -- both college and med school -- and he took an oath as a commissioned officer. It's unclear what motivated the 39-year old accused of gunning down 13 of fellow members of the military or why he soured on the armed services in recent years, but when he turned on his fellow military members he betrayed a fraternity that had embraced him for nearly two decades.
The Army said it's unsure whether Hasan had applied for early discharge but he had retained an attorney several years ago after he was being harassed for being Muslim. It was then that the Virginia Tech grad gave up on leaving the Army, his cousin said. But instead of doing his time and leaving quietly, Hasan expressed his frustrations to family and in a chilling PowerPoint presentation: "Department of Defense should allow Muslims Soldiers [sic] the option of being released as 'Conscientious objectors' to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events."
The puzzling part of this statement is that, according to the Army, such provisions exist. A spokesman for the Army said the conscientious objector policy was in effect "many years" prior to Hasan's foretelling presentation. The application process, however, is an arduous one. Once an applicant goes through a rigorous screening process, it takes an average of 196 days for the applications to reach Army headquarters, according to military data. Roughly 58 percent of those that reach this point have been approved over the past seven years. There were an average of 50 applications during that same time period, with roughly .01 percent of those who apply discharged for these reasons.
However long the process, there were options open to Hasan. Instead, he is suspected to have slain the very men and women who were willing to stand by him in Iraq or Afghanistan.
