Malik Nadal Hasan - there's a rhythmic staccato to the three names of the man who perpetrated the horror at Fort Hood one week ago. Two syllables and five letters each, consonants and vowels alternating. Even the sound of his military title, "Major,” gloves in.
The mind wandered after the initial shock. The mind searched for relationships. Muslim, Jordanian, that fits a profile, but psychiatrist? An Army major? And Virginia Tech where he took ROTC? a flukish connection to another massacre of innocents.
Faith in our institutions has become increasing shaky. Big banks and insurance companies teeter on the edge of insolvency, churches are rife with scandal, and hospitals incubate killer infections. And the safest place in the country – the center of a large military base—proved to be no haven. Malik Nadal Hasan, another villain in a decade full of villains, committed an atrocity. But perhaps his most damaging blow was to discomfit those of us who sit safely thousands of miles away. © 2009 Stephen Yuen
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