On May 17, 2007, Hasan's supervisor at Walter Reed sent the memo to the Walter Reed credentials committee. It reads, "Memorandum for: Credentials Committee. Subject: CPT Nidal Hasan." More than a page long, the document warns that: "The Faculty has serious concerns about CPT Hasan's professionalism and work ethic. ... He demonstrates a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism." It is signed by the chief of psychiatric residents at Walter Reed, Maj. Scott Moran.
When shown the memo, two leading psychiatrists said it was so damning, it might have sunk Hasan's career if he had applied for a job outside the Army.(More, plus a rant after the jump...)
"Even if we were desperate for a psychiatrist, we would not even get him to the point where we would invite him for an interview," says Dr. Steven Sharfstein, who runs Sheppard Pratt's psychiatric medical center, based just outside Baltimore.
Sharfstein says it's a little hard to read the evaluation now and pretend that he doesn't know that Hasan is accused of shooting dozens of people. But he says if he had seen a memo like this about an applicant, Sharfstein would have avoided him like the plague.OK, rant time, kids. I don't do this much, but I am furious at this.
The memo ticks off numerous problems over the course of Hasan's training, including proselytizing to his patients. It says he mistreated a homicidal patient and allowed her to escape from the emergency room, and that he blew off an important exam.
According to the memo, Hasan hardly did any work: He saw only 30 patients in 38 weeks. Sources at Walter Reed say most psychiatrists see at least 10 times that many patients. When Hasan was supposed to be on call for emergencies, he didn't even answer the phone.
The military's medical system, including the military's mental health system, is so badly overtaxed and overwhelmed that firing Hasan simply wasn't an option.
In fact, note that when the memo was written 2 1/2 years ago, Hasan was still a Captain.
He received a promotion to Major, this guy. After this memo. The warning signs were there. They were ignored. There were plenty of reasons to get rid of Hasan that had nothing to do with his religion. The Army didn't. It couldn't afford to get rid of an Army shrink in an Army that badly needed mental health professionals...even those of Hasan's questionable fitness.
The Army does share some responsibility here. But the military situations that overwhelmed the system due to a war of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop loss measures and troops on their fourth and fifth tours into the Sandbox...those factors contributed to the climate that allowed Hasan to be kept.
He got a promotion based on this memo, folks. After working at Walter Reed.
Our troops deserve more and better. And yet our military's mental health is in shambles now.
Well gosh, maybe if we had more qualified psychiatrists, counselors and mental health professionals to help our men and women in uniform, this wouldn't be so bad.
According to Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli, 140 active-duty soldiers and 71 soldiers not on active duty killed themselves this year. The active-duty suicides are equivalent to the total in 2008, while the number on non-active duty soldiers are higher by 14.
"Obviously we would prefer not to have another suicide this year or in the years that follow. But we know that will not be the case," Chiarelli said in a press conference. "We talk about these incidents of suicide using figures and percentages. However the grim reality is, each case represents an individual, a person with family and friends and a future ahead of him or her... it is not a single problem with a defined set of symptoms or markers."
"Over the past eight months, every suicide has been briefed to me," he added. "And although we have made changes to Army policy based on many of the lessons learned, we still haven't found any statistically significant causal linkage that would allow us to effectively predict human behavior."
Even better, if we spent more money on treating our heroes intsead of additional billions on huge new bombs, maybe we'd be in better shape.
Even better, if we weren't trapped in a fucking quagmire in the Middle East where we've thrown trillions down a hole, maybe we'd have the money to treat these men and women and maybe we wouldn't be out there creating millions more nightmares out there, one of which might turn out to be the next soldier who cracks and shoots up a military base, or a forward base, or a transport, or whatever.
Instead we go to a stupid war with the mental health program we have, not the ones we need.
Jesus wept. Support the troops my ass.
Rant done.
Superb rant. Can't be said often enough. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, it needed to be said, my friend.
ReplyDelete