Army to award Purple Heart to Fort Hood victims
Army to award Purple Heart to Fort Hood victims
The U.S. Army has decided to award the Purple Heart to victims of the Fort Hood massacre, sources told Fox News on Friday.
Three sources confirmed the decision, to be announced by next week. Victims of the 2009 shooting and their families have been pressing the military to award the Purple Heart, and the benefits that come with it, for years.
They got a boost when Congress passed recent funding legislation requiring the Defense Department to reconsider whether the victims qualify for the honor. At the time, a lawyer for victims of the shooting and their families told Fox News that some victims are still so damaged physically and mentally they are unable to work five years after the massacre -- and the benefits that come with the Purple Heart would be a lifeline.
"No one will be the same," attorney Neal Sher told Fox News last month .
Fox News was first to report that the massacre -- in which 13 were killed and more than 30 wounded when former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire after shouting "Allahu Akbar" -- was classified as "workplace violence."
Further evidence has steadily emerged since the attack that Hasan was motivated by his extreme religious views and by the radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who, at the time, was a leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen.After his August 2013 conviction, Hasan told his lawyer, John Galligan, to release letters to Fox News in which Hasan pledged his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, and also wrote to Pope Francis about the virtues of Islam.
Sher told Fox News in January that there was stiff resistance to the new congressional language requiring a review of Purple Heart consideration. "The administration and the Pentagon," Sher explained, "they lobbied hard against it. But we worked very hard and we were successful in garnering bi-partisan support for this."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/06/army-to-award-purple-heart-to-fort-hood-victims/
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Three sources confirmed the decision, to be announced by next week. Victims of the 2009 shooting and their families have been pressing the military to award the Purple Heart, and the benefits that come with it, for years.
Well, as long as they finally got it right, what does it matter now?
Well deserved!
Yes, very well deserved!!
Right and wrong, and knowing the difference between them, matters.
I would imagine that it also matters to the dead soldiers' families as well.
Well deserved, and long overdue.
Better late than never ???
Undoubttedly....
Our Vets and their families deserve so much more that what they get....
They protect our country, and that's quite a responsibility. (to say nothing of the danger)
GOD BLESS OUT VETERANS! I come from a long line of military also, and proud of it...
That's for sure!!
Iti sure is!
This had to have been the longest time in history for Purple Hearts to be awarded. Awards for valor like the Medal of Honor or Silver Star, or the Navy Cross are given only after investigation and are on a discretionary basis. The Purple Heart is much more cut and dried. The recipient only needs to receive wounds at the hands of an enemy combatant.
Once Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" and claimed he was acting on behalf of his fellow Muslims in Afghanistan he became an enemy combatant regardless of the uniform he had worn the day before. The extended wait for these Purple Hearts was a disgrace by the U.S. Army and the Administration it serves.