Saturday, April 12, 2014

Obama and Victims of 2009 Fort Hood Attack

When Obama was at Fort Hood earlier this week, before he went to campaign fundraisers, he refused to meet with a victim of the 2009 terrorist attack at Fort Hood.

From ABC News:

As President Obama spoke of old "wounds” at Fort Hood this week, the White House declined a request from a survivor of the 2009 massacre there to meet with Obama for a few minutes so the veteran could explain face-to-face how he believes the government has mistreated and disrespected the victims of that attack.

Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford (ret.) was shot seven times in November 2009 when Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 people. Despite Hasan’s admission that he carried out the attack on behalf of the Taliban and revelations that he had been in contact with high-profile al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, the Department of Defense has refused to classify the shooting as “terrorism,” which the survivors claim in lawsuit against the government has meant they’ve been denied Purple Hearts and combat-related benefits afforded to victims of other terrorist attacks.

“As you may know, the President and high-ranking members of the military promised me, my family and the other Fort Hood terror attack survivors that the federal government would 'make them whole.' After more than four and one-half years, however, the government has yet to make good on this promise,” Lunsford wrote to Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough a day before Obama's visit. “We believe that if the President could hear, first-hand, our plight and our mistreatment at the hands of his bureaucracy, that he would take the steps needed to set things right. Therefore, we ask for ten minutes of his time.”

The White House had announced days before that the President would be coming to Fort Hood this week to honor three people who were killed in another shooting earlier this month – this one carried out by an Army specialist with “mental health issues” who purportedly became enraged after an employee wouldn’t give him a leave of absence form.

“Part of what makes this so painful is that we’ve been here before,” Obama said at Fort Hood Wednesday, standing at a podium behind the boots, rifles and helmets of the three fallen, arranged in the same manner as 13 others in 2009. “This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago. Once more soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home, where they’re supposed to be safe.”

Though he spoke of figurative wounds from 2009, Obama did not meet with Lunsford, who suffered actual wounds that day.
This is absolutely disgraceful. It's just sick.

Obama and his administration once again hit a new low.

Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford isn't the only Fort Hood victim Obama has betrayed. Sgt. Kimberly Munley is also speaking out.

From ABC News:

Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.

"Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

"Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."

There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.

...Munley and dozens of other victims have now filed a lawsuit against the military alleging the "workplace violence" designation means the Fort Hood victims are receiving lower priority access to medical care as veterans, and a loss of financial benefits available to those who injuries are classified as "combat related."

Some of the victims "had to find civilian doctors to get proper medical treatment" and the military has not assigned liaison officers to help them coordinate their recovery, said the group's lawyer, Reed Rubinstein.

"There's a substantial number of very serious, crippling cases of post-traumatic stress disorder exacerbated, frankly, by what the Army and the Defense Department did in this case," said Rubinstein. "We have a couple of cases in which the soldiers' command accused the soldiers of malingering, and would say things to them that Fort Hood really wasn't so bad, it wasn't combat."

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said the Department of Defense is "committed to the highest care of those in our military family."
Yeah, right.
...Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, say they will introduce legislation to force the military and the Obama administration to give the wounded and dead the recognition and honors they deserve.

"It was clearly an act of terrorism that occurred that day, there's no question in my mind," McCaul told ABC News. "I think the victims should be treated as such."
The Obama administration insists on calling the terrorist attack carried out by Hasan "workplace violence."

That is disgusting, given that Hasan carried out the massacre for al Qaeda and was shouting "Allahu Akbar" when he murdered members of our military.

Obama had time to run to fundraisers but he wouldn't agree to meet with a victim of the 2009 attack.

Absolutely disgraceful.


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