--- title: Neglecting Fort Hood Survivors Is a National Disgrace description: Too many survivors don't have access to the benefits they need canonical: https://time.com/4294106/fort-hood-survivors/ author: Kathy Platoni article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-19T19:39:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:55:53.265Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Neglecting Fort Hood Survivors Is a National Disgrace og:description: Too many survivors don't have access to the benefits they need og:url: https://time.com/4294106/fort-hood-survivors/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1a903ef98e255e2/69888f24524fc01079df7951/fort-hood2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: Soldiers listen to the US national anthem during a memorial service at Fort Hood in Texas on April 9, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Neglecting Fort Hood Survivors Is a National Disgrace twitter:description: Too many survivors don't have access to the benefits they need twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1a903ef98e255e2/69888f24524fc01079df7951/fort-hood2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Neglecting Fort Hood Survivors Is a National Disgrace > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=854176a3-2735-4d5c-9cf7-d44cd06966f7&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Obama Reacts to Mass Shootings Over the Years [Watch (HLS stream): Obama Reacts to Mass Shootings Over the Years](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/jAka99M0.m3u8) (2:02)  _Published 2016-01-04_ by [Kathy Platoni](https://time.com/author/kathy-platoni/) ## Kathy Platoni Apr 19, 2016 7:39 PM UTC  Soldiers listen to the US national anthem during a memorial service at Fort Hood in Texas on April 9, 2014. Soldiers listen to the US national anthem during a memorial service at Fort Hood in Texas on April 9, 2014. Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images by [Kathy Platoni](https://time.com/author/kathy-platoni/) ## Kathy Platoni Apr 19, 2016 7:39 PM UTC Nearly seven years after the national tragedy of the Fort Hood massacre, little has changed. Despite the unveiling of the magnificent [memorial](http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/-Dedication-set-for-memorial-to-victims-of-Fort-Hood-shooting-rampage-371799602.html) in Killeen, Texas, on March 11 to pay tribute to the wounded and the fallen, this catastrophic event and its victims have been largely forgotten. Thirteen innocents lost their lives and more than 30 were wounded that day, gunned down by a self-proclaimed radical jihadist who advocated for the burnings and beheadings of his fellow soldiers. It is long past due time for the truth to be disseminated across the land: The Fort Hood Massacre was unequivocally and indisputably an act of [terrorism](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/at-fort-hood-wrestling-with-label-of-terrorism.html). The Army prosecuted the shooter on murder charges, not terrorism ones, and considered it the act of a disgruntled employee, even though the shooter had [messaged](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/at-fort-hood-wrestling-with-label-of-terrorism.html) with a member of al-Qaeda before the attack. Neglecting to call the massacre terrorism meant that it took almost six years for the U.S. to award Purple Heart medals to the victims and the families of the fallen. They were only awarded these medals last April after Congress [broadened](http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/604063) the requirements for recipients to include attacks where “the individual or entity was in communication with the foreign terrorist organization before the attack.” At that time, Secretary of the Army John McHugh [agreed](http://www.army.mil/article/146546/McHugh%5Forders%5Fbenefits%5Fbe%5Fprovided%5Fto%5FPurple%5FHeart%5Frecipients/) to grant special compensations to the wounded in action and the families of those killed in action. To date, many of these endowments have yet to be provided in full. Furthermore, these special compensations will pathetically never be paid retroactively to the date of the Fort Hood massacre, but only to the date of the Purple Heart ceremony. Some of the wounded have been obtaining medical treatment on their own dime, desperately trying to restore themselves to health and to find their way back to any degree of normalcy. And then there are the psychological wounds, which often remain unspoken and are often unlikely to ever heal. [Joshua Berry](http://www.msnbc.com/news-nation/father-fort-hood-victim-seeks-justice), a survivor of the massacre, suffered from post-traumatic stress and committed suicide in 2013.The Army should have [done more](http://www.msnbc.com/news-nation/father-fort-hood-victim-seeks-justice) to help him and others like him. How much longer it will take for full benefits and entitlements to be delivered remains an unknown, egregious neglect. During the State of the Union Address in January of 2010, President Barack Obama, in front of God and country, promised SGT [Kimberly Munley](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fort-hood-hero-obama-betrayed-victims/story?id=18465024), one of two civilian police officers to apprehend the shooter, that all of the wounded, herself included, would be fully restored to wellbeing. Munley, who was laid off due to budget cuts, has since said she has felt “[betrayed](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/04/how-the-army-screwed-the-hero-of-fort-hood.html)” by how the Army treated the survivors. For shame, America. We cannot afford to endure in downplaying the dangers inherent in these United States, as enemies rage within our borders and the escalating threat of radical jihadism produces no significant response. Nor can we ignore those who live the warrior ethos to protect and defend, and who make a solemn promise to willingly lay down their lives for every citizen of this nation and the freedoms we once cherished. Failing to do so constitutes a national disgrace. ## Transcript It's a crime that would have horrified us had its victims been Americans of any background. But it's all the more heartbreaking and all the more despicable because the place where it occurred and the patriots who were its victims. Those who have been injured, we are rooting for them. And I know Gabby is as tough as they come. And I am hopeful that she is going to pull through. We may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. Such violence, such evil, is senseless. The majority of those who died today were children. Beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. We are confronting yet another mass shooting, and today it happen on a military installation in our nation's capital. Our thoughts and prayer were, are with the entire community. And we are gonna do everything we can to make sure that the community at Fort Hood has what it needs to deal with the current situation. There is something particularly heart breaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace. And you see peace. Somehow this has become routine. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] The reporting is routine, my response here at this podium ends up being routine. We've become numb to this. We have a pattern now of, of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world and there's some steps we could take not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings but to improve the odds that they don't happen as frequently. 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