The Ft. Hood Hero: Who is Kimberly Munley

That is what I like to see…People not afraid of being a hero.  I see countless stories of people who do the right thing and end up getting punished. I remember story about a women traped in a car after she crashed and fliped the car. The car was on fire and a guy who saw what happened went to help her and in the process got her out but broke her arm on accident.  The lady in turn sues the guy for breaking her arm after he goes and saves her life…People like this disgust me and make people of today want to ignore cries for help as they think they will be punished for helping someone.

IF YOU SEE SOMEONE WHO NEEDS HELP, YOU GO AND HELP THEM!!  If the person you save tries to sue you or punish you in anyway you contact me and I will post the entire story on my blog and have all my friends post the story on their blogs…A person who does a good thing and gets punished for it deserves for US (The people) to stand up and help our him/her out.

By HILARY HYLTON / KILLEEN Hilary Hylton / Killeen – Sun Nov 8, 9:00 am ET

The west side of Killeen, Texas is like countless other places in America’s heartland, freshly carved out of prairie pastures with wide streets in bucolic neighborhoods like “Sunflower Estates” and “Bridgewood.” But on a glorious cloudless fall day, the flags at the home sales center nearby are at half mast in honor of the 13 fallen at Ft. Hood, victims of a gunman whose deadly attack was stopped thanks to a petite, long-haired blonde mom from the neigborhood.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, a civilian Department of Defense police officer at the base, is credited with stopping the firing rampage of U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan at the Soldier Readiness Center within a few minutes after he launched his attack. The center is a quick five minute drive from Munley’s home, past the new strip centers and the high school football field along wide Cross Creek Boulevard, but a world away from the horrors inflicted in one of the worst incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence in U.S. Army history. (Read TIME’s report: “Stresses at Fort Hood Were Likely Intense for Hasan”)

Munley, described by neighbor Brooke Beato, as “very petite, with long blonde hair and a strong personality,” was credited by base officials with preventing further carnage by aggressively engaging Hasan as he shot at her. She rounded a corner, took aim at Hasan and brought him down, officials said. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said. It also was a tactic straight out of recent lessons learned from the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, when first responders waited for additional backup before engaging the shooter.

“She walked up and engaged him,” said Lt. Gen. Cone told Associated Press. As a member of the base Special Reaction Team, Munley had learned that “if you act aggressively to take out a shooter, you will have less fatalities,” Cone said.

Soon after Munley fired at Hasan, taking him down, she herself fell wounded and police radios quickly sent out an “Officer down” call. Wounded three times in the arm and leg, Munley is in stable condition after undergoing surgery Friday to repair damage to an artery. Base officials said she wishes she could have acted even faster and saved more lives, and she spent Thursday evening calling friends and colleagues, expressing those regrets.

While Thursday’s shooting sent a shockwave through the tight-knit Killeen community, Beato, whose husband is an Army captain, said she was not surprised when Munley’s name surfaced as the police officer who ended the shooting. “It was just like her – she carries herself with confidence,” Beato said.

Beato is a 30-year-old mother of four whose children often play with Munley’s daughters, ages 12 and 3, in the quiet cul-de-sac. “I couldn’t believe what happened, but when I heard what she did,” says Beato of her neighbor, “I believed that because of who she is – I know her.”

Munley, who worked as a police officer for five years in North Carolina where her father, Dennis Barbour, once served as mayor of Carolina Beach, is a talented shooter and member of the base’s Special Reaction Team which trains for the possibility of events like Thursday’s shooting rampage. She also is a passionate fan of Twitter and once news of her actions spread, her followers began to blossom in number – among them country singer Dierks Bentley who posed for a photo with the petite police officer at the fort’s annual July Fourth FreedomFest. The photo is posted on her Twitter page along with a brief biographical quote: “I live a good life…a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully at night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.”

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UPDATE: Did Army Give Hasan a Pass Over Muslim Religion?

I don’t have much to say, just wanted to give you all an update on the situation.

By MARK THOMPSON / WASHINGTON Mark Thompson / Washington – Tue Nov 10, 4:50 pm ET

As officials continue to investigate the alleged Fort Hood killer, it is looking increasingly likely that the Army missed several red flags in Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s behavior. Many observers say it wouldn’t be surprising if such signals had been missed, given that Hasan was a psychiatrist whom the Army desperately needed to help tend to the mental wounds of two wars. But at the same time, some members of the military are quietly discussing the more troubling possibility that the Army looked the other way precisely because Hasan was Muslim. (See pictures of the Fort Hood shootings.)

Army officials strongly deny any suggestion that Hasan’s religion resulted in his being given special treatment. But one officer who attended the Pentagon’s medical school with Hasan disagrees. “He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Shari’a law above the Constitution,” this officer recalls. When fellow students asked, “How can you be an officer and hold to the Constitution?,” the officer says, Hasan would “get visibly upset – sweaty and nervous – and had no good answers.” This medical doctor would speak only anonymously because his commanders have ordered him not to talk about Hasan, he says.

This officer says he was so surprised when Hasan gave a talk about “the war on terror being a war on Islam” that he asked the lieutenant colonel running the course what Hasan’s presentation had to do with health care. “I raised my hand and asked, ‘Why are you letting this go on – this has nothing to do with environmental health.’ The course director said, ‘I’m just going to let him go.’ ” The topic of Hasan’s presentation, the officer says, had been approved in advance by the lieutenant colonel.

The officer says he and a colleague complained to staff at the Uniformed University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., but got nowhere: “It was a systemic problem – the same thing was happening at Walter Reed,” the Army medical center several miles away, where Hasan was working as a psychiatrist. (The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Hasan gave a similar presentation at Walter Reed in which he said Muslims should be released as conscientious objectors rather than forced into combat against fellow Muslims.) But “political correctness” inside the military, the officer asserts, insulated Hasan. “People are afraid to come forward and challenge somebody’s ideology,” he says, “because they’re afraid of getting an equal-opportunity complaint that can end careers.”

A retired four-star officer says that, on the basis of the evidence gleaned so far, it was Hasan’s career that should have been cut short. “They could have given him a dishonorable discharge and said what he’s doing works against good order and discipline,” says the general, who also requested anonymity. But rather than it being a matter of giving preferential treatment to Hasan because of his religion, “my guess is he fell through the cracks,” the general says.

Whether he fell through the cracks or was cut slack because of concerns about appearing to impinge on his religious freedom will be a focus of the investigations under way. “The Army was just under such pressure that they planned to send him to Afghanistan,” says Lawrence Korb, Pentagon personnel chief during the Reagan Administration. But Korb says he’s perplexed by reports that Hasan received poor evaluations and still got promoted. “That tells me the Army didn’t do its job,” he says – though he attributes that to the unrelenting demand to keep mental-health professionals on duty rather than to Hasan’s religion.

But Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who now writes military books and a newspaper column, contends that Hasan’s religion protected him from punitive action by the Army, a view shared privately by many in uniform. While stressing “there shouldn’t be witch hunts” against Muslims in uniform, Peters insists “this guy got a pass because he was a Muslim, despite the Army’s claim that everybody’s green and we’re all the same.”

Congress is already beginning to look into why an Army psychiatrist who reportedly had to be counseled against sharing his antiwar views with soldiers back from combat could have possibly been promoted in May. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said on Monday that he will hold a hearing next week to see “whether the government missed warning signs that should have led to [Hasan's] expulsion” before he killed 13 people on the Texas post last Thursday. Hasan’s former classmate, for one, says he wasn’t surprised to see Hasan’s face flash across his television screen. “After the shock,” he says, “the first thing that went through my mind was, Hey, I remember everything this guy said.”

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UPDATE: Lawyer asks investigators not to question Hasan

As title says, just an update to the post below this one…Enjoy!

KILLEEN, Texas – A lawyer for the Army psychiatrist accused in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood said Monday he asked investigators not to question his client and expressed doubt that the suspect would be able to get a fair trial, given the widespread attention to the case.

Retired Col. John P. Galligan said he was contacted Monday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s family and was headed to an Army hospital in San Antonio to meet Hasan.

“Until I meet with him, it’s best to say we’re just going to protect all of his rights,” Galligan said.

Hasan, 39, is accused of opening fire on the Army post on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before civilian police shot him in the torso. He was taken into custody and eventually moved to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he was in stable condition Monday and able to talk, hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said.

Galligan said he didn’t know if Hasan had been medically cleared to talk.

“There’s a lot of facts that still need to be developed, and the time for that will come in due course,” he said.

Authorities won’t say when charges would be filed or if Hasan would face military justice.

Galligan questioned whether Hasan could get a fair trial in either criminal or military court, given President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the base on Tuesday and public comments by the post commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone.

“You’ve got his commander in chief showing up tomorrow,” Galligan said. “That same kind of publicity naturally creates an issue as to whether you find a fair and impartial forum, whether that’s in the military or even if it were in a federal forum.”

Authorities say Hasan fired off more than 100 rounds at a soldier processing center. Fifteen victims remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and eight were in intensive care.

Authorities continue to refer to Hasan as the only suspect in the rampage, but they have said they have not determined a motive. A spokesman for Army investigators did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment Monday.

A radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers praised Hasan as a hero as a hero on his personal Web site Monday.

The posting on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the Fort Hood attack are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to “follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

“Nidal Hassan (sic) is a hero,” Awlaki said. “He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Two U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press the Web site was Awlaki’s. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence collection. Awlaki did not immediately respond to an attempt to contact him through the Web site.

Hasan’s family attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki was preaching in 2001. Hasan’s mother’s funeral was held at the mosque on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper, around the same time two 9/11 hijackers worshipped at the mosque and while Awlaki was preaching.

The Falls Church mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at Dar al Hijrah, said he did not know whether Hasan ever attended the mosque but confirmed that the Hasan family participated in services there. Abdul-Malik said the Hasans were not leaders at the mosque and their attendance was normal.

Fort Hood officials said the country’s largest military installation was moving forward with the business of soldiering. The building where Hasan allegedly opened fire remains a crime scene, but a processing center is scheduled to reopen Thursday in a new, temporary location.

Command Sgt. Maj. Arthur L. Coleman Jr. said Monday that reopening the center is an important step in returning the Army post to normal. Cone said the post stepped up security, including suspending visits by the public, largely to reassure the population that the sprawling base is safe and won’t “become a battlefield.”

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Hospital: Ft. Hood shooting suspect awake, talking

I’m glad the guy is awake so now we can find out what happened.  I just feel bad that so many people had to die…I hope people don’t think of Islamic people now after what Hasan did. Well, the story is below.