Tragedy in Texas

Thursday’s shootings at Fort Hood shocked many people who might not have previously thought about just what the ongoing war is doing to the young men and women we keep sending into battle. Nearly 4,400 of them have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thousands more have been injured in this war, which already has lasted longer than our entire involvement in World War II.

As was made clear Thursday, unknown numbers of others suffer emotional and other hidden scars.

The Rio Grande Valley was still grieving the recent loss of two of our soldiers in combat when the news came of the rampage that left more than a dozen people dead and 30 more injured at the Army base near Killeen. More than 500 Texas Army National Guard troops from the Valley had been sent there in September, in preparation for their deployment to Iraq, but already had moved on to Fort Bliss.

As of Friday the alleged shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, lay in a coma at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and investigators were trying to determine exactly what motivated him to raise arms against his fellow soldiers.

What has been disclosed so far could provide some clues. Hasan is a psychiatrist who has dealt with the stress of combat among his fellow soldiers. He apparently believed that the United States should not be fighting in the Middle East, and officials say he was scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan and didn’t want to go.

Just a few days earlier, the Army had disclosed that suicides among the military are climbing, and are linked to the stress of combat and repeated deployment. The rate has risen 37 percent since 2006. As of the end of October at least 134 active-duty soldiers had killed themselves, making it likely that the number will break last year’s record of 140.

We can only speculate, of course, what might have resulted if we had better planned the war and the U.S. Central Command had gotten the troops they requested — reportedly as many as 500,000. More of our troops would have gone into battle sooner, but that overwhelming force just might have shortened the duration and made repeated, long-term deployments unnecessary. As it stands, we remain locked in two campaigns where progress is slow, if at all, and our troops have been rotated in and out four times or even more. All that stress, as we are seeing with increasing frequency, is taking its toll on our fighting forces.

We never should have begun this extended military campaign. But once the decision was made, it should have been planned and executed at a level that ensured absolute, quick success.

We hope our troops never have to be sent into battle again. But if they must, we owe it to them — and to our country — to do the job right.