Another bloody intersection of sorts also occurred this week, that of Muslims in the United States Army.
While I don't want to paint the entire religious sect with a red brush, it does seem a troubling — but not altogether surprising — situation.
One man was executed this week, the other has seemingly assured his future one.
Seven years ago, the Washington, D.C., area was terrorized by a former soldier who had converted to Islam before joining the service in 1985. After a tumultuous few years a number of events transformed John Allen Muhammad into a killer of civilians and a svengali to a malleable young man who would be his accomplice.
John Allen Muhammad was executed Tuesday in Virginia.
Just a few hours earlier, President Obama led the mourning at Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 pepole serving the military died from the muzzle blasts of [allegedly] Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a devout Muslim. Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, had apparently been sending signals for years of his discomfort of having Muslims sent to kill {as well as protect} other Muslims.
Hasan was born in Arlington, Virginia — across the river from D.C. As the details of his life continue to surface, ensuing questions only seem to underscore the conflict which Hasan could not come to terms with: he was boxed in and snapped.
But again, we can't be nailing down profiles too quickly here. After all, the worst act of Army-tinged home-grown terror came from Timothy McVeigh. After a Roman Catholic upbringing, McVeigh apparently shed his religion in favor of "natural law" and found that the Army "taught him how to switch off his emotions." How handy.
Along with an old Army buddy, Terry Nichols, they murdered 168 men, women and children because those innocent people happened to be in a federal government building on a busy weekday.
So while it might make it easy for us to blame the horrors of Muhammad and Hasan on their religious backgrounds, it may be a little tougher to think about what our own Army is doing to our own people.
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