Death everywhere, and it never makes any sense.

We have insanity and death breaking out all over the country. It is violent, unreasoning, crazy homicidal violence that has a tendency to feed off of other crazy violence. It might be something like the New York City Police Department has always claimed…that murders break out during a full moon.

Could the violence at Fort Hood and the continuing violence overseas have an influence here? Far fetched? Maybe…or maybe not. Take a look and judge for yourself. Do these things occur in clusters?

First up we have a high school teacher who has been arrested for trying to arrange a contract murder, a "hit", on one of his sixteen year old students. That story is here as reported on AOL News.

Next up we have physician who is charged with murdering his nine year old son, a Catholic grammar school student. Here is that story as reported by CNN. What is it with doctors killing people lately?

CNN News also reports that two years ago Major Nidal Hasan, M.D., U.S. Army approached his Imam here in the D.C. area to help him in finding the doctor a loyal Muslim-American who would be his wife. This alleged Fort Hood mass murderer just gets more and more strange as I read about him. That story is here.

The Associated Press announced that a ninety year old former Nazi serving in Austria as an S.S. sergeant has been arrested for mass murders at that time in Austria.  Tha arrest was near his home in west Germany. He allegedly was a chief player in the mass killings of interned Jews in 1945. He says he does not remember the slayings. The story is here.

CNN News is reporting that a seven year old boy from El Paso, Texas has been shot and killed along with his father while visiting him in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. That story is here.

The Associated Press is reporting that an Air Force nurse, Captain Michael Fontana, goes on trial for allegedly killing three elderly patients while under his care. That story is here.

Military medicine sure seems to be different today than I remember it!  I don’t ever remember military and naval medical personnel being so much into murder as they seem to be now. Wow!

In this story from the Washington Post we find that a former Army Intelligence Officer has been put to death in Virginia tonight for the murder of a Virginia couple in 2001. He murdered the pair to impress an adult escort that he was enamored over! Here is that story.

Here is an excerpt from that article.

Larry "Bill" Elliott, 60, of Hanover, Md., was electrocuted in Virginia’s 101-year-old electric chair in the Greensville Correctional Center’s death chamber, just the fifth condemned inmate to choose that method of execution since the state introduced lethal injections in 1995. He was placed in the oak armchair and secured with leather straps at 8:58 p.m. After two 90-second cycles of electric current, Elliott was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m."

In other news, the Washington Post is now reporting that Americans are divided on what the President should do in Afghanistan. The story is here.

The Washington Post also reports today that the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, General Peter Chiarelli, reports that the suicide rate in the Army this year is the worst he has seen in his 37 years in the Army. This year 140 soldiers on active duty and another 71 soldiers not presently on active duty committed suicide. That story is here.

I don’t know, maybe it is just me.  But I would think that multiple tours of duty in a combat zone overseas while serving in two unpopular wars with no clear strategy and no end in sight might have something to do with this suicide problem among soldiers. 

I am going out on a limb here, but that is my take on this! 

The Associated Press is reporting in the Washington Post that both Iraq and Afghanistan are considered by international bodies to be two of the most corrupt governments on the planet. Great. That story is here.

This editorial in the Washington Post says that the GOP is giving hypocrisy a bad name! Here is that gem.

It is your duty as a veteran and a citizen to get informed and stay informed in order for you to meaningfully participate in government in this Republic.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)