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Survivor Corps Blog

Scott Quilty Responds to the Attack at Fort Hood
Nov 09, 2009

On Sunday, November 8, the Washington Post published the following op-ed by Scott Quilty, coordinator of the Campaign for Healthy Homecoming at Survivor Corps.

War is violent, of course. In Iraq's "triangle of death" in 2006, I stepped on an improvised explosive device and lost my arm and my leg. That kind of violence is easy for people to grasp. But how do families and our nation comprehend what happened at Fort Hood?

My wife, like me an Army captain, serves as an occupational therapist. Her job is to rehabilitate the injured, physically and mentally.

Friends ask me if I worry that she will deploy. I used to say, no, not at all. She's in the medical corps, it's an entirely different job. It's much safer.

But after the tragedy at Fort Hood, and the May shooting at the Baghdad combat stress unit, it's clear that no matter your role in the military, we all struggle with war's effects.

Lots of people confided in Dr. Hasan, and as a caregiver his job included the high doses of trauma which probably led him to a very dark place. He never went to Iraq, but the war came to him.

Photo by Kristen Holden

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