PRESIDENT Barack Obama moved to reassure a nation shaken by the mass shooting on an army post in Texas yesterday by stating that the training designed to keep US forces safe abroad prevented further deaths and ended a rampage at Fort Hood.
Praising what he called the heroism that ended the rampage on the nation's largest army post, the president described the exchange that left 13 dead and 30 others wounded on Thursday as a tragedy.
In his weekly radio and internet address on the we
ekend before Veterans Day, Obama praised those who serve or have served in uniform and reminded the public of their diversity – a move designed to calm tensions around the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
"They are Americans of every race, faith and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers," Obama said. "They are descendants of immigrants and immigrants themselves.
"They reflect the diversity that makes this America. But what they share is a patriotism like no other."
Obama called for patience while officials piece together what happened.
There have been no updates on Maj Hasan's condition but the army has confirmed he is "unable to converse". Earlier it emerged he was stopped in his tracks by policewoman Kimberly Munley, who shot him four times, even though she had been shot herself.
President Obama used his weekly radio and internet address to praise Munley and other officers who stopped Hasan.
"We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing," he said. "But what we do know is that our thoughts are with every one of the men and women who were injured at Fort Hood. Our thoughts are with all the families who've lost a loved one in this national tragedy."
But Obama said while "we saw the worst of human nature on full display, we also saw the best of America."
"We saw soldiers and civilians alike rushing to aid fallen comrades, tearing off bullet-riddled clothes to treat the injured, using blouses as tourniquets, taking down the shooter even as they bore wounds themselves," he said.
"We saw soldiers bringing to bear on our own soil the skills they had been trained to use abroad – skills that have been honed through years of determined effort for one purpose and one purpose only: to protect and defend the United States of America."
Amid fears of a possible anti-Muslim backlash after the attack, Obama also stressed the multinational diversity in the US armed forces.
Japan's foreign ministry said Obama has delayed his visit to the country by a day and will now arrive on Friday 13 November.
It is thought the delay is to allow Obama to attend a memorial service for those killed.
But as the US continued to come to terms with what had happened, a Palestinian uncle of Hasan said that his nephew loved America and wanted to serve his country but that his work as a military psychiatrist had driven him to tears.
His uncle Rafik Hamad, 64, said that Hasan was emotionally shaken by his work treating US soldiers returning from war zones. Still, he said, Hasan wanted to serve his country because of the opportunities it had given him as an American.
"I think I saw him with tears in his eyes when he was talking about some of the patients, when they came overseas from the battlefield," Hamad said, speaking in halting English. "One has no face, one no legs." Hasan struggled to appear calm and unaffected to his patients, his uncle said.
He added that his nephew told him that he did not expect the work to be as stressful as it was and complained that it was too much to bear.
"He didn't have enough time to spend with all the patients... I think he couldn't handle it as he wanted to," Hamad said, speaking at his home near the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The army major was harassed by other soldiers because of his Muslim faith but was not angry, his uncle claimed. A cousin living in Ramallah also said Hasan complained of harassment. Hasan told his family of one incident in which people threw nappies at his house with the message "this is your head cover" written inside, a reference to the scarves and other head coverings that many Muslims traditionally wear.
Someone also vandalised Hasan's car, drawing a camel on the bodywork and scrawling across it the words "camel jockey" – a racist epithet for Arabs, Hamad said.
"He really wasn't angry; I didn't see anger.
"As a matter of fact I felt that he feels sympathy for them because they are ignorant and that's their level of understanding," Hamad said.
He said he last saw his nephew two years ago while on a visit to the US.
Hasan's parents died several years ago and he has a brother living in the West Bank town of El-Bireh and another in Virginia. Both siblings have kept silent over the incident, leaving more distant relatives to speak.
His uncle described Hasan as a conservative Muslim but not an extremist. He said he had few friends but hoped to get married.
The family last heard from Hasan about two weeks ago, when he told his 94-year-old maternal grandmother that he did not want to be deployed abroad with the military.
Hamad said he was still in "shock and denial" over the shooting.
"I don't think he could do that. At the same time, I don't know how to relay that to the victims and their families," he said. "I feel for them and I wish that (it had] never happened."
