Americans were aghast in November 2009 when a dozen soldiers and a civilian were gunned down at Fort Hood, Texas, and dozens more were injured in the shooting.
Then there was disbelief when it was learned that the suspect was not some foreign terrorist who had slipped into the United States, but rather, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Hasan was an Army psychiatrist who authorities say had developed ties with radical Muslims prior to the attack on our troops.
Now, Fort Hood again has apparently been targeted -- though the planned attack was stopped before it could be carried out.
Another Muslim U.S. soldier has been arrested on suspicion of planning a bombing of some sort on Fort Hood. Authorities say he confessed to planning an attack, and that he had weapons in the motel room where he was arrested this week. The motel was only three miles from the main gate of the base.
The suspect, Pfc. Naser Abdo, had earlier been granted conscientious objector status over his opposition to being deployed to Afghanistan. He was going to be discharged, but that was delayed when dozens of images of child pornography allegedly were found on his computer. He was then going to face a court-martial, Army officials said, but he went AWOL from his own Army base, Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
He was arrested this week in Texas, however, when a clerk at a gun store near Fort Hood fortunately alerted authorities that he was suspicious when Abdo came to his store.
What should be clear from the plots and actual attacks on U.S. soil in recent years is that the terrorist threat to our nation is far from over, and we dare not let down our guard.