Awaiting Trial, Maj. Nidal Hasan Paid
$278,000
By SCOTT FRIEDMAN
NBCDFW.com
updated 5/20/2013 11:16:42 PM ET
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51947575
The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused
Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000
since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army
said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be
suspended unless he is proven guilty.
If Hasan had been a civilian defense
department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have
suspended his pay after just seven days.
Personnel rules for most civilian
government workers allow for "indefinite suspensions" in cases "when the
agency has reasonable cause to believe that the employee has committed a
crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed."
Meanwhile, more than three years later
soldiers wounded in the mass shooting are fighting to receive the same
pay and medical benefits given to those wounded in combat.
Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a
reservist who, in 2009, was soon to be deployed to Iraq, was shot three
times when a gunman opened fire inside the Army Deployment Center.
“I honestly thought I was going to die
in that building,” said Burnett. “Just blood everywhere and then the
thought of -- that's my blood everywhere.”
Burnett nearly died. He's had more
than a dozen surgeries since the shooting, and says post-traumatic
stress still keeps him up at night.
Burnett is now fighting a new battle;
only this one is against the U.S. Army.
The Army has not classified the wounds
of the Ft. Hood victims as “combat related” and declines to label the
shooting a “terrorist attack”,
The “combat related” designation is an
important one, for without it Burnett and other shooting victims are not
given combat-related pay, they are not eligible for Purple Heart
retirement or medical benefits given to other soldiers wounded either at
war or during the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
As a result, Burnett, his wife Torey,
and the families of other Fort Hood victims miss out on thousands of
dollars of potential benefits and pay every year.
To Burnett the shooting felt like
combat.
“You take three rounds and lose five
good friends and watch seven other people get killed in front of you. Do
you have another term that we can classify that as?” asked Burnett.
The Army has categorized the shooting
as a case of “workplace violence.”
“Sickens me. Absolutely sickens me.
Workplace violence? I don't even know if I have the words to say,” said
Burnett.
"They don't need to be treated like
this. They don't need to sit and fight every day for this benefit or
that,” said Torey Burnett.
As that fight continues, Burnett was
stunned to see a letter detailing the more $278,000 Hasan has been paid
since his arrest. NBC 5 Investigates received the letter from the
Department of Defense in response to a request under the Freedom of
Information Act.
"There have been times when my wife
and I cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford gas in our car,” Burnett
said. “Literally, times where we ate Ramen noodles for weeks on end.
This [that Hasan is still earning a paycheck] makes me sick to my
stomach,” said Burnett.
Burnett isn’t alone in his outrage.
“We're giving the defendant in this
case every benefit of the doubt. But yet we're not giving the benefits
to the victims,” said Rep. Thomas Rooney (R) Florida Rooney, a former
prosecutor at Fort Hood, recently signed a bi-partisan letter urging
defense secretary Chuck Hagel to "...reclassify the victims' deaths and
injuries as 'combat related'..."
The letter said the current situation
has "...resulted in an embarrassing lack of care and treatment for the
victims and their families."
“What happened here is not a case of
workplace violence. What happened here was an attack on our military by
a terrorist element specifically targeting our military, which just so
happened to be in the United States of America,” said Rooney.
