Who shot the killer at Fort Hood?

Eventually ballistics testing should determine this, but it's interesting just how much publicity was derived from the gender of the shooter. (Of course, whether or not she managed to take out the gunman she does still deserve kudos for courage.)

Shortly after the massacre at Fort Hood, newspaper accounts were full of the heroism of Sgt. Kimberly Munley who, so they said, had taken on the alleged shooter almost single-handedly, was injured by him, but immobilized him with a shot to the torso. I reported on what looked like accurate descriptions of the incident.

The results of ballistics tests are not yet in, and they will definitively tell whose shot it was that took down Nidal Malik Hasan. But it now looks like the military was having us on...again. Read about it here (New York Times, 11/12/09).

In earlier reports, Sgt. Mark Todd was mentioned, but only as a sort of backup to Sgt. Munley. Now it's beginning to look like it was he who shot Hasan. Todd has been interviewed and, with Munley, appeared on Oprah Winfrey's television show to give his account of what happened. More important, his account is corroborated by that of an eye witness to the shooting.

... If it turns out to have been Sgt. Todd, this case of military disinformation will still not be as egregious as it was in the Jessica Lynch case. There they concocted an entire Rambo scenario in which Lynch fearlessly fought off Iraqi attackers before succumbing to serious injuries. The truth turned out to be that she had been injured in a motor vehicle accident and had never fired her weapon. Her care at the Iraqi hospital was so good it included a nurse singing to her. Lynch herself criticized the military for its fraudulent invention of her heroism.

- Source: Glenn Sacks blog