BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By James Dao Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist. But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim , he told relatives in Virginia. He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan. “He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him o...

Pakistan – Seemingly never-ending tales of terror abound in Swat, where the military has fought against the Taliban for years and where parents speak of being forced to surrender young boys to the militants who train them to become suicide bombers. The scars may take years to heal for Hamad Ahmad, one of many Pakistani boys purportedly brainwashed by the Taliban and determined to enact maximum carnage as a suicide bomber. His mind trained on violence and his heart full of God, Ahmad says he wants to carry a pistol and strap explosives to his body in the name of Islamic law -- not hold books and wear school uniform. "I am ready to carry out a suicide attack against any target with approval of my ameer (chief)," said 15-year-old Hamad, who claimed he received 40 days of training from the Taliban after being snatched last year. Hamad, who talked to AFP by telephone from Qambar village in Swat, is now among a group of teenagers being treated by military psychiatrists in the wa...

ROMPER BOMPER STOMPER BOOM! When I was little ( or as I tell my kids, 'back when dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth ') I used to watch a show on our family's black & white set ( it was one of those tvs put in a HUGE wooden cabinet ) called ROMPER ROOM. ROMPER ROOM was locally filmed but had a nationwide theme. That is, every host of Romper Room and its shows were local. If you went to Chicago, St. Louis, Tucson, Bowie, Walla Walla or wherever, they had their Romper Room. I'd wait for host to pull out the "magic mirror" and say "I see Barbara..." I never heard any unusual names. But this was the 50s and 60s. "All of the hosts, many former kindergarten teachers, spent the half-hour reading from books to the seven or eight kids on the set, teaching the alphabet, manners and values in a gentle way." But Palestinian terrorists think nothing of using their own progeny as bombs. Their magic mirror is a ...

Israeli Fathers Find Unique Ways to Remember Their Children Killed by Suicide Bomber Children Died March 5, 2003 in Attack on Haifa Bus (For Contact Information - Scroll Down) Wherever Yossi Zur travels, he brings back a stone to place on the grave of his teenage son Asaf. Zur, who lives in Israel's northern port city of Haifa, is one of three parents who have found unique ways of keeping alive the memories of their children who were murdered by a suicide bomber. Asaf, 16, Tal Kehrmann,17, and Yuval Mendellevich, 13, were among 17 people killed on March 5, 2003 when a suicide bomber boarded the bus they were riding and detonated an explosives belt packed with 37.4 pounds (17 kilograms) of explosives. [1] Of the dead, 12 were younger than 21. Another 53 people were wounded in the attack. [2] Were he alive today, Asaf would be celebrating his 21st birthday on April 27 and finishing his compulsory military service. And like most young Israeli men seeking a respite after three years of...