The Army honored a fallen hero of the Ft. Hood Jihad Massacre with a medal yesterday. Not that the Army describes or even permits itself to understand the attack of November 5, 2009 that way. Maj. Nidal Hasan may have shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is great) as he fired, killing thirteen and wounding more than two dozen, may have been in touch with jihad cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and frequented jihadist websites, had business cards printed proclaiming himself to be a "SoA (SWT)" or "Soldier of Allah (Glory to Allah)," created and presented a full and frank brief for jihad by Muslims within the US Armed Services, but his action remains to this day a Total Mystery to the Army.

To wit:

"Although we may never know why it happened, we do know that heroic actions took place that day," Brig. Gen. Joseph DiSalvo said at the ceremony Monday afternoon in presenting the Secretary of the Army Award for Valor to Joleen Cahill, his widow. "He will forever be a source of inspiration."

With those words, the general stripped away all context from 62-year-old civilian Michael Grant Cahill's valorous act of charging Hasan with a chair as Hasan fired on the crowd, during which Cahill was himself slain. In honoring Cahill's courage, the general balked at its significance in Islam's war on the West. This omission takes nothing away from Cahill and his courageous, bold response to the horrific assault. It does, however, wrongly release the nation from its debt to him. In treating Hasan's rampage as no more purposeful than a flood or a cougar attack, the general renders Cahill's ultimate sacrifice to the most personal level; exemplary, admirable, but of no further consequence beyond the scene, outside the circle. This is morally wrong. It was the general's duty to place Cahill's death in perspective, to impress upon the rest of us that he died not only for his fellows, but in defense of our liberty, which is under jihad attack.

The general flinched. No surprise there. Ft. Hood was a war zone that day but, with few exceptions, neither our government nor our military has the courage to admit it.

Hasan, hours before the attack.