Force protection

To Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his swift action on the recommendations of the interim report on the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting. Gates directed the Pentagon to immediately implement 26 recommendations from “Protecting the force: Lessons learned from Fort Hood” — in their entirety. These include the immediate expansion of the eGuardian threat reporting system for suspicious activity throughout the Defense Department and deployment of a system that allows the sharing of law enforcement data. Had these and other best practices recommended by the interim report been in place earlier, the chain of telltale signs leading up to the Nov. 5 shooting spree may have been spotted, linked and acted upon.