come forward, and so, i think this was more serious mental health disorder, and access to guns, as jack jacobsported, colonel jacobs. he was not yet -- they had not made the determination whether he did or did not have ptsd. but, you know, we're talking about this, and colonel jacobs, there was a stunning study in the "washington post" that's been taking place of a large survey they did of military veterans. and, boy, we certainly have an issue going forward that this is going to be a challenge for the military over the next ten years, particularly the v.a., when dealing with a military that was stretched so thin, dealing with two wars over a decade. >> yeah. general mccaffrey is correct, you don't actually have to be in combat to suffer some form of stress, but it's interesting to note that both of us are acquainted with very large numbers of people who were in actual armed combat, in threat of imminent death or injury, many, many times over a long period of time, and most of them are just fine. indeed, general mccaffrey and i were down at ft. bening, georgia, a couple of weeks ago on a panel

hood and two american heros, colonel jack jacobs and general barry mccaffrey., was quite heavy. we saw a lot of people in tears. describe the mood as you felt it? >> very somber and very sad here this afternoon as we say good-bye to these three soldiers and pledge support to their families. the president speaking before the crowd of soldiers, their families and dignitaries saying even in your grief as your hearts break, we see in you that eternal truth, love never ends. these three soldiers were family men. they had wives, fiancees, children, people who loved and cared about them and who were frantically dialing their cell phones that horrible afternoon, just one week ago, waiting for them to pick up, willing for them to answer the phone and never ever getting that answer. it's an eerie remembrance of five years ago when the same thing happened, nadal hassan shooting 13, wounding more than 30 here in 2009 and now another tragedy, another rampage here among this tight knit military community. the president also spoke about the importance that as a nation, we nee

. >> joining us now by phone, msnbc military analyst colonel jack jacobs. jack, i want to get your reaction to this in effect lightning striking twice in the same place. >> yeah, well, the two cases didn't have very much to do with one another, except in so far as they're both at ft. hood and perhaps that this shooter may have had a history which should have led his chain of command to anticipate this kind of action. >> what do you think was in that history? what do we know about it now that would have suggested they should watch him? >> well, nothing in particular, but it's important to keep in mind these people lived together and they worked together. they're together all the time. they're extremely close. both physically and focused on achieving a variety of tasks all together. they spend lots and lots of time together than people normally spend when they're at work. and the chain of command is responsible for keeping their eye on absolutely everybody. and identifying when somebody might have a problem. it's difficult to envision if somebody did -- if thi

. >> joining us now by phone, msnbc military analyst colonel jack jacobs. jack, i want to get your reaction to this in effect lightning striking twice in the same place. >> yeah, well, the two cases didn't have very much to do with one another, except in so far as they're both at ft. hood and perhaps that this shooter may have had a history which should have led his chain of command to anticipate this kind of action. >> what do you think was in that history? what do we know about it now that would have suggested they should watch him? >> well, nothing in particular, but it's important to keep in mind these people lived together and they worked together. they're together all the time. they're extremely close. both physically and focused on achooeing a variety of tasks all together. they spend lots and lots of time together than people normally spend when they're at work. and the chain of command is responsible for keeping their eye on absolutely everybody. and identifying when somebody might have a problem. it's difficult to envision if somebody did -- if thi

. >> joining us now by phone, msnbc military analyst colonel jack jacobs. jack, i want to get your reaction to this in effect lightning striking twice in the same place. >> yeah, well, the two cases didn't have very much to do with one another, except in so far as they're both at ft. hood and perhaps that this shooter may have had a history which should have led his chain of command to anticipate this kind of action. >> what do you think was in that history? what do we know about it now that would have suggested they should watch him? >> well, nothing in particular, but it's important to keep in mind these people lived together and they worked together. they're together all the time. they're extremely close. both physically and focused on achooeing a variety of tasks all together. they spend lots and lots of time together than people normally spend when they're at work. and the chain of command is responsible for keeping their eye on absolutely everybody. and identifying when somebody might have a problem. it's difficult to envision if somebody did -- if thi

i'm going to be interested to know, however, as colonel jack jacobs said, this young man served someyears in the national guard and four more as an enlisted active duty serviceman. he only ranked to an e4. that's a corporal in the army. that's a relatively low rank. he didn't even make sergeant in all of those years. i've got to wonder when they say there are no behavioral issues on his record, i've got to know what was holding him back from the natural career progression. were there issues that his commanding officer saw beforehand that maybe they did not document. i've got to believe that someone somewhere saw some issue with this young man before this took place. so we've got to look at ourselves and see how we manage our men and women who are serving in harm's way or even on our military installations to understand what's going on with them, to prevent actions just like this. >> you know, to that point, you wrote a piece for the huffington piece about something called moral injuries. in being able to evaluate the people under someone's command. can you talk a little bit about tha

army colonel jack jacobs, medal of honor recipient.'s pick up with the news just been made here. the increased sanctions now on russia on vladamir putin. do we think at this point that additional sanctions are going to make a great deal of difference with regard to the conflict in eastern ukraine specifically? >> most people would be surprised if it does have an impact. they're already getting squeezed a bit, the economien russia is on a slide. -- a bit, the economy in russia is on a slide. friends of putin, will not have any positive impact on the outcome. >> there is very little doubt in anybody's mind that putin's objection is to take over as much of eastern ukraine as it can possibly get away with. he also understands that except for the economic instrument of power, there is not much else the united states is going to do -- and that indeed to use the economic instrument of power we will have to have concurrence of the european union who is, peter mentioned, is a little bit reluctant to get involved. because their economies are ine

. >> colonel jack jacobs, thank you so much. dr. calabrese, thank you as well for your information. thank you, sir. >>> president obama blasting republicans challenging democrats on the idea of raising the minimum wage. the president says next week when there's a vote, they can talk the talk or walk the walk. >> you've got a choice. you can give america the shaft or you can give it a raise. >> also, a flight forced to be diverted and make an emergency landing when the plane experiences a problem with its hydraulic system. one of the store stories we're following. >>> and have you heard about this? major outrage after a couple of talk radio hosts including boomer esiason slammed one of the all-star players after he missed the opening after deciding to be at his wife's side for the birth of his child. >> this is what makes our money. be at opening day. i'm sorry. >> do they deserve an apology? >> our "news nation" gut check. join our conversation on twitter. find me @tamron hall. [ amy ] when you're tossing and turning and can't sleep an ounce, wash in sweet dreams with tide, downy, a

i am joined by colonel jack jacobs with me on set as we await the president.i mean, these times are obviously difficult for all americans but especially difficult for the military community. >> yeah. military communities are unlike anything else in the united states except very, very small towns. most people know each other, even in big places like ft. hood and ft. bragg and fort lewis. they've run across each other time and time again. units now are deployed together, they're not individual replacements. they're unit replacements. so when somebody -- when a unit gets deployed overseas the family stays back at the post. they're all very, very close. there's a lot of shared grief and shared worry when the men and women are out fighting and shared joy when they come back. so even though this is basically a city of 150, 200,000 people it still acts like a small town. anything that happens is felt across the post. >> yeah. a small town where uniquely people understand your experience because unlike probably any other small city people could live in, people have be

let me bring in msnbc military ant lift and medal of honor recipient retired colonel jack jacobs and nbc analyst and former fbi agent and criminal pro filer chris van zandt. good to see both of you. we learned a little more about the 34-year-old shooter army specialist ivan lopez. he was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder. treated for depression and anxiety. when you look at what we know about this record, clint, how does this fit into were his overall profile? >> part of what we heard this morning, too, chris, was that the alleged shooter was a truck driver. he was deployed for four months, that there's no record of him having been wounded. eve even though he self-reported a traumatic brain injury, there's no information to substantiate that, but, chris, we know that unfortunately there is a significant percentage of our military who has either considered or who actually commit suicide due to some type of mental disorder, mental illness. of course, what we're going to be looking at right now is saying, was this a soldier who went unaddressed, or as you just said, sin

joining me now by phone is jack jacobs.obs, the president just spoke moments ago, he talked about the sense of safety that's been broken once again on a military base where men and women are serving with valor and distinction. your thoughts in the immediate hours following this shooting? do we have you colonel jack? >> let's go back to john. in terms of how the fbi manages these -- you say they get hundreds of these kinds of notices, be on the lookouts, the threats that they have to run aground. did it surprise you that they were so immediately dismissive of any linkage between what happened today and the threat they received just days ago? >> it's hard to say because i'm not privy to the inside information, it seems like early on they were able to say that the two were not related. but that doesn't -- obviously the fbi's going to be looking into this situation at ft. hood with the military, with to try to figure out what was the ultimate motive of this thing? and it does not appear to be terrorism related. it looks at this

i want to bring in msnbc military analyst jack jacobs. good to see you, jack. >> good morning, chris. >> a lot of similarities have been drawn between this and 2009, a shooting also at ft. hood. there have been a number of reviews done. bottom line is, just two weeks ago defense secretary chuck hagel said there are troubling gaps in the ability to protect service members and employees on bases from internal threats. >> yeah. it's a multifarious problem. you have people in the military in uniform and you have to be able to identify them when they have problems, identify them quickly, and treat them or take them out of the population. that can't be done quickly. it's difficult to identify them. it's even more difficult and time consuming to treat them and get rid of them if you need to get rid of them. >> and you have this enormous base, 50,000 people on there on any given day. in addition to that, like almost any military base, you constantly have people, at least over the last decade or so, who are either leaving for deployment from a war

chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski and jack jacobs, medal of honor recipient. what is the latest information about the suspected shooter and of course the victims? >> reporter: well, good afternoon, andrea, the army and fbi are continuing their investigation into why this man loaded a gun and came on to post and began shooting his fellow soldiers. part of that investigation involves the gun itself. it was a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun purchased a few weeks ago from a local gun store here. it should be pointed out, it's the same gun store that major nidal hasan bought his weapon of choice along with two lasers pointers here at the base. the gun store owner says he has cooperated with the fbi and turned over documents and records of the purchase to fbi and they are going over those documents at this hour. the shooter is 34 years old and married and has a daughter who's about 3 years old and lives in an apartment complex near the post. nbc news reached out to the spouse who we believe to be the spouse of the soldier and she had no comment and said she was ve

joining me, colonel jack jacobs, a medal of honor recipient. your sense of 13 years.t, treasure. does it all come down to this, the election, to giver us the worthiness of all that we've invested? >> actually yes. it does. it comes down to this election. all three of the candidates who, one of whom will get electied, all of them said they hawill si the security agreement. >> they're all front-runners. >> if not, we have problems. it come down to an elected government that will permit the united states to stay there in sufficient force to train their army so they can protect afghanistan. it come down to that. >> is there any option that you think is viable that we would go with a zero option at the end of 2014? we would withdraw troops entirely? >> it's hard. with the security agreement in place that allows us to keep 10,000 to 15,000 troops there to conduct training and logistical support. i can't imagine any military leader advising the president that we should pull out. wut that training force, that 13 years of blood and treasure, that will have been lost. >> does a

each other and they work with each other and see each other colonel jacobs, we appreciate jack, i wanto get your reaction to this in effect lightning striking twice in the history? what do we know about it now that would have suggested they should watch him? >> well, nothing in particular, but it's important to keep in mind these people lived together and they worked together. they're together all the time. they're extremely close. both physically and focused on same place. >> yeah, well, the two cases didn't have very much to do with so they are probably going to be guidelines generated to increase security but not to make it so that it's absolutely impossible for the base to operate. don't forget, most of these bases are intertwined with the local areas and the local areas serve the base and vice versa. so it's going to be very difficult to inspect everybody all the time to absolutely guarantee that this kind of incident will be precluded. that's not going to happen. >> well, as we are hearing more about the gunman and how he was being treated for mental health issues, behavioral iss