we just got more details from army secretary john mchugh. >> he was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance. he was prescribed a number of drugs to address those including ambien. he was seen just last month by a psychiatrist. he was fully examined. as of this morning we had no indication on the record of that examination that there was any sign of likely violence either to himself or to others. no suicidal ideation so the plan forward was to just continue to monitor and to treat him as deemed appropriate. >> now when so many heard this news last night, the first reaction was not here not again. this is the same military facility where an officer killed 13 in 2009. president barack obama says this deadly repeat is heartbreaking. >> any shooting is troubling. obviously this reopens the pain of what happened at ft. hood five years ago. we know these families. we know their incredible service to our country and sacrifices they make. obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the entire comm

. >> again, just a short time ago, army secretary john mchugh told this to the senate. do we have it? no. all right. 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.

this is john mchugh, secretary of state of the army, enlisted in 2008, he was deployed twice bp onceiraq. he saw a psychiatrist are as recently as a month ago and there were no signs of any violence. now in 2009, army major hassan went on a rampage, and be president obama had a conference call with his national security team. >> any shooting is troubling. obviously, this reopens the pain of what happened at fort hood five years ago. we know these families. we know their incredible service to our country and the sacrifices that they make. >> again, just a short time ago, army secretary john mchugh told this to the senate. do we have it? no. all right. 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 ay

the speakers will include general ray odierno, john mchugh and president barack obama will be speakingas greeted at the fort hood airfield this morning by the general and his wife. and congressman john carter among others -- carter's pushed for years to get purple hearts for victims of the 2009 shooting and criticized the administration for calling it workplace violence instead of a terror attack. the president and first lady went past the shooting scene in their motorcade and on to the headquarters buildings where they met with family members. i was here in 2009 five years ago. and this is eerily, eerily similar to that very unfortunate memorial service back in 2009. >> rick leventhal reporting live for us on a very tough assignment. thanks so much. last week's tragedy renewing the debate about the concealed and carry laws for those who serve on their posts. jason konecny is stationed at fort hood and his mother says if he had been armed, he would have been able to stop the gunman a lot sooner. now he's pushing congress to make some changes. lynda konecny joins me live exclusively. gr

>> according to the secretary of the army, john mchugh, who you had on the air in a few minutes ago in testimony on the hill today, it presents somewhat of a mystery. here's somebody who went on a shooting rampage but if you look at his record, it's not necessarily stellar, but it's a clean record according to mchugh. he was in iraq for a brief period of time, four months. at the very end of the war and appears to have been one of those who drove the last few trucks, american trucks out of iraq in kuwait. also, mchugh revealed that just last month the suspect, lopez, sat down with a psychiatrist there at ft. hood for an examination. lopez was complaining that he had bouts with depression and anxiety and sleeplessness but according to the report that mchugh released today, the psychiatrist found no indication of any possible violence or any suicidal ideations. in other words, no clues at least from that psychiatrist about this rampage that took place yesterday. >> of course, one potential clue would have been the fact he had a gun. but, of course, it is a concealed weapon specifically.

capitol hill who revealed that he had -- he spoke about prescription drugs, multiple, and secretary john mchugh of the army specifically mentioned ambien. i will tell you, wolf, it's very well understood in the military, as it is in much of society, that prescription drugs are a serious issue -- and we're not saying that's what happened here, but it's a serious issue for potential abuse, prescription pill abuse, taking your medication wrong, drug interactions, all of that. i will tell you that is something that the military has struggled with for some time when soldiers have come back from the war zone, they have a variety of medical issues, they get multiple prescriptions to deal with those and it is a real challenge to keep track of all those prescriptions, make sure there's no interactions, that's just fact. that is an issue the military is dealing with very significantly across the board. so i think there's good reason to believe we know they're going to look at his medical history, his prescription medication certainly will be part of that investigation, wolf. >> barbara, thanks very much.

secretary of the army john mchugh says the military has been focusing on offering more attention to mental health issues. >> if we failed in some way against our current policies, we need to be honest with ourselves, and with you and hold ourselves accountable. >> lopez used a .45 caliber smith & wesson handgun he bought off post and failed to register with ft. hoorksd shooting inside the medical brigade hoekts and firing from his vehicle before targeting more victims inside his transportation battalion headquarters building. he was finally cornered by a military police woman. that's when lopez put his gun to his own head and fired his last round. >> clearly heroic what she did at that moment in time, and she did her job, and she did exactly what we would expect of a united states military office police. >> three were killed and 16 suffered a range of injuries. three are still critical. >> as we learn more about what happened and why, we're going to make sure we're doing everything in our power to keep troops safe and keep our troops strong and not just on the battlefield but also when he

according to army secretary john mchugh, there's no indication he served in any combat operation, combat role, no injuries. he has no combat decorations on his record. so there's no indication that he was under any particular combat stress anyway, while in iraq. now, the psychiatrist who met him, met with him just last month, he was being treated for anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation. he reported that there was no sign that, just last month, that he was prone to any likely violence, or that he had any suicidal ideations at that time. so clearly, he had some kind of mental problem for him to do what he did yesterday, but it was not clearly evident to the psychiatrist that he was seeing there at the base. >> so, mik -- >> over that short period of time he was there. >> what is the protocol? you pointed out, mchugh says he was being treated and at least suffering from depression, anxiety and some sleep disturbance, what is the protocol as far as that information being passed along, not obviously to make the person a target or alienate him, but so that that information, i guess, is hand

week at a hearing of the armed services committee, we listened to the concerns of army secretary john mchugh and chief of staff of the army, ray odierno. they appeared before the committee to tell us the rious problems in the u.s. army, specifically the budget. i asked questions of funding being cut from the army. why do we continue to spend billions of dollars in afghanistan when the money could be going to support our service members? as i did last week, i would like to read a short paragraph from the world affairs journal article and the title is "money pit: the monstrous failure of u.s. aid to afghanistan." the article states that in 2012, the united states budgeted $11.2 billion for afghan military training with another $5.8 billion for 2013. the article goes on to say that in afghanistan a big problem is illiteracy. almost three years ago when lieutenant general william b. caldwell iv took command of the nato training mission, he noted that overall literacy among afghan military and police stood at about 14%. how about illiterate policemen trying to read a license plate, the general as

the secretary of the army, john mchugh, said there's no documentation that lopez suffered traumatic brain injury, or t.b.i., in iraq despite one official's citing reports that lopez had "self-reported" this. >> he did have two deployments, including one approximately four-month deployment to iraq as a truck driver. his records show no wounds, no involvement, no direct involvement in combat. as general milley said, there's no record of purple heart or any injury that might lead us to further investigate a battle- related t.b.i. or such. >> woodruff: mchugh said there's also no evidence of ties to extremist groups, but lopez was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder. >> he was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions, ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance. he was prescribed a number of drugs to address those, including ambien. >> woodruff: general milley echoed that statement at his briefing today. >> we have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates unstable psychiatric or psychological

. >> army secretary john mchugh told congress the ft.judged not to be a threat to himself or anyone else. reviews of last year's navy yard shooting found that aaron alexis held a secret security clearance despite severe mental problems. two weeks ago when defense secretary hagel released the findings, his words were eerily prophetic. >> the reviews identified troubling. gaps in dod's ability to protect, detect and respond where someone working for us decides to inflict harm on this institution and its people. >> after nadal had a sass killed 13 people in 2009, there were reforms to close the cracks hasan had fallen through, including increased screening and more mental health professionals. retired general pete chiarelli was the number two man in the army at the time. in a 2012 interview with "60 minutes" he said the indicators are often hard to detect. >> is it post-traumatic stress personality disorder? that's not always clear. >> reporter: and says the commander at fort hood there's no practicalable way to prevent an angry soldier fro

. >> reporter: here in washington army secretary john mchugh testified in a previously-scheduled congressionaling as my colleague, casey steegal, reported. the soldier blamed for the shooting, ivan lopez, appeared to have no connection with extremist groups, and lopez didn't seek combat in iraq and wasn't wounded there. jon: he spent about four months there as the war was winding down, right? >> reporter: that's our understanding. jon: yeah. wendell goler, thank you. jenna: well, military officials say there's no link to terrorism in this latest shooting, but they're not this ruling anything out quite yet. unlike the 2009 tragedy when major nidal hasan killed 13 and more than 30 wounded, the military has tightened security at bases nationwide including issuing long-barreled weapon, adding an insider attack scenario to training, strengthening ties to local law enforcement and joining an fbi intelligence-sharing program. keep in mind fort hood is america's largest military base. at 335 square miles in size, it's slightly larger than austin, texas, it's bigger than new york city when you look at

the committee meets today to hear testimony from secretary of the army john mchugh and chief of staff of the army general ray odierno. our hearing is on the army's fiscal year 2015 budget request and current posture. we meet with heavy hearts. once again, our army must recover from an act of unspeakable violence here at home. much remains unknown about the shooting incident yesterday at ft. hood including the question of what prompted this horrible attack. all that is certain is that lives have been lost and that families are grieving, and we all share in their grief. secretary mchugh and general odierno, please convey this committee's condolences to the men and women of ft. hood and the army and please be assured that this committee will fully support your efforts to care for those who are affected. for more than a decade, the men and women of the army have had the burden of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. they've done all that we have asked and more to succeed. and remain resilient through repeated combat deployments. last year, the sequestration required by the budget control act

. >> ladies and gentlemen, the secretary of the army, the honorable john mchugh. >> good afternoon.a,sident, misses thank you so much for being here . it means so much to the soldiers, to this army that their commander-in-chief and the first lady would be here to share in this great sorrow. deputy secretary of defense fox, chairman and misses dempsey, misses odierno, distinguished lieutenantcongress, governor dewhurst, lieutenant general and misses milley, and most of all, to the men and women of fort hood, soldiers, family members, civilians, our army family -- we are here again far too soon to more and more loss all too great. as an army, we except this is a dangerous profession, and all who where this wonderful uniform and pledge to defend our nation and its way of life understand they may one day be called to .ake that ultimate sacrifice inside these gates, behind these walls, we would expect a much , a special sense of safety and security and brotherhood, simply a sense of home. time, horribled violence and unspeakable tragedy have breached these walls and torn through our very

the committee meets today to hear testimony from secretary to the army john mchugh and chief of staff of the army general ray odierno. army general ray odierno. our hearing is on the army's fiscal year 2015 budget request and current posture. we meet with heavy hearts. once again, our army must recover from an act of unspeakable violence here at home. much remains unknown about the shooting incident yesterday at ft. hood including the question of what prompted this horrible attack. all that is certain is that lives have been lost and that families are grieving, and we all share in their grief. secretary mchugh and general odierno, please convey this committee's condolences to the men and women of ft. hood and the army and please be assured that this committee will fully support your efforts to care for those who are affected. for more than a decade, the men and women of the army have had the burden of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. they've done all that we have asked and more to succeed. and remain resilient through repeated combat deployments. last year, the sequestration required

. >> ladies and gentlemen, the secretary of the army, the honorable john mchugh. >> good afternoon.dent, misses thank you so much for being here . it means so much to the soldiers, to this army that their commander-in-chief and the first lady would be here to share in this great sorrow. deputy secretary of defense fox, chairman and misses dempsey, misses odierno, distinguished lieutenantcongress, governor dewhurst, lieutenant general and misses milley, and most of all, to the men and women of fort hood, soldiers, family members, civilians, our army family -- we are here again far too soon to more and more loss all too great. as an army, we except this is a dangerous profession, and all who where this wonderful uniform and pledge to defend our nation and its way of life understand they may one day be called to .ake that ultimate sacrifice inside these gates, behind these walls, we would expect a much , a special sense of safety and security and brotherhood, simply a sense of home. time, horribled violence and unspeakable tragedy have breached these walls and torn through our very sou

. >> ladies and gentlemen, the secretary of the army, the honorable john m. mchughr, ma'am, thank you so much for being here. it means so much to these soldiers, to this army that their commander in chief and first lady would be here to share in this great sorrow. deputy secretary of defense fox, chairman and mrs. dempsey, chief and mrs. odierno, distinguished members of congress, lieutenant governor dirhurs, and most of all to the men and women of fort hood, soldiers, family members, civilians, our army family. we are here again far too soon to mourn more loss all too great. as an army, we accept this is is a dangerous profession. and all who wear this wonderful uniform and pledge to defend our nation and its way of life understand they may one day be called to make that ultimate sacrifice. but inside these gates, behind these walls, we expect a much different order of things. a special sense of safety and security, of brotherhood. simply a sense of home. and yet, for a second time, horrible violence and unspeakable tragedy have breached these walls and torn throug

army secretary john mchugh and army chief of staff ray odierno also taking questions on the shooting at fort hood where four people died, 16 wounded. mental health issues are part of the discussion as they were in that briefing with house speaker john boehner. you can see the hearing as it continues our campaignon network, c-span3. quick reminder, the house will gavel in in 10 minutes at noon eastern. members will continue working on a bill that would change the provision in the health care law by defining a full-time employee from one who averages 30 hours a week to 40 hours per week. again, the house will be live at noon eastern. we'll have it here on c-span. right now, though, discussion on the republicans' budget proposal which calls for the repeal of the nation's health care law from today's "washington journal." urnal cont. host: jim mcdermott back at our tables this morning. he helped republicans unveil their budget yesterday. plan ton laid out a save 5 trillion over the next decade. what do you like about this proposal? [laughter] that is an interesting place to start. the fa