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By Mary Pat Flaherty, William Wan and Christian Davenport
Friday, November 6, 2009 9:58 AM

(Washington Post front page story)

He prayed every day at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, a devout Muslim who, despite asking to be discharged from the U.S. Army, was on the eve of his first deployment to war. Yesterday, authorities said Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a 39-year-old Arlington-born psychiatrist, shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex.

In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military.

"I know what that is like," she said. "Some people can take it, and some cannot. He had listened to all of that, and he wanted out of the military, and they would not let him leave even after he offered to repay" for his medical training.

An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. George Wright, said he could not confirm that Hasan (pronounced Hass-in) requested a discharge.

As authorities scrambled to figure out what happened at Fort Hood, a hazy and contradictory picture emerged of this son of Palestinian immigrants, a man who received his medical training from the military and spent his career in the Army, yet allegedly turned so violently against his uniformed colleagues.

Hasan was born in Arlington and grew up in the Roanoke Valley of southwestern Virginia, a bookish young man who, his father hoped, would go on to significant professional achievement. He spent nearly all of his Army medical career at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District, caring for the victims of trauma, yet he spoke openly of his deep opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan, who was shot during the rampage, is on a ventilator at a nearby civilian hospital in stable condition, Army officials said Friday. Investigators have not been able to question him.

The Associated Press reported that Hasan attracted the attention of law enforcement authorities in recent months after an Internet posting under the screen name "NidalHasan" compared Islamic suicide bombers to Japanese kamikaze pilots. "To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate," the posting read. "It's more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause."

In a statement issued late Thursday, Hasan's family said they were "shocked and saddened by the terrible events at Fort Hood" and "filled with grief for the families" of victims.

"Our family loves America," said the statement. Noting that Nidal Hasan was an American citizen, the family said: "We are proud of our country, and saddened by today's tragedy. Because this situation is still unfolding, we have nothing else that we are able to share with you at this time.

Hasan steered clear of female colleagues, co-workers said. Despite his devout religious practices, he listed himself in Army records as having no religious preference.

A longtime Walter Reed colleague who referred patients to psychiatrists said co-workers avoided sending service members to Hasan because of his unusual manner and solitary work habits.

Hasan is a 1995 graduate of Virginia Tech who earned a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. From 2003 through last summer, he was an intern, resident and then fellow at Walter Reed, where he worked as a liaison between wounded soldiers and the hospital's psychiatry staff. He was also a fellow at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda military medical school.

He had been affected by the physical and mental injuries he saw while working as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed for nearly eight years, according to his aunt. "He must have snapped," Noel Hasan said. "They ignored him. It was not hard to know when he was upset. He was not a fighter, even as a child and young man. But when he became upset, his face turns red." She said Hasan had consulted with a lawyer about getting out of the service.

On the rare occasions when he spoke of his work in any detail, the aunt said, Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense "that his face had nearly melted," she said. "He told us how upsetting that was to him."

Hasan "did not make many friends" and "did not make friends fast," his aunt said. He had no girlfriend and was not married. "He would tell us the military was his life," she said.

The psychiatrist once said that "Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor" and that the United States shouldn't be fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place, according to an interview with Col. Terry Lee, a co-worker, on Fox News.

Hasan's father, Malik, immigrated to the United States at age 16 from a Palestinian village in the West Bank, an area controlled by Jordan until 1967 but occupied by Israel since then. There, the family tended to an olive grove, neighbors said.

Malik Hasan spent most of his life in Virginia, moving to the Roanoke area in the mid-1980s. He became a successful restaurateur in Vinton, a small railroad town of about 7,800 just east of Roanoke. His businesses included the Capitol, a well-known, blue-collar beer hall on Market Street, the Mount Olive Grill and Bar and the Community Grocery on Elm Avenue. The Hasans lived in a quiet neighborhood of brick ramblers on Ramada Road. Many in the Roanoke Valley who knew Nidal Hasan said their lasting impression was that he was highly intelligent, and somewhat introverted. Thomas O. Sitz, an associate professor of biochemistry at Virginia Tech, where Hasan graduated in 1995, said he was "one of our better students," if not a memorable one.

Philip Trompeter, a juvenile court judge who owned the building where the Capitol restaurant was located, said Malik Hasan was "very proud" of his book-smart son and had high hopes for him.

Charles Garlick, who lived across the street from the Hasan family in Vinton, described Nidal Hasan as quiet and reserved. "Every time I'd see him, he'd have a book bag over his shoulder," Garlick said. Nidal Hasan's younger brother Eyad -- nicknamed "Eddie" -- played football with Garlick's son, Zachary. But Nidal, who graduated from William Byrd High School, was less social.

Hasan's mother, Hanan, who went by "Nora," was known as the "keeper of the peace" at the Hasan family's restaurants. She suffered from kidney problems and died in 2001 at age 49, neighbors said. Malik Hasan died in 1998, at age 52, after suffering a heart attack at his home. The couple is buried in Falls Church.

The Hasan family was large and had deep roots in Roanoke Valley, said Amer Azibidi, minister and imam of the KUFA Center of Islamic Knowledge. At Mount Olive, Malik worked with his brother, Jose. The pair cooked many of the dishes, including lamb kebabs and stuffed grape leaves. But the premature deaths of Malik and Nora Hasan had left the family scattered.

Nidal Hasan enlisted in the Army after high school over his parents' objections, Noel Hasan said, and attended Virginia Tech, majoring in biochemistry. Eyad Hasan, now 28, graduated from George Mason University and lives in Sterling. Another brother, Anas, also attended Virginia Tech and lived in Kensington, Md., before moving to Jerusalem to work as a lawyer.

Hasan was "like my sons," his aunt said, spending holidays and free time at her house. At the Muslim Community Center, Hasan stood out because he would sometimes show up in Army fatigues, said Faizul Khan, the former imam there.

"He came to mosque one or two times to see if there were any suitable girls to marry," Khan said. "I don't think he ever had a match, because he had too many conditions. He wanted a girl who was very religious, prays five times a day."

In search of a partner in marriage, Hasan wrote in an application filed with a local Muslim matching service that "I am quiet and reserved until more familiar with person. Funny, caring and personable."

"He was a very quiet and private person. I can't say that people knew him very well other than attending prayers," said Arshad Qureshi, chairman of the board of trustees at the Muslim Community Center of Silver Spring. "You didn't see him attend anything -- school for children or celebrations. He did not go out of the way to engage people. We have thousands of people who come through to pray; he was just one of them."

A co-worker at Walter Reed said Hasan would not allow his photo to be taken with female co-workers, which became an issue during Christmas season when employees often took group photos. Co-workers would find a solo photo of Hasan and post it on the bulletin board without his permission.

Lee told Fox News that Hasan "was hoping that President Obama would pull troops out. . . . When things weren't going that way, he became more agitated, more frustrated with the conflicts over there. . . . He made his views well known about how he felt about the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan."

And when he talked about fighting "the aggressor," he said that his fellow soldiers "should stand up and help the armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan," Lee said.

Hasan was polite and respectful, according to 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, who was treated by the psychiatrist at Walter Reed while recovering from a gunshot wound suffered in Iraq.

Whiteside remembers Hasan as serious. During his initial evaluation of her, she tried to make light when he coughed by saying, "Bless you." Hasan replied that he had coughed and not sneezed.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) told reporters after a briefing on the shootings that Hasan "took a lot of advanced training in shooting."

A woman who answered the phone at one of Hasan's previous addresses in Bethesda -- 9304 Cedar Lane -- said her husband, Ajab Khan, had been interviewed Thursday night by federal agents investigating the shooting. She refused to identify herself but said Hasan lived with them "for two months, but he's long gone," before hanging up.

* * *

Hasan is an avid Redskins fan. "That was obviously the reason he wanted to off himself and dozens of his colleagues," interim Redskins head coach Tawny Kitaen said early Friday. "He was not a movie watcher. He worked hard and had been studying for years. He buried himself in his work."

Noel Hasan was unaware of her nephew's pending deployment. "He didn't call or send an e-mail saying anything like that," she said.

His last e-mail to her, she said, was a little more than a week ago "and it was just, "Hi, Aunt Noel. How are you doing?' "