DOD Releases Final Fort Hood Review

The Department of Defense (DoD) released today the final review of the recommendations from the independent report "Protecting the Force: Lessons Learned from Fort Hood."

The DoD will place a high priority on implementing recommendations that will strengthen policies, programs and procedures in the following areas:

• Educating commanders about the symptoms of potential workplace violence and the tools available to them to address it;
• Ensuring commander and supervisor access to appropriate information in personnel records throughout a service member's career;
• Improving law enforcement and force protection information sharing with partner agencies and among installations to ensure that all relevant personnel are aware of and able to analyze and respond to potential threats;
• Expanding installations' emergency response capabilities, to include enabling enhanced 911 to notify dispatchers of a caller's location, mass notification and warning systems to guide installation personnel and emergency responders to an emergency, and a common operating picture to ensure that emergency responders have access to real-time information in a crisis;
• Integrating force protection policy through the creation of a consultative and policy-making body which will bring together the various entities across the department with force protection responsibilities; and
• Ensuring that we provide top quality health care to our service-members and our healthcare providers though the hiring of additional healthcare providers - particularly in the mental health field - and ensuring that healthcare providers receive appropriate post-deployment respite and dwell time.

The tragic shooting of military personnel at Fort Hood in November 2009 underscored the need for the DoD to review its approach to force protection and to broaden its force protection policies, programs, and procedures to go beyond their traditional focus on hostile external threats. The follow-on review final report recommends concrete actions across a range of issues that all contribute to the safety and health of our military forces.

The DoD will track implementation of the various recommendations contained in its final report, focusing particularly on force protection issues.

The final recommendations of the Fort Hood follow-on review can be found at http://www.defense.gov/news/d20100820FortHoodFollowon.pdf .