Ted Rall on Fort Hood shootings

I think this cartoon captures my feelings about the episode better than anything I've seen in print or any other media till now.
People who join a military or militia are doing so for the purpose of taking part in armed combat. As far as I understand it, all forms of military training are designed to foster blind obedience and faith in the correctness of ones commanding officers' orders to kill people, with a minimum of questioning who those people are and why they should be killed.
Military/militia life is fundamentally dehumanizing for the above reason. Is it any surprise that some of these people will turn on their own kind?
I think Einstein said it best in the poster I had on my wall throughout high school:

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. This disgrace to civilisation should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."