No amount of security can guarantee an end to shootings like the one Wednesday at Fort Hood. A motivated attacker, especially one able to get inside the perimeter, will inflict damage. And while it’s logical to connect the Nidal Hasan and Ivan Lopez shootings, if only by victims and location, take care to not miss the larger point.

Regardless of what the Army says, Hasan was a terrorist who attacked fellow U.S. troops from a warlike impulse: to protect fellow Muslims on the battlefield. Today, he sits paralyzed on death row in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. We will learn more about Lopez in the coming days. What we know now is that he was undergoing mental treatment.

The military must study and resolve how its internal culture has been altered by 13 years of active war footing.

The stress exacts a toll. How much? Can the military do a better job of screening for mental illness, from recruitment to discharge? And how can the military better use those assessments?

Editorial, Pages 18 on 04/05/2014