A Palestinian uncle of the Fort Hood shooting suspect on Saturday said that his nephew loved America and wanted to serve his country, but his work as a military psychiatrist drove him to tears.

Maj Nidal Malik Hasan’s uncle Rafik Hamad, 64, on Saturday said that his nephew was emotionally shaken by his work treating US soldiers. Still, he wanted to serve his country, Hamad said.

“I think I saw him with tears in his eyes when he was talking about some of patients, when they came overseas from the battlefield,” Hamad said. He said his nephew told him that he did not expect the work to be as stressful as it was.

The Army major was harassed by other soldiers because of his Muslim faith but was not angry, his uncle said.

Hasan told his family of one incident in which people threw diapers at his house with the message “this is your head cover” written inside, a reference to the scarves and other head coverings that many Muslims wear.

Someone also vandalised Maj Hasan’s car, drawing a camel on the bodywork and scrawling across it the words “camel jockey” — a racist epithet toward Arabs, Hamad said.