NEW YORK, Nov 7 — Men and women from small towns and big cities across the country were preparing to leave for a tour of duty or just returning home when they found themselves together at the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood on Thursday. They could not possibly have been ready for what came next.
A gunman, identified as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, unleashed a barrage of bullets that sprayed across the room, hitting targets deliberately or by unlucky ricochet. Thirteen people died in the firestorm of horror, 12 soldiers and one civilian, and 28 more were wounded.
The Army has not released the names of the victims, but their families were notified on Thursday night, and slowly, some confirmed the deaths that came so unexpectedly on American soil.
Amy Krueger, 29, joined the Army shortly after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, a few years after graduation from her high school in a small town in Wisconsin. Michael Pearson, 21, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, joined the Army a year ago, was training to deactivate bombs and was known for his nimble fingers on his Fender guitar.
Jason D. Hunt, 22, joined the military three years ago because, he told his grandmother, in Frederick, Oklahoma, “it was time to grow up.” And when his two-year commitment was finished, he re-enlisted, right in the middle of the Iraq desert on his 21st birthday.
“It says a lot about a man who chooses to do that in the middle of the war,” his sister, Leila Willingham, said in a tearful telephone interview yesterday.
Specialist Hunt was on his way back to join his division in Iraq, waiting to get inoculations when he was shot. Willingham, 30, could not help but recall a prescient conversation she and her younger brother had recently. His wife, Jennifer Hunt, had three children from a previous marriage. Willingham has two children, whom she said her brother also adored.
“We were discussing the love of a parent and he said: ‘I would die for your children. I would die for a stranger. And I would jump in front of a bullet for another soldier,’ ” Willingham recalled.
Willingham said that her family had been informed about midnight on Thursday that he had died, but that they were still waiting for information on how. She believes it was just the way he predicted. “I don’t know the details, but I know my brother,” she said. “And he wouldn’t run from something like that.”
The victims of the Fort Hood massacre seemed to share that sense of defiance and dedication.
Sergeant Krueger, a 1998 graduate of Kiel High School in Kiel, Wisconsin, “was a feisty young woman who wouldn’t back down from anything,” said Faye Billmann, an English teacher at the school, who is also organising its annual Veteran’s Day ceremony. There will be a moment of silence next Wednesday, Billmann said, in her honour.
“Amy was a typical high school student,” said Dario Talerico, the school’s principal, after a family friend notified the school yesterday morning. “She was kind of a tomboy type of kid. I know she was very, very proud of being able to serve in the military.”
Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago, was returning home from Iraq because she was three months’ pregnant when she was caught in the crossfire, according to Chicago news reports. Yesterday, friends recalled her compassionate spirit.
Andrew Goodman, a high school friend of Velez, who went by the name Checka, said in an e-mail message: “She was one of the nicest people you would ever meet. One thing she was, was a person always made you feel safe. She was a nurturer.”
He added: “And to make matters worse, she was with child.”
As Velez was to be released next month from Fort Hood, according to The Chicago Tribune, Russell Seager, 51, of Racine, Wisconsin, was on his way to Iraq to help soldiers handle the stress of warfare. He was a registered nurse who had been working with veterans struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder at the Clement J. Zablocki V.A. Medical Center in Milwaukee. According to a profile on Milwaukee’s WUWM radio, Seager also taught at Bryant and Stratton College and had a doctorate in alternative medicine.
Larry Seager, of Mauston, Wisconsin, said he learned of the death of his nephew, Russell Seager, early yesterday morning. He said that Seager, who is married and had a 20-year-old son, had joined the military about two years ago, and had worked in the field of psychiatry.
“He just wanted to help the soldiers because they helped us,” Larry Seager said in a telephone interview. “And then he got shot by a psychiatrist also.” — NYT
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