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Obama At Fort Hood Memorial: ‘Tragedy Brings Us Together Again’

Obama At Fort Hood Memorial: ‘Tragedy Brings Us Together Again’

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times

FORT HOOD, Texas — Five years after he sought to comfort soldiers devastated by the deadliest attack on a U.S. military base, President Barack Obama returned to Fort Hood on Wednesday to once more offer condolences and pledges of support, repeatedly invoking Scripture and its stirring words on the power of love to heal.

Obama, citing 1 Corinthians, said, “With God’s amazing grace we somehow bear what seems unbearable. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Love was the running theme of the president’s remarks, delivered under a sunny sky before thousands of soldiers and dignitaries.

It was love of country, Obama said, that inspired the three soldiers killed in last week’s shooting rampage to join the greatest army the world has ever known. “It was love for their comrades, for all of you, that defined their last moments,” Obama said.

A week ago, Spc. Ivan Lopez opened fire in a building at the post, the start of an eight-minute rampage that killed three soldiers and wounded 16 others. Lopez, 34, fired more than 35 rounds before he was confronted by a military police officer and shot himself in the head.

Army investigators have said the shooter’s motive remains a mystery. But officials told the Los Angeles Times that Lopez had recently that learned his request for a leave of absence after the death of his mother had been rejected, infuriating him.

Killed in the attack were three sergeants: Danny Ferguson, 39, of Mulberry, Fla.; Timothy Owens, 37, of Effingham, Ill., and Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez, 38, of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Their bodies were being transported home this week, a military official said. Lopez’s family plans to bury him Saturday in his hometown of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico.

Five of the injured remained hospitalized this week, three at a military hospital on the post where an official said they were improving and two at a hospital off post where a spokesman said they were in fair condition.

The rest of the injured have returned to duty at Fort Hood.

The last time Obama visited the Army post, among the largest military installations in the world, was for another mass shooting memorial.

“Tragedy brings us together again,” Obama said.

The president recited the names of the three sergeants killed, just as other speakers also repeated the names — Ferguson, Owens and Lazaney-Rodriguez — again and again. The three men, Obama said, had racked up a total of nine deployments. Each served in Iraq, and one had returned from Afghanistan just last week.

Obama vowed to continue efforts to help soldiers and veterans struggling with mental illness, and urged the nation to support troops once they return.

“When we truly welcome our veterans home, we show them we need them not just to fight in other countries, but to build up our own,” he said.

Five years ago, an Army psychiatrist opened fire, killing 13 and wounding more than 30. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was later convicted and sentenced to death for the attack, which he called an effort to protect the Taliban.

Before that memorial, soldiers erected a protective barrier around the field, stacking shipping containers to form a massive wall — just as they did this week.

The president stood at the same field in front of 13 sets of boots, rifles, helmets and photographs, listing the names of the dead and vowing that their memory would “endure through the life of our nation.”

Again on Wednesday, Obama stood before a crowd of thousands of uniformed soldiers.

Again, he promised that the dead would not be forgotten.

“Know this,” Obama said, addressing the Fort Hood community as a whole. “We also draw strength from you, for even in your grief, even as your heart breaks, we see in you that eternal truth: Love never ends.”

AFP Photo/Saul Loeb

Fort Hood Shooting ‘Happened Right In Front Of Me,’ Soldier Texts

Fort Hood Shooting ‘Happened Right In Front Of Me,’ Soldier Texts

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times

FORT HOOD, Texas — Moments after news broke of the Fort Hood shooting about 4 p.m. CDT last Wednesday, Suzy Sanders began frantically texting her 21-year-old stepson, a soldier stationed at the Army post since fall.

His first chilling reply landed at 5:22 p.m.

“It happened right in front of me Suz,” Pvt. Jacob “Jake” Sanders texted. “I watched my sergeant die. I tried to revive him. I’m fine. I love you.”

Sanders, a former varsity basketball player from Indiana with a brown crew cut, square jaw and wide smile, is among four survivors expected to be honored by President Barack Obama at a Wednesday memorial here. Others include a chaplain who helped save fellow soldiers and a female military police officer who confronted the shooter.

While the military is not allowing Sanders or other witnesses to speak publicly, the soldier recounted his experience to his father, Greg Sanders, 41, of Madison, Ind., a small town along the Ohio River, who shared it with the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

For Jake Sanders, the ordeal began when the shooter entered the transport building where he worked, his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson drawn.

Sanders knew the shooter, Spc. Ivan Lopez, 34, who had recently joined his transport unit in the post’s 13th Sustainment Command. He was a quiet soldier who mostly kept to himself.

A few other soldiers were in the room. But Sanders was the closest, about 5 feet away, as Lopez approached his boss, Sgt. Timothy Owens.

Owens, 37, was a gruff leader from a small town in southern Illinois who was known as “Sgt. O” to his troops. Sanders admired and trusted Owens, who reminded him of his high school basketball coach back home in Indiana.

That day, Owens exchanged words with Lopez. Sanders has yet to tell his family what was said.

“Sgt. Owens tried to verbally talk him down, and that’s when the shot was fired,” Greg Sanders said. Jake Sanders wasn’t sure whether it was just one shot, but at least one bullet wounded Owens. He tumbled to the floor.

“It happened so fast, before he knew it, Sgt. ‘O’ was on the ground,” Greg Sanders said.

No one else was injured.

Lopez fled to a nearby parking lot where he would confront the female military police officer before shooting himself in the head.

Jake Sanders rushed to his sergeant. He had trained as a medic before switching to the transport unit. Drawing on his medical training, he began administering CPR and was soon covered in blood.

He wasn’t sure how long it took paramedics to arrive. His sergeant was still alive when they left, but died at the hospital.

Sanders was so stunned that when military police arrived, he could barely speak.

“The emotion took over,” his father said.

Officials took Sanders and other witnesses for questioning by the military’s Criminal Investigation Division staff. He kept texting his family overnight. They updated him on the carnage Lopez had left in his wake as he fired in another building and from his car outside. Two other soldiers had been killed, 16 wounded.

Sanders later learned that Lopez may have been upset because superiors denied his leave request after his mother died in November.

Sanders had also lost a grandparent during his time in the military. His grandfather died during his basic training at Fort Jackson, in Columbia, S.C. His father recalled that the family told Sanders about the death at his graduation. He did not take leave to attend the funeral.

His son’s decision to join the military had surprised Sanders, a sales manager at a Chevrolet dealership who did not serve.

In recent days, Jake Sanders has been thinking back to the shooting, considering his military training and whether he could have saved Owens.

“He felt a lot of guilt because he couldn’t do more,” his father said. “That’s been tough on him.”

On Saturday, Sanders met Owen’s wife for dinner and visited some of the shooting victims he knows who are still hospitalized. That helped him feel a bit better, his father said. Sanders has also been distracting himself by watching NCAA basketball, a staple of his childhood.

He owes the Army at least three more years and plans to keep pursuing a military career.

After the shooting, Sanders’ fatigues and boots were so covered in blood, he had to throw them away. He bought replacements with his own money.

His father said his son’s decision to keep serving shows the strength of his character and commitment.

Greg Sanders does not plan to attend the memorial on Wednesday — he has to work and care for his two younger children. But he is scheduled to visit his son here next weekend.

“I just want to hug him,” he said, “He’s my hero. I’m proud he used his training to try to save Sgt. Owens.”

Sanders texted his parents about the memorial, telling them he is to receive an award from Obama at a “pinning” ceremony. He was still more preoccupied with the loss of his sergeant than the prospect of meeting the president, his father said.

“It’s not about us,” Sanders wrote. “It’s about the ones who died and were injured. And we hope it stays that way.”

Photo via Deborah Cannon/Austin American-Statesman/MCT

2009 Fort Hood Victim On Latest Shooting: ‘I Kind Of Lost It’

2009 Fort Hood Victim On Latest Shooting: ‘I Kind Of Lost It’

By Saba Hamedy, Los Angeles Times

Amber Gadlin, 24, was driving home from the grocery store when she got the text Wednesday afternoon.

“Turn on the news,” her neighbor wrote. “My mom said there was another shooting at Fort Hood.”

Gadlin’s heart stopped.

The memories from the 2009 Fort Hood shooting came rushing back:

The four gunshot wounds in her back.

The three days she spent in the hospital.

“I started shaking and crying. I kind of lost it. I’m pretty sure I had a panic attack,” she told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday night from her home in Albuquerque, N.M., where she now lives. “It was kind of looking at the same situation in two completely different ways.”

Gadlin, who is a stay-at-home mom to her 18-month-old son, immediately called her mom.

“My mom said, ‘Oh, my God’ — and from what she told me, she lost it too,” Gadlin said.

Later, she updated her Facebook page.

“I can’t breath,” she wrote. “I am shaking so bad right now.”

About 30 people posted replies; many friends wrote that they were praying for her.

“You’ve been through hell and back, just glad you’re home and not going through it again,” one friend said.

Another wrote, “We’re out of the area physically but this pulls us right back emotionally, as I’m sure it does for so many.”

As far as safety at Fort Hood goes, Gadlin, who has arthritis in her back because of bullet fragments, said she didn’t think much could be done.

“The only way that you’re going to stop something like that from happening again is literally patting every single person down,” she said. “The last time I checked it was something like 70, 80,000 people that go on base every single day, so doing something like that is virtually impossible.”

But Gadlin thinks there could be more training to prepare for such events.

A couple of Gadlin’s friends who are still at Fort Hood posted on their Facebook pages that they were safe.

By 7 p.m., Gadlin was finally able to relax.

“I’m still thinking about it and everything,” she said. “But I’m not really panicking anymore.”

The shooting also brought back memories for Kimberly Cooke of Oneonta, N.Y., whose brother, Matthew, was shot five times at Fort Hood in 2009, and survived.

“I’m totally fine until I hear my family panicking and I know they are having flashbacks,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “I hear them tearing up on the other end of the phone line … thinking of the Fort Hood families.”

When the 2009 shooting occurred, Cooke said her family had trouble getting information about the incident.

“Nobody contacted us to tell us he was one of the victims,” she said. “The Army is not really forthcoming in with what’s going on.”

Cooke said her family still hadn’t told her brother about Wednesday’s shooting.

“He actually doesn’t know about the shooting today,” she told the Times. “My family hasn’t told him because he suffers a lot of PTSD issues. He has a lot of heavy depression. He’s still on anxiety medications, four and a half years later.”

U.S. Army Photo by John Byerly

Fort Hood Massacre Building Demolished; Site To Become Memorial

Fort Hood Massacre Building Demolished; Site To Become Memorial

By Jeremy Schwartz, Austin American-Statesman

AUSTIN, Texas — For the last four and a half years, Fort Hood’s Building 42003 stood frozen in time, mostly untouched since Nidal Hasan entered its doors and opened fire on defenseless soldiers preparing to deploy to war.

The building, home to a soldier readiness processing center, or SRP in military parlance, was considered an active crime scene until Hasan’s court-martial last year, in which he was sentenced to death in the November 5, 2009, mass shooting, which left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded.

On Tuesday, a heavy equipment excavator began tearing the building apart, slamming into its red brick walls and ripping out its innards. The demolition is the first step in transforming the site: Fort Hood officials say the building will be replaced with trees, a gazebo and a plaque memorializing the victims.

The surrounding buildings will resume their role as part of the soldier readiness complex, where soldiers undergo medical checks and fill out legal and financial paperwork before and after deployments.

Photo: Cristian_RH7 via Flickr