Soldiers feel 'betrayed' by slaughter at Fort Hood

By Carl Prine, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Nov. 7--FORT HOOD, Texas -- It was a battlefield the combat engineers of Fort Hood never thought they would have to survive.

Soldiers who lived through an unexpected gunfight at the sprawling Army base told the Tribune-Review on Friday that they were reeling from the chaos of a war they expected to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq, never Texas.

They say they feel betrayed and saddened after witnessing the cold-blooded murders of 13 people by the suspected gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist born to Jordanian parents of Palestinian descent.

Another 30 people -- believed mostly to be soldiers in 20 different units training for overseas duty -- were wounded by what the Army believes was a lone gunman armed with two pistols.

"I feel very betrayed," said Pfc. Marquest Smith, 21, of Fort Worth. "He was in uniform. He was supposed to be in the fight with us, not against us."

Smith was in Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Center when the gunman walked between rows of more than 400 unarmed soldiers, firing into them. Many, like Smith and Hasan, were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

Brooke Army Medical Center spokesman Dewey Mitchell said yesterday that Hasan was in stable condition in the intensive care unit at the facility in Fort Sam Houston outside San Antonio. Authorities say Hasan was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with civilian police officer Kim Munley, 34, who was struck.

Descending on Fort Hood -- home to more than 50,000 soldiers and their families -- Army Secretary John McHugh and other top Pentagon officials said investigators from the military, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Killeen police and Texas Rangers have focused on Hasan as the sole gunman.

McHugh, 61, a former Republican congressman representing upstate New York, said that investigators so far were "working seamlessly together."

The Army's top four-star general, Chief of Staff George W. Casey Jr., 61, said that he has cautioned commanders in the United States and overseas "about a potential backlash" against Muslims in uniform. He pledged "the full resources" of the Army to help Fort Hood's soldiers and their families mend physically and mentally.

"This was a kick in the gut, not just for the Fort Hood community, but for the entire Army family," said Casey.

A statement from the Pittsburgh chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations echoed Casey's concerns, saying that they condemned "the horrific attack" at Fort Hood and that no religious or political ideology "could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence."

At Fort Hood, Casey said the Army's investigation into the massacre would touch on "force protection measures" employed by American bases and military programs designed to prowl the Internet and other places for signs of radicalized, disloyal personnel.

Hasan's officer records were provided to the Trib by military officials. They show that he is a recently promoted major assigned to the Army's Medical Command and that he had arrived at Fort Hood in July from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Hasan's commander at Fort Hood, Col. Kimberly Kesling, said the psychiatrist appeared to be "a hard-working, dedicated young man who gave great care to his patients."

Listed as residing in Kensington, Md., Hasan is single, with no children, is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 177 pounds, according to his records. He had never served in combat.

Under religious preference, Hasan indicated that he had none, but reports in the media detailed ongoing strife between Hasan and other soldiers -- allegedly because they had teased him about his Middle Eastern background and Islamic faith.

Training for his first combat tour to Afghanistan, Hasan temporarily was assigned to Fort Hood's Carl R. Darnell Army Medical Center, where most of the wounded were treated.

Betrayal and courage

Pfc. Smith, a mechanic from the 20th Combat Engineer Battalion, told the Trib that he had been standing in line at the Soldier Readiness Center . Thursday afternoon while his medical paperwork was being checked for his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

Suddenly he heard "yelling and moaning and then I saw people running." Smith couldn't count the number of gunshots but "I was very terrified. I saw people get shot. I saw people, wounded people."

Smith's buddies said they saw him rush into the bloody scrum and pull wounded soldiers from the large auditorium. Smith said it was during one of those dashes through the gunfire that he saw the gunman firing at others in uniform, the rounds slapping into the walls near Smith.

"He was still shooting," Smith said of Hasan.

Next door to Smith in Howze Auditorium, medics and other soldiers were attending a graduation ceremony. At the sound of gunfire, many rushed toward the sound of battle, some still dressed in caps and gowns, according to Gen. Casey.

Two medics ran to the parked F-150 Ford pickup truck of Pfc. Jeffrey Pearsall, 21, a mechanic in Smith's combat engineer battalion.

"The first thing I saw were these civilians, just running," said Pearsall. "And this guy, a soldier, who was bleeding from the chest. I saw a window break and then I heard gunfire. There were lightly wounded guys helping the guys who had really bad wounds"

Chuck Medley, the civilian director of emergency services at Fort Hood, said he saw numerous soldiers -- many who had deployed several times to Iraq or Afghanistan -- doing in Texas what they had learned the hard way overseas.

"These soldiers are America's best example of how we go about doing things right in this country," said Medley. "There are many cases of soldiers and police officers putting their lives on the line to save someone else, and that's what I saw.

"They had already begun to triage and organize injuries in order of severity, which helped us speed along their evacuations to hospitals. So we began to get security of the scene and continue evacuation. It was a little chaotic at first because the first priority was to make sure we have a secure scene to start taking care of injured people."

Pearsall gunned his truck toward the sounds of pistol fire to load the wounded into the bed of his truck. He recalls seeing "four or five" bodies in the back and the two medics toiling over them as he lurched toward the base's Darnell Army Medical Center.

"There's still a significant amount of blood in the truck," said Pearsall. "Latex gloves, too. I'm still kind of in shock. I mean, that there are people in the Army who would do something like that to soldiers?"

"Bedlam where we didn't expect it"

At the hospital, Pearsall slammed on the brakes and ran to the door where an Army nurse sat inside, apparently unaware of the carnage at the Readiness Center. He smacked his fist on the window and yelled for her to help.

His company commander, Capt. Chris Ingenloff, witnessed doctors and nurses running to Pearsall's truck and a gathering stream of ambulances.

"It was chaos. The emergency vehicles were coming in and it reminded me of war," said Ingenloff, who has served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I have two soldiers who were wounded, but I was very impressed with the way everyone responded. The training, the fundamentals of what they had been taught to do in Afghanistan came out. For them, it got very real very quickly.

"It was bedlam where we didn't expect it. It certainly wasn't something we expected on a beautiful day in early November, but we will learn from it and we'll get on."

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