Archive for November, 2009

Fort Hood Soldiers Reach Out to Families, Each Other

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
KILLEEN, Texas, Nov. 10, 2009 – Waiting at the airport last night for the last families to arrive for today’s ceremony honoring victims of the fatal shooting rampage at nearby Fort Hood, several soldiers were dealing with their own pain and confusion by reaching out to families of the fallen and to each other.

Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Hall, Army Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Rodriquez and Army Spc. Laurence Palmer man a table in Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport in Texas on Nov. 9, 2009, to welcome families arriving for a ceremony scheduled the next day to honor the 13 people killed and 38 others wounded during a Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood. DoD photo by Donna Miles

Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Hall, Army Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Rodriquez and Army Spc. Laurence Palmer manned a table near the airport’s baggage claim area, where they welcomed arriving families of the 13 people killed and 38 others wounded during the Nov. 5 incident.

“We’re here to meet the families, to hug them and tell them God is looking out for them,” said Hall, a member of the U.S. Army Garrison. “We hope to give them a sense of comfort and community and to make sure they know that the Army is there for them.”

Army Chief Warrant Officer 1 John Mabry, a human intelligence collection technician with 3rd Corps, stood with a list of incoming family members, checking to make sure all had transportation, a place to sleep and contacts for anything they might need while at Fort Hood.

“We want to be gracious hosts,” he said. “What we’re really doing is trying to help them through the worst time of their life.”

Army Chaplain (Capt.) Kehmes Lands stood by to offer spiritual support. “Some of the families are taking it really bad,” he said. “With others, you see them trying to hold it together in the airport. But as a chaplain, I can see through it, so I reach out to them.”

Lands took several of the arriving families aside last night, praying with them and telling them about services available for them through the post’s spiritual fitness center. Many of the families were gathered there last night, he said, seeking strength from each other through their shared sense of loss.

Memorial services are an all-too-familiar occurrence at Fort Hood, where the 1st Cavalry Division alone typically holds about one a month to honor combat casualties.

But Rodriguez, a U.S. Army Garrison soldier who’s been stationed at Fort Hood for two and a half years, was struggling last night to come to terms with how a soldier could have turned on his fellow soldiers.

“I have mixed emotions,” he said, including anger that the suspect is a soldier. “That has a lot of people upset,” he said. It’s just a tragic incident.”

“You expect something like this when you go to war,” said Army Staff Sgt. Andrea Hopkins, a reservist from the 1972nd Combat Stress Control Unit, who was among the mental-health team members called to Fort Hood after the shooting. “But it’s just not something you expect at home.”

Especially painful, she said, is the fact that the alleged shooter was a fellow mental-health provider, and that one of the soldiers wounded was a reservist from her Seattle-based unit.

As Hopkins stood at the airport last night awaiting another unit member’s arrival, she struggled with her own cloud of emotions, including guilt that she hadn’t been there for her fellow soldiers.

She and 12 other members of her unit had been slated to deploy to Iraq, but Hopkins’ name had been taken off the list, she explained. She hadn’t pushed to have her name reinstated — mostly because she’d just returned from a deployment in 2007 — and as a result, hadn’t been with them at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Station on Nov. 5.

One of her fellow reservists was shot and ended up hospitalized. Another, Hopkins’ battle buddy, hadn’t been hurt, but was badly shaken by the incident. “It makes you feel responsible when they are your soldiers,” Hopkins said. “My soldiers were there, and I wasn’t there for my battle buddy.”

If there’s one positive takeaway from the tragedy, Rodriquez said, it’s knowing how his fellow soldiers stood up to protect and help each other while in the line of fire.

“I’m so proud of these guys,” he said. “They did exactly what the Army taught them. They took care of their battle buddies and watched out for them. And when you think about what they did, the pride comes back.”

Lands predicted that today’s ceremony will help the entire Fort Hood community share that sense of pride, while helping families “get over the hump” to begin the long process of healing.

“They are going to see the good part of what we do: the perfection of the military, and how we honor soldiers, how we honor families and friends,” he said.

Lands said he’s been amazed at tragedy’s unexpected impact. “I’ve seen the community come together like never before,” he said. “We’re stronger today than we ever were before.”

Army Chaplain (Capt.) Kehmes Lands awaits families arriving at Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport in Texas on Nov. 9, 2009, for a ceremony scheduled the next day to honor the 13 people killed and 38 others wounded during a Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood.

Fort Hood killings ‘incomprehensible,’ Obama says

Find the CNN article here:

Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) — The sound of taps echoed across the Texas plains Tuesday after President Obama pledged that the work of those killed in last week’s Fort Hood massacre will go on despite their “incomprehensible” slayings.

Speaking to an estimated 15,000 people at a memorial service at the post, Obama vowed that justice will be done in the attack that left 13 dead and 42 wounded.

Though he told the families that “no words can fill the void that has been left,” he added, “your loved ones endure through the life of our nation.”

“Their life’s work is our security and the freedom that we too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that is their legacy,” the president said.

After his remarks, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama laid a presidential coin before each of the 13 battlefield crosses — the helmet, boots and rifle representing each of those killed — before family members and comrades filed past.

Fort Hood Army Post has seen 545 soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the post’s commander, “but never did we expect to pay such a high price at home.”

Gen. George Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, added, “Grieve with us. Don’t grieve for us.”

“Those who have fallen did so in the service of their country,” he said. “They freely answered the call to serve, and they gave their lives for something that they loved and believed in.”

Obama called the wartime killings of American troops on their home soil “incomprehensible.” But he said the values the dead volunteered to defend will live on and will be extended even to the man accused of carrying to the slayings.

“Those who have fallen did so in the service of their country,” he said. “They freely answered the call to serve, and they gave their lives for something that they loved and believed in.”

Obama called the wartime killings of American troops on their home soil “incomprehensible.” But he said the values the dead volunteered to defend will live on and will be extended even to the man accused of carrying to the slayings.

The suspected gunman in the attack is a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who remained in intensive care at an Army hospital in San Antonio, Texas.

Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan but had told his family that he wanted to get out of the military.

“No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts,” Obama said at the memorial service. But he said soldiers who responded to the attack “remind us of who we are as Americans.”

“We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes,” he said.

No charges have been filed, and authorities have not identified a motive in Thursday’s attack. But in a statement issued Monday night, the FBI said its investigation “indicates that the alleged gunman acted alone and was not part of a broader terrorist plot.”

Thursday’s victims included 12 soldiers and a retired soldier working as a civilian physician’s assistant.

Shortly before the ceremony and 1,200 miles away, the remains of one of the soldiers was carried off a chartered jet in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

An honor guard met the casket of Sgt. Amy Krueger on the apron at General Mitchell International Airport.

Krueger, 29, was a high school athlete who joined the military after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. She was assigned to a medical unit that was doing checkups on soldiers bound for Afghanistan and Iraq when the shooting erupted.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and more than a dozen members of Congress were among who attended the service on the warm Texas afternoon.

Discharged under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ By Pelin Sidki, CNN

Find the article on CNN here:

(CNN) — Darren Manzella saw two tours of duty in Iraq, first as a combat medic and later as a liaison officer. He earned three promotions in his six years as a U.S. Army sergeant. Despite his professional success, Manzella says he began to question his personal life. “After returning from my first deployment in Iraq, after seeing death and violence, losing friends and comrades, it really made me look over my life,” he said. “I looked at some issues I had always had trouble with. I had debated, ‘Am I gay?’ ”

As he struggled with his sexual identity, Manzella began a relationship with a man. Soon after, while in Texas between tours, Manzella said he began receiving anonymous, harassing e-mails and telephone calls. “They told me, ‘You are stupid, the Army is going to kick you out, but before they do, they are going to take your rank away and all your money away.’ ” Manzella describes this time as one of fear and deep insecurity. “I didn’t know if the military police would be coming through the door to take me away because someone had reported me,” he said. “This was some of the paranoia I was living with every day.” Manzella says that the e-mails and calls went on for months and that after many sleepless nights, he decided to ask his supervisor for help. “He listened and was somewhat sympathetic,” Manzella said. “He told me not to worry, to try and get some rest, to go home early and see him in the morning.”

By the next morning, Manzella’s supervisor had reported him as having broken the law under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 1993 policy that prohibits anyone who “demonstrate(s) a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts” from serving in the U.S. military. Manzella said he was read his rights and told that he would be investigated, but that he could continue working. As the investigation proceeded, word spread that Manzella was gay. “Ironically, it pulled the unit together. A lot of them started to invite me out,” Manzella said. “My co-worker was getting married; she told me that my boyfriend and I were invited to the wedding. It made me feel like I was more a part of the family.” After a month, Manzella said he was told that no proof of homosexuality had been found and that the investigation was being closed, even though he told his supervisor about his lifestyle.

Manzella was hopeful. “I thought it was a big step when they told me that they were going to retain me,” he said. In 2006, Manzella’s unit was sent back to Iraq, and he served his 15-month deployment with his unit knowing he was gay. “I could have pictures of my boyfriend out, I could talk freely on the phone without having to worry about someone overhearing me and reporting me,” he said. During his tour, Manzella was contacted by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national nonprofit offering legal assistance to those affected by don’t ask, don’t tell. SLDN told him that a television network was looking for a gay serviceman in a combat zone to tell his story. After weighing the risk of being discharged for speaking out publicly, Manzella agreed to the interview. He said he was motivated by the knowledge that he could give a voice to the gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving in the military — a number estimated at 65,000 by the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which researches sexual minorities in the military. The network television segment aired a few days before Manzella returned from Iraq, and it seemed at first that his interview would not have consequences. He returned to the States, spent time with his family and even went to Capitol Hill to lobby against don’t ask, don’t tell. Manzella returned to duty at Fort Hood, Texas, in December 2007 and continued to serve for almost seven months. In the first week of March 2008, he was given orders to report to Fort Drum, New York, to work at the military hospital there.

A week later, he said, his company commander called him in. “I was told I was going to be discharged under don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said. “Up until that point, I hadn’t heard anything. I had lived openly for nearly two years. I thought that was a huge step forward, that finally people were being recognized on their performance and how well they served their country and their comrades and peers.” In June 2008, Manzella received an honorable discharge. His discharge papers read “homosexual conduct admission.” CNN contacted the Army for more details on the nature of Manzella’s discharge. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver of the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs said that under law, the military could not comment on or release details about Manzella’s discharge. Since don’t ask, don’t tell was introduced, the military has discharged more than 13,000 lesbians, gays and bisexuals, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

A 2005 government report found that about 800 of them had skills deemed “critical,” such as engineering and linguistics, and that it cost the military about $200 million to recruit and train their replacements. Garver said the continued enforcement of don’t ask, don’t tell is simply a case of the Army enforcing the law. “The Army enforces the homosexual conduct policy because it is the law,” he said. “The policy is not a military policy, and the Army has a policy because it is bound by current statute. If the law were potentially to change, the Army would change to enforce whatever the law may be.”