6 from Wisconsin among Fort Hood victims

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | Nov. 6-7, 2009 | Don Walker

[Brown Deer]

2 killed, 4 wounded; some were to go to Afghanistan with assailant

By Don Walker

At least six soldiers from Wisconsin were among the 43 people killed or injured by an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood, and an Army major said Friday night that the shooter was scheduled to deploy with a Madison-based unit.

The man identified as the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was to be sent to Afghanistan. Madison's 467th Medical Detachment, also known as a combat-stress unit, was also in the process of being deployed with him, according to Maj. Claudia Jefferson, an Army spokeswoman.

"Hasan was supposed to deploy with the 467th as a professional medical filler," Jefferson said.

There were conflicting reports about which units the Wisconsin victims came from. Some were members of the 467th. Others were members of the 1908th Combat Stress Unit.

Other military sources said Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, and Russell Seager, 51, of Mount Pleasant, who were killed in Thursday's shootings, were members of the 467th. So were Spc. Grant Moxon, 23, a mental health specialist from Lodi, who was shot in the leg, and Dorrie Carskadon, a social worker and the team leader working at the Madison Vet Center, who was also injured, they said.

Late Friday, a Sauk County family said their son, Sgt. John Pagel, 28, also was among the wounded.

Pagel, of Denzer, also was with the 467th Medical Detachment. He is married, has three children and works for a frozen food company, according to his stepmother, Marilyn Clifford.

Pagel was shot in the chest and the left arm during the shooting. Pagel was treated and released from a hospital, his family said.

Pfc. Amber Bahr, a nutritionist from Random Lake who was shot in the back, had been at Fort Hood about a year and apparently is not attached to the 467th.

Jefferson said it was unclear when Hasan, who is believed to have committed a rampage that left 13 people dead and 30 injured, was scheduled to leave for Afghanistan with the 467th. Other military spokesman said units skilled in combat stress come and go from Fort Hood, and the 467th was one such unit.

One military official said psychiatrists like Hasan sometimes are deployed differently than Reserve or Army units. However, the number of Wisconsin victims - two killed and at least four others injured - suggests that Hasan was in close proximity to Wisconsin servicemen and women at the time of the shooting.

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2001 terrorism attack motivated Krueger

Friends recall Kiel native as sweet, caring and tough

By Tom Held


Kiel - Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger decided she was willing to put her life at risk for her country the instant a second airplane crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"We looked at each other and knew, and the next day we were in the recruiter's office," recalled Kristin Thayer, who watched the attack with Krueger in a commons area at a college in Sheboygan. "Anything it took, anything our country needed of us, even if that meant giving our lives."

Krueger made the ultimate sacrifice that pledge carried. She died Thursday when an Army psychiatrist opened fire on soldiers proceeding through deployment preparations at Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas.

On Friday, Thayer grieved the loss of her best friend, a classmate and teammate who joined her at that recruiting station determined to serve her country. Both joined the Army Reserves.

Krueger had deployed previously to Afghanistan, in 2003, and assisted soldiers dealing with combat stress as part of a military support unit. She was preparing to do the same, and had left her home on the outskirts of Kiel for Fort Hood on Tuesday.

Standing outside that home, Thayer spoke for Krueger's friends and family, the people who have lost an "outgoing, happy, caring and unselfish person."

Inside, more than a dozen friends and family members consoled one another. Krueger's mother and father chose not to speak publicly about their daughter.

Another close friend, Denise Morley, stood with Thayer to talk about "one of the sweetest people in the world."

Krueger, she said, would capture everyone in a room with her smile, humor and personality.

She had a toughness beneath the cheery disposition.

"She was very feisty," Morley said. "When she wanted something she got it, and nobody was going to stand in her way."

That attitude played a part in her decision to join the service.

"She's a hero for all of us," she said.

Military officials delivered the tragic news to Krueger's family about 2 a.m. Friday, ending an agonizing wait. Thayer and others grew increasingly frightened as their phone calls and text messages went unanswered.

"The more time that passed, the worse it got," Thayer said. "Just gut-wrenching. You felt lost inside."

Arrangements for Krueger's funeral services are pending.

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Slain Mount Pleasant soldier called a 'quiet helper'

By Sharif Durhams
Capt. Russell Seager
Russell Seager of Mount Pleasant was described as a "quiet helper" who joined the military about four years ago at the age of 47.

Seager, one of two soldiers from Wisconsin killed at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, was licensed as a registered nurse and advanced practice nurse prescriber. He worked at Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said his uncle Larry Seager, and was a primary caregiver who provided mental health services to patients.

He had taught classes at Bryant & Stratton College in Milwaukee since 2005 and was pursuing a doctorate in education. "I don't think he missed a year of school since he was 18," Larry Seager said. "He just had to keep learning."

Larry Seager, who lives in Mauston, said he was surprised when he learned his nephew had joined the military, but that working with soldiers fit with his personality.

A profile of Seager produced by WUWM-FM in August says he led a mental health team at the VA and served patients ranging from 20-year-olds just back from Iraq and Afghanistan to veterans in their 80s and 90s.

The profile says he had a doctorate in alternative medicine and was part of a combat stress control unit, tasked with watching for warning signs among soldiers on the front lines - things such as anger and insubordination - which could signal long-term problems.

"I've always had a great deal of respect for the military and for service, and I just felt it was time that I stepped up and did it, actually," he said in the radio station's profile. "I mean, it sounds corny and patriotic, but when you talk to people that decide to do this, the feelings are similar."

Family members at his home on a quiet cul de sac in Mount Pleasant said they didn't want to talk to the media, but neighbors described him as a quiet but friendly man who was often seen walking in the neighborhood with his wife.

"He was real excited when he joined the military," said Tom Casper, who lives across from the family. Seager sometimes wore his uniform when walking to the corner to pick up his mail, said Casper, and "you could tell by his gait that he was proud."

But he and others said Seager and his wife kept pretty much to themselves. A friendly " 'Hi' was about all you got," said next-door neighbor Bruce Luccas, who said he was shocked at the news of Seager's death.

Said neighbor Russ Solberg: "My heart goes out to that family."

And neighbor Gil Mann said "It says a lot for what he thought of this country."

Sharif Durhams reported from Milwaukee, Tom Tolan from Mount Pleasant.

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Soldier from Random Lake praised for heroism

By Tom Held
Pfc. Amber Bahr
Random Lake - A commanding officer described Pfc. Amber Bahr's actions in the chaos of the Fort Hood shootings as those of a hero.

She told her family she was just being a soldier.

The 2008 graduate of Random Lake High School put a tourniquet on another soldier and carried him away from the gunfire before discovering she had been wounded herself, shot in the lower back.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding officer of the Army base, called Bahr "an amazing young lady" in a television segment Friday on NBC's "Today" show.

Bahr's mother, Lisa Pfund, said Friday she learned of her daughter's heroism through news accounts and not the limited conversations the two had after the ordeal. In a phone call from a hospital emergency room, Pfund said Bahr told her, "Mommy, I hurt so bad."

She has not been allowed to reveal any details of the shootings in the Soldier Readiness Center. Thirteen soldiers were killed, and Bahr was one of 30 wounded.

Pfund said she was talking on the phone with her daughter about 1 or 1:30 p.m., about the time authorities say that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire. Bahr said, "I've got to go," and ended the phone call, although Pfund was uncertain if the shooting had started.

Bahr, 19, reportedly tossed her cell phone to another soldier and directed her to call 911, an act that left her without a phone and led to a good deal of anxiety back home, a farmhouse just off Highway 57.

"Then it was hours and hours and hours that we waited," Pfund said.

Thursday evening, an emergency room doctor called the family to report that Bahr had survived. Subsequent reports and eventually a call from the wounded soldier provided even better news. Her wound was not serious, and she was in line to be released from the hospital late Friday or sometime Saturday.

Pfund plans to be there on Saturday.

"I'm just going to hold her as tight as I can," she said. "I don't know if she's a hero, but I'm very proud of her."

Bahr joined the Army in December 2006 and undertook her basic training between her junior and senior years of high school. With her military future already planned, she played soccer and reportedly displayed some of the toughness she employed during the chaos at Fort Hood.

Bahr had been at the base for a year, working as an Army nutritionist, and was scheduled to deploy for the first time in January.

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State man says son injured but feels lucky after Fort Hood shootings

By Sharif Durhams
Spc. Grant Moxon
Wisconsin Army Reserve Spc. Grant Moxon of Lodi was looking right into the eyes of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when Hasan raised a gun and started shooting at fellow soldiers, his father said Friday.

"When the guy started shooting, he could not believe he didn't get shot in the head," Dave Moxon said of his son. The father said his son pretended to be dead when he was hit in the leg and got out of the room. "You're sitting there in a protected area, supposedly. All of a sudden, a guy dressed like you starts shooting."

Grant Moxon, a member of Madison's 467th Medical Detachment, has a bullet lodged in his leg above his knee, and doctors say they might have to leave it there, his father said, but he considers himself lucky. The specialist was sitting in the front of a processing room at the Texas military base Thursday when he saw the man accused of killing 13 people and injuring dozens of others.

Grant Moxon is a mental health specialist who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, his father said. He was scheduled to visit home for Thanksgiving and then to be deployed to Afghanistan.

Moxon, 23, joined the military last year and had arrived at the Texas Army base on Wednesday after training in California, Arkansas and Kansas.

The father said his son abandoned his cell phone in the processing room as he escaped, so family members have been relying on sporadic text messages and brief calls to get updates. The specialist quickly texted his father Thursday afternoon to say that he was alive and made a phone call hours later. He asked for a phone number of a friend so that he could provide an update.

"He was just real matter-of-fact about the whole thing," Dave Moxon said. "He just feels that he's so far better off than so many others."

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Social worker's skill putting rage to rest

She had worked at Madison Vet Center

By Jesse Garza
Dorothy "Dorrie" Carskadon (right)
Dorothy "Dorrie" Carskadon's pastor says it's more than ironic that Carskadon, a clinical social worker with the U.S. Army Reserve, was a victim in the rampage at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas.

Carskadon, until recently a team leader at the Vet Center in Madison, has specialized in teaching people how to defuse their anger, training others to mediate potentially violent situations.

At age 47 she was getting ready to leave for Afghanistan to help cushion the psychological impact on veterans returning home from a war zone.

"It's acutely ironic, painfully ironic," said the Rev. KyungJa Oh, of St. Chad Episcopal Church in Loves Park, Ill., who, with Carskadon, was developing a violence remediation training program for the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. "It's stunningly ironic."

Members of Oh's congregation held a prayer service Friday evening for Carskadon, who was among those wounded Thursday when authorities said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire, killing 13 people.

Carskadon had been a member of St. Chad for about six years and was active in the church's meal ministries, Oh said.

Carskadon lived in Rockford and, about a year ago, rented an apartment in the Madison area, Oh said.

According to her Vet Center biography, Carskadon began work as a team leader at the center in April 2006. She served in the Army from 1989 to 1994 and was deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

As an Army reservist she recently was activated, assigned to the 467th Combat Stress Detachment Unit, and was headed to Afghanistan.

"She was going to be on the front line for veterans as they finished their tours of duty and headed home," Oh said.

About 10 veterans who received help from Carskadon in Wisconsin were among about 40 people who attended the prayer service Friday evening, Oh said.

"She touched so many veterans' lives in her work," Oh said. "Now they're coming here to show their support."

[Indy Pendance]

I'm 10 miles from Random Lake. She's only 19, and attended the wounded while wounded herself. She's a big hero around here. Wisconsin isn't liberal, we have 70 counties that love freedom, and 2 that screw it up for everyone else.

Pfc. Amber Bahr, a nutritionist from Random Lake who was shot in the back, had been at Fort Hood about a year and apparently is not attached to the 467th.

[Brown Deer]

Bahr joined the Army in December 2006 and undertook her basic training between her junior and senior years of high school.

She seems like an amazing young girl. Her family must be very proud of her.

[Indy Pendance]

This could be any daughter. This is MY daughter, joined in 2003, 20 years old. Did a tour of Iraq. And you look at her photo, she could have been any one of our kids.

[Thunder90]

Prayers up....

[Merlinator]

I was thinking it could have been my niece who joined the army just a couple weeks ago and is going into nursing. She is so proud and happy about her decision. God bless all the wounded and fallen in this tragedy, and God bless your daughter and tell her “thank you” for me.

[TheConservativeParty]

Thanks for posting this. I’m from WI too.

[rabidralph]

Thank her for her service. God bless all our people in uniform and those who have served.

[Indy Pendance]

Thank you, she married another soldier, our beloved son-in-law is off to Afghanistan in January (4 Iraq tours). As a side note, the soldiers hate bambi, but they are re-enlisting because our country needs them more than ever. Every Military guy says the same, they can’t leave their buddies now more than ever. My SIL a fabulous guy. We are raising a new crop of conservatives, America won’t fail. Our 1980’s era babies will pull us through this. Us post hippy generation won’t put up with their policies.

[Indy Pendance]

God bless your niece. Be proud, if you can, go to her graduation, it's an awesome event, and the kids are so proud and want you to be there! Your niece IS my daughter. Thank her, we thank all our fabulous men and women patriots. This topic just tears me up. Our military keeps our freedom. Our children will prevail. We've raised them right. They are not hippies.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

God Bless Your Family, and prayers up for the victims. And that young girl WAS me in 1979!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Excellent post. Thank you!

“We looked at each other and knew, and the next day we were in the recruiter’s office,” recalled Kristin Thayer, who watched the [9/11] attack with Krueger in a commons area at a college in Sheboygan. “Anything it took, anything our country needed of us, even if that meant giving our lives.”

And we have SUCH an ass in the White House right now who doesn’t understand PATRIOTISM one teeny, tiny bit! Grrrrr!

[StarCMC]

Hey Indy — I am so glad things have gone well with your daughter and I’ll pray for your SIL’s safety.

[Indy Pendance]

They just had a memorial for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel. Hundreds of Vets showed up. It was reported as ‘very tearful’. Pray for our military.