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http://www.defenselink.mil//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=56607
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
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
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.”
Related Sites:
Special Report: Tragedy at Fort Hood
Photo Essay: In the Aftermath of Tragedy
Photo Essay: Tragedy at Fort Hood
Fort Hood, Texas
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http://www.defenselink.mil//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=56618
VA Suffers Losses, Offers Help at Fort Hood
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2009 – In the midst of providing mental health services and other support to the Fort Hood, Texas, community following the recent shooting there, the Department of Veterans Affairs learned about its own losses from the violence.
Two VA employees, both serving on active duty with their Army Reserve units, were among the slain. A third VA health care worker on reserve duty was seriously wounded.
“Speaking for the entire VA family, I offer heartfelt condolences to the families of these dedicated VA employees,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. “They devoted their working lives to care for our veterans, and they died in uniform, preparing to safeguard our nation’s freedom.”
Russell G. Seager a 51-year old nurse practitioner at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee and a captain in the Army Reserve, was killed in the deadly attack. In his VA duties, he led a mental health team treating a wide variety of veteran patients, from the youngest combat veterans just back from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan to World War II veterans dealing with depression.
Seager signed up for the Army Reserve four years ago and was preparing for his first overseas deployment when he was killed. VA officials said he was motivated to prevent the mental health problems of young combat soldiers from occurring in the first place. He was to be assigned to a combat stress control unit to watch for warning signs, such as anger and insubordination, among front-line soldiers.
Seager, who held a doctorate degree and was a well-respected teacher at Bryant and Stratton College in Milwaukee, leaves behind a wife and son.
VA’s other fatality was Juanita L. Warman, 55, a nurse practitioner at VA’s medical center in Perry Point, Md. She was a lieutenant colonel in the Maryland National Guard, with two daughters and six grandchildren. She was the daughter of a career Air Force member and held a master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh.
Warman volunteered for “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon,” a program to help members of the Maryland National Guard readjust after returning from overseas deployments. She provided mental health counseling and helped to develop a program about the myths and realities of post-traumatic stress disorder. She was preparing for deployment to Iraq at the time of her death.
Dorothy Carskadon, 47, a captain in the Army Reserve and a social worker and team leader at the VA Vet Center in Madison, Wis., was wounded. She was reported to be in stable condition in the intensive care unit at Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center.
As a VA team leader, Carskadon oversees other social workers in providing individual and group counseling for combat veterans experiencing difficulty readjusting to the civilian community following military service. A new Army officer, Carskadon was preparing for her first deployment.
On an average day, officials said, more than 850 VA employees don uniforms to serve military commitments in Reserve and National Guard units across the country and overseas.
VA has been responding to the Fort Hood tragedy since shortly after the sound of gunfire was replaced by the sirens of emergency responders. Through official agreements and the shared sense of mission to care for military members and veterans in the central Texas region, VA has provided clinical supplies, including pharmaceuticals, and sent mental health teams from nearby facilities as well as four fully staffed, portable Vet Centers to aid in counseling military members and families.
Teams of physicians, nurses and other VA clinical and support personnel were placed on stand-by for possible deployment to Fort Hood or to receive additional patients following the shooting.
VA operates several clinical and benefits processing locations on Fort Hood, and routinely has about 18 employees working on the post. Initial actions included confirming the safety and security of those employees.
VA continues to coordinate with the Defense Department in providing care and support to all those affected by the tragedy, officials said.
(From a Department of Veterans Affairs news release.)
Related Sites:
Department of Veterans Affairs
Special Report: Tragedy at Fort Hood
Photo Essay: In the Aftermath of Tragedy
Photo Essay: Tragedy at Fort Hood
Fort Hood, Texas