FORT HOOD, Texas — Agents from the FBI and the Army's Criminal Investigation Command combed the green grounds of the Soldier Processing Center here Saturday morning, the scene of the deadliest rampage at a U.S. military base.
Soldiers toting M4 carbines kept visitors from near the knoll where investigators believe the alleged gunman — Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, a psychiatrist temporarily assigned to the sprawling Texas base — fired into a crowd of hundreds of unarmed soldiers and civilians Thursday afternoon, killing 13 and wounding 30.
Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, said yesterday that detectives had yet to determine a motive for the shootings. He said there was no evidence that "friendly fire" from police officers rushing to the scene caused any casualties.
"But, again, that's part of an ongoing investigation," Grey said.
Base police officers, federal investigators and Army III Corps Brig. Gen. William Grimsley said that authorities have interviewed more than 170 witnesses, but will need to interview many more before they final conclusions about the chaotic moments of Thursday's attack.
In the early moments of Thursday's rampage, authorities detained — then released — two people suspected of assisting Hasan. Grey said all evidence points to Hasan acting alone.
Witnesses have told investigators that Hasan arose from a chair and began firing one of two pistols he had carried to the Readiness Center, a large structure similar to a gymnasium that squats amidst the base's Howze Auditorium and several red brick buildings reserved for administrative processing of soldiers going and coming from overseas battlefields. Hasan is believed to have left the large hall and begun firing at a running soldier who was bleeding.
According to Chuck Medley, civilian director of police and firefighters at a base that houses more than 50,000 soldiers and their families, the first 911 call came to dispatchers at 1:23 p.m. A radio call and computerized alert went out to Kimberly Munley, 35, a civilian policewoman who was having her cruiser serviced by mechanics nearby. Within four minutes, Medley and Grimsley said, the female officer had exchanged gun blasts with Hasan, saving the life of at least one soldier but getting seriously wounded herself.
"By her engaging (Hasan)," Medley said, "he turned away from him and began engaging her" — a decision the deputy commander of III Corps believes was "critical" to saving the soldier and possibly many others.
According to Medley, Munley had peeked around a small building, realized that the "situation was critical" and "fired at the suspect," missing the suspected gunman but forcing him to stop, pivot and fire at her "several times."
"Then he began to charge her, and she continued to engage him," said Medley.
Hasan and Munley stood at very close range, shooting at each other. Medley said Hasan's shots struck the officer in the hand and wrist. She fell back, Medley said, "and she continued to engage him" from the ground.
From a nearby knoll, civilian policeman Mark Todd rushed to her rescue and fired at Hasan. While investigators still haven't said which gun fired the bullets that wounded Hasan, both Medley and Grimsley said the alleged gunman went down with "a significant number of wounds."
While one of Medley's firefighters applied a tourniquet to stop the blood gushing from Munley, within minutes soldiers rushing to the sounds of the gunfire began treating the wounded, including Hasan, who was in uniform. An unnamed soldier who is credited with saving Hasan's life had no idea that he was suspected of the slaughter.
"He didn't know who was who," Medley said. "He saved the life of another soldier."
To commanders, the carnage here was especially unexpected because the base was considered to be at the forefront of changes designed to reduce the after-effects of combat stress, cull the count of soldier suicides and better mend marriages strained by the conflict.
For more than a year, Fort Hood has revamped buildings that once housed combat units — many from the Fourth Infantry Division, which has moved to Colorado's Fort Carson — and tried to change the physical, spiritual and mental topography of the base to reflect best practices in fixing an Army strained by ongoing deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Based on ongoing research pioneered at the University of Pennsylvania, reforms were designed to make soldiers, their spouses and their children more "resilient" and capable of bouncing back from hardship and tragedy.
"The idea is that we have to address a soldier's inner strength," said Col. Bill Rabena, a gritty field artillery commander from the Baghdad battlefield who now directs the base's "Resiliency Campus."
"After deployment, we have learned how to treat the soldier. But we realized that we needed to do more before the deployment, and we have to focus on the mind, the body and the spirit."
For Rabena's soldiers and family members, that means suicide interventions, courses on battlefield ethics, marriage counseling and tough physical exercise — not to mention New Age music near the reflecting pool, a chronic need for yoga and tai chi instructors and even aromatherapy.
And the efforts aren't reserved just for Fort Hood. Base counselors, many of whom are volunteers, reach out to the loved ones of dead and wounded servicemen and women, regardless of branch, across 175 counties in west and central Texas.
"We just want families to know that their soldier is not forgotten," said Connie McDonald, a support coordinator at the base.
Grimsley points to the proliferation of Fort Hood's combat memorials as permanent places for the grieving to pay tribute to their fallen. Some of them are men and women he commanded in Iraq.
"We're going to keep grieving these losses," said Grimsly. "But we're also going to keep updating the families, reaching out to survivors and doing what we need to do. Fort Hood is going to survive."
Fort Hood's garrison chaplain, Col. Frank Jackson, 58, said that his sermon today will focus on communities of faith and how hope, encouragement and healing can help overcome this week's tragedy. Instead of focusing on the shooter, he will speak to the suffering of those who grieve the dead and wounded.
"This is a painful time. It's painful, but it's powerful," said Jackson, 58, a Southern Baptist from Tucson, who, like all other military chaplains, administers to many faiths. "It's a time when we understand that hope is important to people, and that we must assure them that we will be all right and that we'll get better."
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