Maxwell Hockin. The purported motto of the Army was family first, mission second, Gary Shafer, a noncommissioned officer who served at Fort Hood from 2012 to 2018 and who knew Wedel-Morales through the car-club scene, told me. Army punishes 14 senior officers after murder and other deaths at Fort Hood Fort Hood soldier found safe with family after failing to show up for Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. And yet: The data is not really out of the ordinary for U.S. military bases. The numbers are distressing. Women, who make up 17 percent of active-duty military, were doubly bereft, and the case files were awash with stories of the dead. None of the grunts I spoke to was surprised by the number of casualties. After a chase along Rancier Avenue, the same street near which Lovell was found dead, Robinson shot himself and died. Specialist Vanessa Guillens father, Rogelio, wondered if I shouldnt carry a gun. For nothing.. Fernandes was dropped off at his friend's house the next day, August 17, never to be seen again. Army report finds Fort Hood soldier Vanessa - The Texas Tribune Last December, an internal investigation found that Fort Hoods culture, environment, and leadership resulted in women feeling vulnerable and preyed upon, with no reliable recourse for their very real sense of duress. Hazel Buck Blackwell, whose family lost their farm, homestead, barns, orchards, and adjoining land when the base took over, said the closest thing might be the unexpected death of someone you loved very much. It was a heartrending, searing experience, central Texas historian GraDelle Duncan said, leaving lifetime marks on all, and actually killing some from the psychic devastation that followed. Dont they care as to what happened to Elder Fernandes? In 2020 alone, 31. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. Far from itthe military was operating as it had been intended. There had been a few people, then it was a group run of 11. Fort Hood: The Whole Story, So Far, of a String of Suspicious Deaths His mother, Kim, only heard from her son when he needed money. Reformers would say that the military had failed its men and women. Bill to attend technical school in Houston to work on wind turbines or oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. Fort Hood - KXXV Guillens youngest sister, Lupe, made me promise to stay at the Marriott, a hotel she considered safer than the rest. Guillen's youngest sister, Lupe, made me promise to stay at the Marriott, a hotel she considered safer than the rest. Such moral injury deteriorates social trust, which is then "replaced by the settled expectancy of harm, exploitation, and humiliation from others," resulting in despair and violence to self and to others. Echovita Inc is a registered trademark. (On July 14,2020, a federal grand injury indicted Aguilar on one count of conspiracy and two counts of tampering with evidence. Fernandes transferred to another unit where he was called a snitch and worse. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. My caution wasn't entirely unfounded. 5.2 (infant deaths per 1,000 live births) Life Expectancy (at Birth) 76.5 years (2020) Marriage Rate. That most soldiers enlist when they are still teenagers, their yet-unformed minds taught to kill. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? Victoria a friend of Gregory Wedel-Morales at the site of his remains, Killeen TX. In other battles, having lost the use of his arm and later a leg, Hood had to be strapped to a horse for combat. Thirteen people were determined to have committed suicide. Fort Hood is now the largest active-duty armored post comprised of nearly 400,000 soldiers, civilian employees, families, and retirees in the Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood metro area. They pointed glumly to past cases, some of which there were public records for and others I could find no traces of in the official files. "For nothing.". A sergeant from Guillens division called it mandatory fun days. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. Washington CNN The Army announced Tuesday that 14 senior officers will be punished following a probe that was initiated after the murder of a soldier and several other deaths at the Army's. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half, Next I passed Club Dreams, where Specialist Shelby Jones was shot, bled out, and died last March; then Guns Galore, where Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan purchased a semiautomatic pistol that he would use to kill 13 people in 2009. The next day, Wedel-Morales failed to show up for duty, and the day after that, he was classified as absent without leave, making him one of the thousand or so soldiers who go AWOL in any given year. Army disciplines 21 at Fort Hood in probe of soldier's death Texas Obituaries - Online Obituaries, Funeral Notices and Death Records His body was mostly intact but for his hyoid, which was never found. But as Beyer would soon realize, Finchs past wasnt what she claimedand Beyers own difficult history was up for the taking. Home :: U.S Army Fort Hood - United States Army Escorts should be arranged in advance to allow for coordination with the organization receiving coverage. Namely, the military. At least 39 Fort Hood troops died or went missing last year. Hazel Buck Blackwell, whose family lost their farm, homestead, barns, orchards, and adjoining land when the base took over, said the "closest thing might be the unexpected death of someone you loved very much." From here, wars are launched. (Fort Hood contributed nearly $30 billion to the Texas economy in 2019, according to the Texas comptroller's office.). [2] Fort Bragg; which has nearly double the soldier population as Fort Hood, is reporting 24 deaths so far this year, with five of them happening in accidents, one homicide, seven from illness,. In 2009, Nidal Hasan was an Army major when he killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. He had messaged his sister beforehand to tell her something felt off. He had also gotten married without telling his family, been evicted from his apartment, and stopped showing up to work. A 214,968-acre installation, this is the only post in the United States capable of stationing and training two armored divisions. They returned several days later to pour concrete over the remains. Give me the name and I will report the bastard, Gloria told her daughter, who refused to tell her mother more for fear of worrying her, and also, Gloria later suspected, for fear of reprisal. The stories are gruesome, then heartbreaking, then beyond belief. When Kim called Fort Hood inquiring after her son, she was told the case was the remit of the Killeen Police Department as Wedel-Morales had gone missing off base. Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillen's death remained a mystery. Basic details of the incident kept changing. Fernandes had just been stationed at Fort Hood in January. Fernandes wouldnt share much, nothing about what had caused him to be hospitalized, and said that he was using an insecure base hospital line. (Marine Lance Corporal Riley Schultzs death on March 15, 2019, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, was also ruled a suicide, despite his hyoid being broken. Two days after Staff Sergeant Anthony Lovell, 40, disappeared in 2017, his body was found, eyes pecked clean, face split in half, in a creek off Killeens seedy main corridor called Rancier, the same street where Specialist Freddy Delacruz, 23, was shot and killed last March. The family began posting online about Guillen's disappearance and distributing "Missing" fliers. Soon after, the Temple police, who led the investigation, ruled Fernandes's death a suicide. In the same week, Private Edward Casteel, who had been missing from Fort Hood since October 6, was found in a parish jail in Louisiana, arrested after a high-speed chase. Spc. This was true of many I met at Fort Hood, including press officer Major Gabriela Thompson, my tour guide on base, who told me she joined to pay off her student loans: It was my ticket out, she said, echoing other soldiers sentiments about how the military had rescued them from hardscrabble existences. The soldiers said that Guillen's belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. Before Fort Hood was built, the land was used for grazing by some 3,000 farmers and ranchers, according to Gerald D. Skidmore, a Killeen historian. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. Later Fort Hood confirmed it was for violating quarantine. 22.4 (births per 1,000 females 15-19 years of age) Infant Mortality Rate. Schuettes body was returned to his family wrapped like a mummy. Later that year, Private Dakota Lee Stump left his barracks to report for work less than a mile away but never arrived for formation. The Armys own investigation found major flaws at Fort Hood, leading to the firing or suspending of 14 officials. fort hood training calendar 2023 Ozempic (semaglutide) is a once-weekly injection that is FDA approved for use by adults with type 2 diabetes to control their blood sugar levels. Copyright 2023 Echovita Inc. All rights reserved. Staff Sergeant Devin Schuette was found dead in his pickup truck, fitted with a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin, in January 2016. Is it possible Elder killed himself ? 26-year-old Fort Hood soldier found dead on post identified, but no When the family exhumed his body in November 2020 for want of a second opinion, the independent autopsy revealed that the bone had in fact gone missing.) The plan, Wedel-Morales told anyone who would listen, was to use the G.I. Mayra wept during the journey, already fearing the worst. Killeen was named after another disappointing man: Frank Killeen, an assistant general manager to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. Visit this link to create a free obituary then read the advantages of creating an obituary on Echovita and either click Start now or Create an obituary for your loved to begin. "He seemed weird," Rodriguez said. Sgt. Atop these sedimentary layers of desecration, displacement, and disorientation, the U.S. War Department set out to build a base that would go on to serve as a footnote to nearly every war in modern memory. Amid all those other deaths, on June 21, 2020, a search party found the charred lid of a cargo box along the Leon River 20 miles east of Fort Hood. The discovery in 2020 of the dismembered and burned remains of Vanessa Guillen, a Fort Hood soldier who disappeared on April 22, 2020, sparked outrage from central Texas to . Back in Houston, Gloria recalled a conversation with her daughter not long before, when Guillen had been home for the weekend. A few days later, they spoke again, for the last time. Ive lost so much since Ive been in. The circumstances are so strange and awful that fully understanding the events can be difficult. Garrison Policies and Regulations. We believe that Every Life has a Story which should be told and preserved. Why had it taken forensics 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? Dominic Criqui, who served in Vanessa Guillens unit, says that the training had come to feel stupid and pointless. What on earth are you training for? he asks, then answers. It is unclear if Killeen even bothered to visit his namesake town, which, by the early 1880s, comprised 40 people living across 360 acres, mostly working in the two cotton gins, two gristmills, and two saloonsit had the most saloons, gamblers, and shootings per capita in Bell County, according to historian Martha Bowmer. After 8 p.m., Guillens sister Mayra called the base. She is now for the movement.. But advocates for. When the family exhumed his body in November 2020 for want of a second opinion, the independent autopsy revealed that the bone had in fact gone missing.) In 2007, also in Iraq, Specialist Kamisha Blocks death was ruled an accident by a single shot of friendly fire before the family received the body and saw that she had five gunshot wounds, including one to the head. In fact, Casteel had been convinced that CIA agents were attacking him since last June. Last December, a Special Forces soldier and an Army veteran were found dead at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where another soldier disappeared in May and was later found murdered. Chee had joined the military in part to support the young family he was starting with his high school sweetheart turned fiance.