Combat stress unit deploying on schedule despite losing soldiers during Fort Hood shootings

Fort Hood unit to deploy despite losing soldiers

FORT HOOD, Texas — The day after arriving at Fort Hood, Army reservists dedicated to counseling troubled soldiers in war zones were overcome with their own grief.

Nearly a fourth of the Wisconsin-based 467th Medical Detachment’s soldiers died or were injured in the shooting rampage last month at the sprawling Texas post. The accused gunman, Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, was supposed to deploy with the unit.

Yet the soldiers said they never wavered in their determination to serve. They spent the last month training together, and several soldiers from across the country volunteered to fill the void left by the three soldiers slain and six others seriously wounded.

The 43 members of the Army Reserve combat stress unit were set to deploy to Afghanistan on Friday. Department of Defense officials decided only recently that the unit would deploy as originally scheduled.

“I think they decided that same day (of the shooting) that they were more dedicated than ever in honor of the soldiers that we lost and have stood firm in that commitment,” Maj. Laura Suttinger of Fort Atkinson, Wis., said late Thursday, just hours before deploying.

“They were all very dedicated, caring soldiers and they will not be forgotten, and we’re carrying on in their honor.”

She and another leader in the unit declined to talk about Hasan, who remains in a San Antonio military hospital and is paralyzed from wounds he suffered in the Nov. 5 shootings. Army officials have not said whether Hasan knew anyone in the unit or if he was targeting them. The shootings occurred in a building full of several hundred soldiers.

Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. Army officials have not said if they will seek the death penalty, but they plan an evaluation in the next 45 days to determine his mental state that day and whether he is competent to stand trial.

To help in the healing process, the 467th made black bracelets etched with the names of its three slain members — Maj. Libardo Caraveo, Capt. Russell Seager and Sgt. Amy Krueger — as well as the names of two soldiers killed that day from another stress combat unit. Everyone in the unit will wear them to symbolize that “we are carrying our fallen comrades into combat with us,” said 1st Sgt. James McLeod, one of the unit’s leaders.

He said he feels that after going through the tragedy, the unit actually is better equipped to help soldiers struggling with what they’ve seen in combat or worried about their families or finances back home. The unit includes psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and occupational therapists.

“They have an opportunity to be part of history, to do something that hasn’t been done before,” McLeod said. “Even though we lost our fallen comrades … ‘no one is going to stop us from completing our mission’ is really what their goal is.”

And with President Obama’s announcement that he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next fall, “we’re needed there more than ever,” Suttinger said.

Meanwhile, one of two civilian officers credited with shooting Hasan to end the rampage said her wounds from the attack will cut short her career as a street police officer.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley said doctors have told her she needs a total knee replacement, a surgery set for January, but that her new knee is likely to wear out sooner if she runs or carries the 15- to 25-pound gear pack required by her job.

“I do want to stay in law enforcement. I’m not going to be able to do what I did before, which is basically work the street,” she told Wilmington, N.C., television station WECT on Wednesday. “It’s going to give me another avenue to look in as far as possibly teaching and instructing.”

Fort Hood officials said Thursday that Munley, 34, who was shot in the leg and hand, has not started the process to determine if she’s physically able to do her former job.

Sgt. Mark Todd, 42, the other civilian officer in Fort Hood’s police force who shot Hasan, was not injured and is already back at work.