There had been a few people, then it was a group run of 11. Thomas Berg, whose son Private Brandon Rosecrans's Jeep was found burning in May, told me not to go out after dark. Atop these sedimentary layers of desecration, displacement, and disorientation, the War Department set out to build a base that would go on to serve as a footnote to nearly every war in modern memoryKorea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but also Grenada, Panama, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Toxic leadership is nothing new. Rosecrans, shot four times, was found three miles from his vehicle. At 9:30 p.m., Mayra, Cruz, Guillens other sister Yovana, and Yovanas boyfriend set out for Fort Hood. All are former soldiers. No skid marks were apparent, nor did anyone hear the crash. 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. That an overwhelming majority of the town's economy comes from Fort Hood makes Killeen a kind of rentier state, in that most of its revenue comes through a foreign entity, which historically has led to the collapse of domestic industries, leading to increased dependence on a single source of income. There had been a few people, then it was a group run of 11. The figures coming out of the deaths at Fort Hood are depressing, as reported in Vanity Fair. Yes, flower arrangements are fulfilled and delivered by local florists from Fort Hood. The base might have continued to devour its soldiers had it not been for a missing soldier's family whose rage, love, and devotion would attract the attention of the media, celebrities, and later the White House, sparking congressional and military investigations. Fort Hood was founded in January 1942 as a training ground for tank destroyers, selected for its varied terrain. She is now for the movement.. Ever since returning from a deployment to Iraq in February 2019shipped off two months after basic training for a nine-month tourRing had become withdrawn, developed a drinking problem, and had been arrested for drunk driving. The military is necessarily an institution of state-sanctioned violence, where we teach our young to kill on our behalf in the name of ideologies such as patriotism or democracy. Fernandess family told me they have never been interviewed. (Among 1.29 million members of the U.S. military, 65,000 are immigrants, according to The Washington Post.) 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. The tributaries that run through Fort Hood flow into the Leon River, where Guillens remains were later found. If she wanted to pursue things further, they advised, she would have to file a missing persons report with the local police. 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. The murder of Vanessa Guilln, a 20-year-old United States Army soldier, took place inside an armory at Fort Hood, Texas, on April 22, 2020, when she was bludgeoned to death by another soldier, Aaron David Robinson. There were no Black residents in town until the early 1950s. He was assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. On May 19, military investigators went through Robinsons phone and learned that he had called his girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, multiple times on the night of April 22, as late as 3:30 a.m., from a town 20 miles east of Fort Hooddespite his claim he had been with Aguilar that night. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. IMCOM is not responsible for the content of links outside home.army.mil. All this has been true since the founding of the American military, but a sense of disorientation has increased in recent years, as wars that were never good to begin with began to lose moral shine. Their minds both turned to Vanessa, whose hourly texts to family members had gone silent. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. On November 5, 2009, 13 people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central. After hours, media should call the Emergency Operations Center at (254) 287-2054 and ask for the on-call PAO. On most nights, I had nightmares. September 10, 2020. American military bases, once established, seldom shutter, and Fort Hood, which started operating during World War II, has remained open for business, its 218,000 acres spreading across two counties in central Texas near an otherwise unremarkable town called Killeen. Casteel had told Rodriguez he was getting away from the abuse.. It was a "heartrending, searing experience," central Texas historian Gra'Delle Duncan said, "leaving lifetime marks on all, and actually killing some" from the psychic devastation that followed. On the night of August 19, Wedel-Morales went out to Club Fuego, located in a desolate strip mall about 10 miles east of Fort Hood. Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. Radically transparent, low cost versions of high cost generic drugs. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? On August 11, a higher-up called Fernandes's mother, Ailina, to tell her that her son had not shown up for work for two days. When Ailina contacted the military police at Fort Hood, they told her that Fernandes was an adult, and that if he was missing, he likely didnt want to be found. Echovita Inc is a registered trademark. Many complained specifically of being made to cut grass to ready for such official visits. A young soldier found dead at Fort Hood has been identified, but his cause of death remains hidden. Inside the rash of explained deaths at Fort Hood. More than 2,200 trials over land rights commenced. Green Beret training death special forces training soldier dies in training army training . (The Boley case remains unsolved.) Fort Hood hurriedly put up a $25,000 reward for Wedel-Morales as well. At the Dollhouse, he got to know Penny Morales, a dancer and mother of two. 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. Most of the groups were aboveboard, even as they were ruled by certain strictures for meeting attendance, dress code, and how to appropriately signal respect. Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. (The person who called in with the tip declined to collect the reward. But then certain details start illuminating the mystery: that one out of three women soldiers have experienced sexual harassment, according to a recent survey. They married in May 2017, and he took her name with hyphenation. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. Rosecrans, shot four times, was found three miles from his vehicle. Hood was an unsuccessful battle commander; 400 men of his Texas Brigade died in a single fight, some would argue through incautious direction. This memory now refreshed, Gloria began asking around for a name and soon learned it through Guillens friend: Aaron Robinson, the last person to have seen her daughter. (Penny says they met online.) March 1, 2023 (94 years old) View obituary. Highway renamed & dedicated to late Fort Hood soldier . In January 2017, Fox News cited reports to say the Army and local police were probing deaths of 11 Fort Hood soldiers who died on and off the base in the months before under mysterious circumstances, as per reports. 2023 Cond Nast. Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt. That psychological trauma among veterans vastly exceeds physical wounds. 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. PUBLISHED 10:53 AM CT Mar. Last December, an internal investigation found that Fort Hood's culture, environment, and leadership resulted in women feeling "vulnerable and preyed upon," with no reliable recourse for their very real sense of duress. 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. First came the British and Germans. Frantic, she called around, to no avail. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? 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. "What on earth are you training for?" Since being stationed at Fort Hood in November 2016, Wedel-Morales had frequented the Dollhouse, a strip club not far from where his remains would eventually be found. 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. The 20-year-old small arms specialist, then a private first class, was supposed to be off that day, so she showed up in civilian clothesblack tee, purple leggings, and a fanny pack. Congress launched an investigation of Fort Hood citing the deaths and other felonies that occurred on the fort between 2014-2019. . There was a deep cut above his left eye, and cuts all over his legs. CID and Homeland security believe the NVGs were stolen from shipping . They checked into a nearby hotel and returned at 8 a.m. the next day. Maxwell Hockin. 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. I played a small role in the story by providing some background information on Confederate General John Bell Hood.. Crawford-Bowers Funeral Home 1615 South Fort Hood Road, Killeen (254) 634-2638 . Barely a week later, Private Corlton Chee, 25, died during training. His body was found nearly a month later, two miles from the barracks. 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. The 20-year-old small arms specialist, then a private first class, was supposed to be off that day, so she showed up in civilian clothesblack tee, purple leggings, and a fanny pack. US Army Since then, Vanessa's family and their attorney Natalie Khawam have tried to shine a spotlight on a string of deaths at the central Texas installation. On May 18, Brandon Rosecrans's burning Jeep was discovered in a hilly suburb east of Fort Hood. 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,. The 2020 numbers add to ongoing mysteries, including a 2016 case where a corpse's hyoid, the U-shaped neck bone typically examined to determine whether strangulation has occurred, was missing. Robinson himself left soon thereafter, he would testify, to spend the night off post with his girlfriend. Casteel had been stationed at Fort Hood since the end of June, where hed been bullied for a spinal injury that consigned him to desk duties. During the run, Chee, who had no preexisting health conditions, collapsed. I've lost so much since I've been in. In 2018, a soldier was allegedly shot and killed in her front yard by her husband at Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, which also has one of the highest rates of suicide in the Army. "From the age of 18, the only thing I knew how to do was kill people," Ring wrote on the website of his father's veterans' rights organization. Ive lost so much since Ive been in. Beyond the base, gas station attendants and restaurant servers, many of whom were veterans or had ties to the military, all seemed resigned to certain fates. Victoria a friend of Gregory Wedel-Morales at the site of his remains, Killeen TX. Rodriguez disputes this claim. Far from itthe military was operating as it had been intended. When Elisabeth Finch met Jennifer Beyer in 2019, the two women forged a fiercely loyal friendship, and eventually got married. That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. His body was mostly intact but for his hyoid, which was never found. The day after Guillen disappeared, Private Gavin Chambers, 21, died on base. As many as 28 Fort Hood soldiers died in 2020, including in multiple homicides, suicides and other accidents. On August 25, a rail worker in Temple, Texas, 26 miles east of Fort Hood, saw a body hanging from a tree across from a burned-out warehouse near the tracks. Why had it taken forensics 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? But the only among the victims may be the institution that them all to. American military bases, once established, seldom shutter, and Fort Hood, which started operating during World War II, has remained open for business, its 218,000 acres spreading across two counties in central Texas near an otherwise unremarkable town called Killeen. The small Texas frontier town was also a "hotbed of Klan activity," according to Texas historian Gene Preuss of the University of Houston, so much so that when trains stopped in Killeen, Black passengersrelegated to "colored cars"knew to pull down their window shades to avoid a pelting with rocks by locals. First came the British and Germans. [2] February 26, 2023 (50 years old) View obituary. This negates civic participation, as the state no longer needs to collect taxes and thus stops serving the people, who in turn have no need to pressure the government for anythingthe very dynamic that continues to play out in oil-rich Gulf states. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. Even then, it was she who had to scare up the $3,500 in bail money, and after Fort Hood sent two officers to pick up Casteel, officials refused to share information with Rodriguez. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. Remains of soldiers have been turning up around the Texas military base with terrifying frequency. Also that year, Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach was raped by her superior, which she reported. Nelda Lee Edwards. A few hours later, Robinson, who had mostly been playing video games, escaped Fort Hood by car. Traveling in the time of plague, trying to build rapport with people from six feet away, was enervating. This memory now refreshed, Gloria began asking around for a name and soon learned it through Guillen's friend: Aaron Robinson, the last person to have seen her daughter. Creating an obituary on Echovita is free. They returned several days later to pour concrete over the remains. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. Linda Schweers, whose specialist son, Justin, died in a car crash in June while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, wanted me to "be careful of cartels," which she said ran the area. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers vanished or died, including 13. Later the same day, at 8:30 p.m., Aaron Robinson's girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, changed her story and told Army investigators that Robinson had confessed to her that he killed Guillen in the arms room, beating her to death with a hammer. What happened on that base and in the Army to cause this person who is normally very [kind] and responsive to all of a sudden leave and shut down?, When I asked soldiers at Fort Hood what they thought was the matter on base, they mentioned toxic leadership, a catholic term that seemed to encompass all: lack of care, general command climate, and so-called toxic masculinity.
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