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", "I'm 21 now, and let me tell you. She had also missed her standing noon call with her fianc, Juan Cruz. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers vanished or died, including 13. The death was ruled a suicide despite the fact that the blanket stuffed around the window to hold the pipe in place had been doused in Schuettes own blood, and Schuette was found with nine stab wounds across his body, including his forearm and his left hand. 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. Robinson himself left soon thereafter, he would testify, to spend the night off post with his girlfriend. On March 5, 2020, Destanie Sawyers five-year-old daughter found her father, Specialist Christopher Sawyer, 29, after he had shot himself dead in the bedroom of their Fort Hood housing. ARMY-WIDE IMPLEMENTATION STATUS. Fort Hood has been the center of a bizarre and horrific set of tragedies in 2020. The first week I spent in Texas that October, 22-year-old Lucas Hicks-Mack went missing on base. After he returned to Fort Hood, Rodriguez managed to get Casteel on a video call. Agamemnon demonstrates disrespect, vanity, and other lapses in judgment, the result of which is what clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay describes as moral injurya (i) betrayal of whats right, (ii) by someone who holds legitimate authority, (iii) in a high stakes situation. 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. More than 2,200 trials over land rights commenced. When Ailina offered the Fort Hood authorities the contents of her son's car, including a laptop, iPad, and external hard drive, they declined to investigate further. May Jeong has written an in-depth analysis of the rash of unexplained deaths at Fort Hood. 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. "For nothing.". A unique and lasting tribute for a loved one. Fort Hood was founded in January 1942 as a training ground for tank destroyers, selected for its varied terrain. Robinson gave Guillen the serial number for a .50 caliber machine gun that needed servicing. Terrie Boley, whose daughter Candance became addicted to crack cocaine while serving at Fort Hood and was murdered in a motel room in 2011, told me not to drink the water. Then they tried burning the body. So much of reporting is opening yourself up to chance, and there I was, compulsively locking and relocking the rental car door. Chee had joined the military in part to support the young family he was starting with his high school sweetheart turned fiance. And on June 19, skeletal remains were found in a field behind a cul-de-sac of a residential neighborhood in Killeen. They married in May 2017, and he took her name with hyphenation. 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. And being mission-ready, the perpetual vigilance it requires, ensures a kind of endless possibility of war, which in turn justifies the $740 billion annual defense budget. (The person who called in with the tip declined to collect the reward. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? 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. From here, wars are launched. There, Wedel-Morales's remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. 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. That morning, Guillen had left her third-floor barracks and headed downstairs to her work station at the motor pool, a vast garage for military vehicles. It rained that night, and the drive, which should have taken three hours, was slow going. After a chase along Rancier Avenue, the same street near which Lovell was found dead, Robinson shot himself and died. I have sponsored a a Change.org listing advocating renaming the post after Oveta . Fort Hood is one of 800 United States military bases around the world, the third largest in the country. ), On July 3, a fortnight after Wedel-Morales's body was found, Specialist Miguel Yazzie, 33, died at Fort Hood after his repeated requests to see a doctor were denied, according to Carma Johnson, whose brother died at Fort Hood. But when Kim called the police, they dismissed her, telling Kim that her son probably just "took off." 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. 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. Through social media posts, court records, and other primary sources, author Kathleen Hale forensically reconstructs their lives before the crime, and the night they were killed. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. Memorial that now stands at the site Vanessa Guillen's remains were found in Killen, Texas. Fernandess family told me they have never been interviewed. October 14, 2021 Ryan Morgan. After he returned to Fort Hood, Rodriguez managed to get Casteel on a video call. The police too told Ailina that Fernandes was an adult and that they would not report him as missing. There she encountered Specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old but a rank above. He ultimately murdered her when she was eight months pregnant, then set her on fire before fleeing to Mexico. In fact, Casteel had been convinced that CIA agents were attacking him since last June. But at Fort Hood, it sometimes seemed like "mission first, equipment second," he said, highlighting the paradox of the military that in word puts the well-being of soldiers first but in deed must, by design, favor combat readiness over all else. Reformers would say that the military had failed its men and women. Fort Hood informed Rodriguez that he had asked for this. After 8 p.m., Guillen's sister Mayra called the base. (The police opened an investigation on August 19.) Green Beret training death special forces training soldier dies in training army training . Military bases are the last piece of the homeland that soldiers see before they are deployed to fight and the first glimpse of home when they return. The rolling, semi-arid terrain is ideal for multifaceted training and testing of military units and troops. A U.S. Army soldier, Spc. 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." But with each encounter, it was becoming clear that the military had not failed its soldiers at all. If not, what explained the false accounting? That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. The new family, like more than 70 percent of all Fort Hood service members, lived off post, but after two dead bodies were found on their street, they moved into base housing. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chees clothes were stolen. Why was Robinson not put under watch? If he killed himself, don't they want to know why?". Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. The suicides, which reportedly jumped by as much as 20 percent across the military last year, work out to a rate of one soldier a month. (There was also literal toxicity on base in that some of the mold-infested barracks where soldiers lived were "technically condemned," according to Maureen Elliott, a military spouse and a housing advocate.). The numbers are distressing. 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. 24, 2021 KILLEEN, Texas Spc. Maxwell Hockin, 26, was. Women, who make up 17 percent of active-duty military, were doubly bereft, and the case files were awash with stories of the dead. On May 19, military investigators went through Robinson's 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. Creating an obituary on Echovita is free. 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. 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. The U.S. Army on Tuesday announced the removal . Why hadnt the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillens staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. Fort Hood concluded Chee had died in training. February 26, 2023 (50 years old) View obituary. All rights reserved. 60.2 (births per 1,000 women 15-44 years of age) Teen Birth Rate. Chee, like Yazzie, was a member of the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation community, and was new to the base. A group of soldiers, including Robinson, greeted them. 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. His mother, Kim, only heard from her son when he needed money. Fort Hood hurriedly put up a $25,000 reward for Wedel-Morales as well. I am astounded nobody is interested, the Fernandes family lawyer Lenny Kesten told me. The soldiers said that Guillens belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. That an overwhelming majority of the towns 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. Had one of them stood in for Guillen during roll call? Today, Reform Austin is attempting to put the entire chain of events into a concise timeline for our readers. Texas Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemetery Burials by County. (According to Killeen police, no such vests were found at the scene of the crash. By then, the Army, it seemed, had stopped providing Wedel-Morales with a sense of purpose, and he had turned to alternate sources of meaning, namely car and motorcycle clubs, and life beyond the base. Reformers would say that the military had failed its men and women. 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. Gloria had noticed her losing weight and pressed her for why. As distressing as the remains in shallow graves or the missing hyoid bone is the fatalism from soldiers and locals alike. Thirteen killed themselves. Casteel had told Rodriguez he was getting away from the abuse.. He had been happy enough there that in February he reenlisted for an additional four years. Tributes.com is the online source for current local and national obituary news. 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 . 2023 Cond Nast. On August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, 23, disappeared. From this inauspicious start, Killeen grew into a proper military town and is now home to six strip clubs, 18 pawn shops, 35 dollar stores, and 38 tattoo parlors. Morta's death comes amid intense scrutiny of Fort Hood in recent weeks. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? 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. At 9:30 p.m., Mayra, Cruz, Guillens other sister Yovana, and Yovanas boyfriend set out for Fort Hood. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. 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. The disappearance of Vanessa Guilln, a 20-year-old soldier at the sprawling Texas Army base of Fort Hood last April, captured headlines across the world. The numbers are distressing. He had messaged his sister beforehand to tell her something felt off. Fort Hood concluded Chee had died in training. (Penny says they met online.) To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. ), Wedel-Morales's death was not the first from the base that may have involved bike gangs. New Market, Alabama. (The Boley case remains unsolved.) Guillens superior confirmed she was missing. Why hadn't the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? Call (254) 287-9993 or (254) 287-0106 to request a PAO escort. During the day, though, it was still hot enough that if you dropped a beer bottle, the contents appeared to dry on contact. A few hours later, Robinson, who had mostly been playing video games, escaped Fort Hood by car. The exact cause of Hockin's death remains unclear . (Penny says they met online.) Toxic leadership is nothing new. A few days later, so did 21-year-old Specialist Trey Ring. The area, east of Killeen, was built on 109,000 acres of high bluffs, ridges, sharp slopes, and mesa-like hills covered with mesquite and chaparral. Specialist Justen Ogden's death in July 2017 was ruled a suicide, but the suicide note Fort Hood produced as evidence did not match his handwriting, according to his mother, Toni. Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself on May 16. Club Fuego where Gregory Wedel-Morales was last seen, Killeen Tx. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims families. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? (Fort Hood does not count Moore in its official casualty list, as he was a member of the National Guard.). "As soon as I get out of the hospital, I will call you. I've lost so much since I've been in. Far from itthe military was operating as it had been intended.
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