The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillens staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. 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. The U.S. Army identified a soldier found dead behind his company barracks at Fort Hood last week as 26-year-old Spc. 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. 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. "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. 24, 2021 KILLEEN, Texas Spc. Fort Hood is the Army's premier installation to train and deploy heavy forces. Ive even lost myself. (Ring returned to base of his own accord later that day.). As publication approached, it stopped responding to emails pertaining to both specific questions about individual cases as well as broader queries about the base.). If not, what explained the false accounting? The pursuit of happiness, or simply stability, will invariably lure people to the American military, which may be why the undocumented, the indigent, or those with a criminal record are overrepresented in its ranks. That most soldiers enlist when they are still teenagers, their yet-unformed minds taught to kill. 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. On May 18, Brandon Rosecranss burning Jeep was discovered in a hilly suburb east of Fort Hood. A U.S. Army soldier, Spc. (The Boley case remains unsolved.) 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. The search party arrived at Fort Hood at 3 a.m. Guillen's staff sergeant told the group to come back in the morning. Fort Hood is one of 800 United States military bases around the world, the third largest in the country. 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. 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. Oct 29, 2021. In 1941, Private Felix Hall was lynched by fellow soldiers, at Fort Benning, Georgia. Nearly 200 miles away in Houston, Rogelio Guillen was entering his fourth hour of work at a nickel-plating factory when he felt a sharp spasm in his chest. Fort Hood might not even stand out were it not for a particularly bad year among many. Maxwell Hockin. 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. 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. A soldier stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, was found dead over the weekend behind a barracks, according to local media reports, adding to the rash of deaths and disappearances of soldiers. I will tell you everything, he told his mother. He had then driven the body to the Leon River and had come back to pick Aguilar up from the gas station where she worked on Veterans Memorial Boulevard, five miles east of Fort Hood. 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 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. More than 90 lawmakers earlier this month called for an independent review of how the Army handled the disappearance of Spc. 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 exact cause of Hockin's death remains unclear . The numbers are distressing. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? 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. 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. "For nothing.". A few days later, so did 21-year-old Specialist Trey Ring. September 10, 2020. 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. After a chase along Rancier Avenue, the same street near which Lovell was found dead, Robinson shot himself and died. Radically transparent, low cost versions of high cost generic drugs. It installed 35 firing ranges, 18 chapels, three bowling alleys, and 1,384 barracks that would house, at its peak, 95,000 soldiers, the most densely populated military base, at a cost of $35 million. Remains of soldiers have been turning up around the Texas military base with terrifying frequency. That September, Wedel-Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. Anthony Nevelle Peak Jr. Hogan, 19, and Peak Jr., 21, were both killed in a. Shelby Tyler Jones, 20, was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound at 3:45 a.m. Sunday, March 1, 2020, outside of a convenience store on Fort Hood Street. First it was a five-mile run, then it was a two-mile run. 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. After the public remonstrations began, Fort Hood launched something it called Operation Phantom Action, a weeklong retreat of sorts that was meant to rebuild trust between soldiers and the leadership. Family of Fort Hood soldier demands answers after military refuses to release report on his death Chase Lawrence 4 April 2021 Seventeen months have passed since Private First Class (PFC). Thomas Berg, whose son Private Brandon Rosecrans's Jeep was found burning in May, told me not to go out after dark. So when, the following spring, Fort Hood offered a $15,000 reward for information about Guillen, then raised it to $25,000 in June, Kim called to demand the same. On most nights, I had nightmares. Prepare a personalized obituary for someone you loved.. Search Fort Hood obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. If not, what explained the false accounting? On May 18, Brandon Rosecrans's burning Jeep was discovered in a hilly suburb east of Fort Hood. 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. 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. I played a small role in the story by providing some background information on Confederate General John Bell Hood.. These deaths confirm to many the issues reported at the post . 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 Army said Friday, April 30, 2021, that it has taken disciplinary action against 21 officers and non-commissioned officers at Fort Hood, Texas, in connection with death last year of Spc.. In a press statement, Fort Hood officials said Hockin, 26, was initially found unresponsive outside of the barracks and was subsequently pronounced dead. He got home around 2 p.m. and told his wife, Gloria, about the unusual aches. Matthew Disney, 20, of Aberdeen, Maryland, were pronounced dead on the scene by emergency medical personnel at the North Carolina military. Fernandes had just been stationed at Fort Hood in January. On March 5, 2020, Destanie Sawyer's 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. 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. A unique and lasting tribute for a loved one. Those remains, it turned out, belonged to yet another soldier, Private Gregory Wedel-Morales, who had gone missing the previous summer. On April 29, it was Private Joshua Barnwell, 19. That is the opposite of what hes been consistently saying.. Killeen was named after another disappointing man: Frank Killeen, an assistant general manager to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. He got home around 2 p.m. and told his wife, Gloria, about the unusual aches. The family began posting online about Guillens disappearance and distributing Missing fliers. The coming months brought the suicides of Staff Sergeant Richard Harrington, 45, and then Specialist James Green, 23. (According to Killeen police, no such vests were found at the scene of the crash. Fort Hood Weather. Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillen's death remained a mystery. 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. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. She is now for the movement.. Driving into Killeen last fall, what greeted me was a deer, roadkill, that had been severed in half. = Link to a CAC-required sites . The shakeup comes after after a series of suspicious deaths and disappearances that have plagued Fort Hood. Escorts should be arranged in advance to allow for coordination with the organization receiving coverage. 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 carsknew to pull down their window shades to avoid a pelting with rocks by locals. Oct 13, 2021 An official Army photo of Spc. Fort Hood concluded Chee had died in training. Texas Death Records Indexes, Obituaries and Cemetery Burials by County. We believe that Every Life has a Story which should be told and preserved. But as Beyer would soon realize, Finchs past wasnt what she claimedand Beyers own difficult history was up for the taking. Dozens of people were killed, died by suicide, or went missing from the Texas military base last year alone. "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. March 2, 2023 (86 years old) February 26, 2023 (50 years old) View obituary. Killeen itself sits on an especially brutal stretch of central Texas, along the Balcones Fault, which separates the high plains of the Hill Country to the west from the grand prairies and limestone plains of the east, and along which runs Interstate 35. Barely a week later, Private Corlton Chee, 25, died during training. How had he managed to escapeand where had he gotten his gun? On August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, 23, disappeared. Fuck Biden, Dont Tread on Me, and a Wisconsin Death Trip for Our Times. When his parents rushed to the hospital, they saw that Chee, lying unconscious, had bruises and scrapes on his chin and on both sides of his face. By then Wedel-Morales had grown distant from his family in Oklahoma, who had not been told of the marriage. Casteel had been stationed at Fort Hood since the end of June, where he'd been bullied for a spinal injury that consigned him to desk duties. 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. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? So when, the following spring, Fort Hood offered a $15,000 reward for information about Guillen, then raised it to $25,000 in June, Kim called to demand the same. 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. He had also gotten married without telling his family, been evicted from his apartment, and stopped showing up to work. In other battles, having lost the use of his arm and later a leg, Hood had to be strapped to a horse for combat. Fort Hood has been the center of a bizarre and horrific set of tragedies in 2020. Many complained specifically of being made to cut grass to ready for such official visits. After hours, media should call the Emergency Operations Center at (254) 287-2054 and ask for the on-call PAO. Why was Robinson not put under watch? My caution wasnt entirely unfounded. They checked into a nearby hotel and returned at 8 a.m. the next day. 60.2 (births per 1,000 women 15-44 years of age) Teen Birth Rate. Fernandes transferred to another unit where he was called a snitch and worse. 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.
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