Fort Hood massacre survivors still trying to heal

Survivors still trying to heal
Three wounded on Nov. 5, 2009, share their struggles, paths down road to recovery
Nov 4, 2012
Jacob Brooks
Herald staff writer by Jacob Brooks

On Nov. 5, 2009, Staff Sgt. Shawn Manning, a mental health specialist in the Army Reserves, had been at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center for nearly six hours as his unit prepared to deploy to Afghanistan. He was almost finished with the various stations soldiers have to go through before they deploy, such as vaccinations, insurance and other paperwork.

He was to be assigned to the same unit as Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, and would have likely worked with the officer while they were in Afghanistan. But that’s not what happened.

Instead, Hasan came into the building armed with .357 Magnum and a laser-sighted pistol, according to multiple witness accounts, and shouted in Arabic “Allahu akbar,” which translates as “God is great.”

Then came gunfire.

Manning was perhaps the first soldier to go down, shot in the chest.
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