He wondered if it was something he had eaten and carried on with his shift. A few hours later, Robinson, who had mostly been playing video games, escaped Fort Hood by car. Those remains, it turned out, belonged to yet another soldier, Private Gregory Wedel-Morales, who had gone missing the previous summer. Killeen was named after another disappointing man: Frank Killeen, an assistant general manager to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. At the Dollhouse, he got to know Penny Morales, a dancer and mother of two. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? Stump was going 82 mph in a 30-mph zone, the investigation report said, and had hit a tree on a mound. 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. First came the British and Germans. "I am astounded nobody is interested," the Fernandes family lawyer Lenny Kesten told me. A sergeant from Guillens division called it mandatory fun days. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. There she encountered Specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old but a rank above. So much of reporting is opening yourself up to chance, and there I was, compulsively locking and relocking the rental car door. In 1941, Private Felix Hall was lynched by fellow soldiers, at Fort Benning, Georgia. (Penny says they met online.) 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. 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. "That is the opposite of what he's been consistently saying.". A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. He refused to send a selfie or get on a video chat and began using a strange and unfamiliar speech pattern. Guillens youngest sister, Lupe, made me promise to stay at the Marriott, a hotel she considered safer than the rest. Why hadn't the arms room been treated like the crime scene it was? His body was found nearly a month later, two miles from the barracks. And yet: The data is not really out of the ordinary for U.S. military bases. Before Guillen, there had been Private LaVena Lynn Johnson, who was found dead in a tent in 2005 in Iraq. A small minority, which bikers call one percent groups, and which the Department of Justice calls by the regrettable acronym OMG, or outlaw motorcycle gangs, were the people Wedel-Morales had been hanging around with. He seemed weird, Rodriguez said. They are part of Killeen's population of 151,000, many transient and very young, two thirds of whom have military ties. The stories are gruesome, then heartbreaking, then beyond belief. ", "I'm 21 now, and let me tell you. 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. Fort Hood hurriedly put up a $25,000 reward for Wedel-Morales as well. On April 30, 2021, Fort Hood found that Guillen had indeed been sexually harassed by a soldier, but not Robinson.). 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. They checked into a nearby hotel and returned at 8 a.m. the next day. "She is now for the movement.". 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. 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. FORT HOOD, Texas - Fort Hood officials say they do not suspect foul play in the death of 26-year-old SPC Maxwell Hockin. 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. 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. On August 28, Chee was called into a training run. 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). The back-to-back deaths come just four months after two congressional committees launched probes into the high number of deaths at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, in 2020, highlighted by the . "What on earth are you training for?" 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. His wife, Christal, was denied her husband's mobile phone, the final investigation report, and even his corpse, until Texas Congressman Ron Wright stepped in on that front. Wedel-Morales was thrilled to become a father. Ive lost so much since Ive been in. It was ruled a suicide until her father noticed her broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, and burns on her genitals. He told his sister there were three white soldiers who did not like him. On August 28, Chee was called into a training run. 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. He died in 1879, leaving a troubled legacy that is only now beginning to be questioned. After 10 torturous weeks and growing. She filled out the paperwork that is the lifeblood of the Army before heading toward the arms room, a few paces away. Later, Robinson would tell investigators that Guillen completed her task and exited the building. fort hood training calendar 2023 Ozempic (semaglutide) is a once-weekly injection that is FDA approved for use by adults with type 2 diabetes to control their blood sugar levels. I felt a bad vibe there, Lupe says, referring to Fort Hood. Here are some of the tragic deaths that have plagued the base in recent months: Pvt. There, Wedel-Morales's remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. = Link to a CAC-required sites . But as Beyer would soon realize, Finchs past wasnt what she claimedand Beyers own difficult history was up for the taking. he asks, then answers. If she wanted to pursue things further, they advised, she would have to file a missing persons report with the local police. He had been happy enough there that in February he reenlisted for an additional four years. More than 90 lawmakers earlier this month called for an independent review of how the Army handled the disappearance of Spc. (Marine Lance Corporal Riley Schultz's death on March 15, 2019, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, was also ruled a suicide, despite his hyoid being broken. "Is it possible Elder was murdered? 6 min read. A few days later, so did 21-year-old Specialist Trey Ring. Later Fort Hood confirmed it was for violating quarantine. In other battles, having lost the use of his arm and later a leg, Hood had to be strapped to a horse for combat. ), On July 3, a fortnight after Wedel-Moraless 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. Vanessa Guillen. You can click this link to create an obituary. A group of soldiers, including Robinson, greeted them. Fort Hood has come under serious fire in recent years, as the incident follows the heartbreaking death of Vanessa Guilln. A small minority, which bikers call "one percent" groups, and which the Department of Justice calls by the regrettable acronym OMG, or outlaw motorcycle gangs, were the people Wedel-Morales had been hanging around with. Maxwell Hockin. U.S. ARMY INSTALLATION MANAGEMENT COMMAND Thirteen killed themselves. Red White and Blue via The US Army is licensed with CC BY-ND 2.0. The day after Guillen disappeared, Private Gavin Chambers, 21, died on base. The base was named after John Bell Hood, a Confederate general from a family that enslaved people in Kentucky, who made his name by breaking a Union line at Elthams Landing in Virginia and who, by todays standards, likely suffered from PTSD. A few days later, so did 21-year-old Specialist Trey Ring. Rosecrans, shot four times, was found three miles from his vehicle. 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. Ad Choices. These figures eclipse American casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq in the same year. Fort Hood had refused to list him as missing, and it was only after his then fiance, Paradise Rodriguez, posted a video on Facebook that an officer at the parish jail saw it and got into contact. Casteel had told Rodriguez he was getting away from the abuse.. Fort Hood also stated that it had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandes, and that it had interviewed all relevant parties, including the family. On June 30, a construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Guillen. You can find Osama bin Laden, but you cant find a soldier that went missing on your own base? Guillens youngest sister, Lupe, says. Alvis Franklin Bentley. Fernandes was dropped off at his friend's house the next day, August 17, never to be seen again. 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. A few days later, they spoke again, for the last time. Morta's death comes amid intense scrutiny of Fort Hood in recent weeks. -. On August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, 23, disappeared. In 2007, also in Iraq, Specialist Kamisha Block's death was ruled an accident by a single shot of friendly fire before the family received the body and saw that she had five gunshot wounds, including one to the head. Texas as of 9 July 2021; some devices had already been sold and shipped. PUBLISHED 10:53 AM CT Mar. 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. If not, what explained the false accounting? 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 fact, Casteel had been convinced that CIA agents were attacking him since last June. Prepare a personalized obituary for someone you loved.. Search Fort Hood obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. At 9:30 p.m., Mayra, Cruz, Guillen's other sister Yovana, and Yovana's boyfriend set out for Fort Hood. 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. A 214,968-acre installation, this is the only post in the United States capable of stationing and training two armored divisions. Green Beret training death special forces training soldier dies in training army training . As publication approached, it stopped responding to emails pertaining to both specific questions about individual cases as well as broader queries about the base.). 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. From here, wars are launched. Later, Robinson would tell investigators that Guillen completed her task and exited the building. The vast emptiness that is most of the state can make you feel inconsequential, as if you could disappear and no one would know you ever lived. Tributes.com is the online source for current local and national obituary news. Justice for Vanessa Guillen. Eleven of the deaths remain unresolvedsome legally; others for the victims' families. Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Guillen leave the arms room the day she disappeared? After 8 p.m., Guillen's sister Mayra called the base. I will tell you everything, he told his mother. At least 39 Fort Hood troops died or went missing last year. Radically transparent, low cost versions of high cost generic drugs. That American imperialism is imploding, and the blast force radiates inward. 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. The soldiers said that Guillens belongings had been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace. Vanessa Guilln, who was missing for about two months before her remains were found. Soon after, the Temple police, who led the investigation, ruled Fernandes's death a suicide. 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. Had one of them stood in for Guillen during roll call? After 8 p.m., Guillens sister Mayra called the base. She filled out the paperwork that is the lifeblood of the Army before heading toward the arms room, a few paces away. Curiously, a few hours after the officers picked up Casteel, he went silent online. III Corps Inspector General. Toxic leadership is nothing new. Five were murdered. In a press statement, Fort Hood officials said Hockin, 26, was initially found unresponsive outside of the barracks and was subsequently pronounced dead. 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. The very next day, a Fort Hood investigation concluded that Fernandes's charges of sexual assault were unsubstantiated. That American imperialism is imploding, and the blast force radiates inward. The first week I spent in Texas that October, 22-year-old Lucas Hicks-Mack went missing on base. 60.2 (births per 1,000 women 15-44 years of age) Teen Birth Rate. I am astounded nobody is interested, the Fernandes family lawyer Lenny Kesten told me. Inside the rash of explained deaths at Fort Hood.