Without any sense of purpose, the suffering at Fort Hood had started to lose its meaning. On most nights, I had nightmares. 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. It was also an ancient Comanche Native American burial ground, discovered when construction workers unearthed more than 2,200 grave sites in 1998. On August 28, Chee was called into a training run. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our. At least 159 Fort Hood soldiers died out of combat between 2016 and last year, including seven homicides and 71 suicides, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Fort Hood is one of 800 United States military bases around the world, the third largest in the country. Courtesy | Margie Taylor Spc.. (Penny says they met online.) 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. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Guillen's youngest sister, Lupe, made me promise to stay at the Marriott, a hotel she considered safer than the rest. Chee had joined the military in part to support the young family he was starting with his high school sweetheart turned fiance. 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. (On July 14, 2020, a federal grand injury indicted Aguilar on one count of conspiracy and two counts of tampering with evidence. 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. Rodriguez disputes this claim. Why had it taken forensics 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? Jennifer Anthony Lovells sister, Temple Tx. 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. Guillen confessed that she was being harassed by another soldier. Fort Hood announced that Stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence, though a toxicology report proved inconclusive. (Among 1.29 million members of the U.S. military, 65,000 are immigrants, according to The Washington Post.) Death Notices | kdhnews.com - The Killeen Daily Herald "You can find Osama bin Laden, but you can't find a soldier that went missing on your own base?" His body was found nearly a month later, two miles from the barracks. 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 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. 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. But when Kim called the police, they dismissed her, telling Kim that her son probably just took off. (Killeen Police stated they have no knowledge of anyone declining to investigate.) The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. 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 ancient Greeks wrote epic poems on the subject, the most famous of which is the Iliad. There, Wedel-Morales's remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. Inside the Rash of Unexplained Deaths at Fort Hood by May Jeong Killeen was named after another disappointing man: Frank Killeen, an assistant general manager to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. That most soldiers enlist when they are still teenagers, their yet-unformed minds taught to kill. 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. "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. Fort Hood soldier found dead behind barracks, investigation underway Officials identified the soldier as 26-year-old Spc. Matthew Disney, 20, of Aberdeen, Maryland, were pronounced dead on the scene by emergency medical personnel at the North Carolina military. The Montreal Mafia Murders: Blood, Gore, Cannolis, and Hockey Bags, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. The numbers are distressing. If he killed himself, dont they want to know why?. Yet instead of being taken into custody, Robinson was placed in a conference room on base, initially, it was said, for committing adultery, which is against the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Last year, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers died or went missing. Texas Death Records, 1890-1976 includes scanned copies of the death certificates Texas Death Records, 1977-1986 includes digitized copies of the death certificates; not yet complete. 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. 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. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 12 Fort Hood soldiers who have vanished, died, or, in one case, turned up dead after going missing last year. If not, what explained the false accounting? 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. As distressing as the remains in shallow graves or the missing hyoid bone is the fatalism from soldiers and locals alike. A sergeant from Guillens division called it mandatory fun days. The additional scrutinythe congressional delegation visit, press toursmeant that soldiers had to work harder. Soon after, the Temple police, who led the investigation, ruled Fernandes's death a suicide. He ultimately murdered her when she was eight months pregnant, then set her on fire before fleeing to Mexico. Fifty six . After 10 torturous weeks and growing. (The person who called in with the tip declined to collect the reward. The corpse had been dead for a while, though it was impossible to determine exactly how long. Fort Hood soldier found dead outside barracks - American Military News 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 2020 alone, 31. (Ring returned to base of his own accord later that day.). Robinson himself left soon thereafter, he would testify, to spend the night off post with his girlfriend. Guillen's youngest sister, Lupe, says. First it was a five-mile run, then it was a two-mile run. A group of soldiers, including Robinson, greeted them. 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. There, Wedel-Moraless remains had been found, long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. Inside Jeffrey Epsteins Decades-Long Relationship With Leslie Wexner Trumps Deranged Replacement Theory Mightve Lost Him the Election Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk Want to Burn Their Cash in Space Three Texans Bust Myths About the Alamos Famous Last Stand The Guy Who Could Send Trump to Prison May Soon Cooperate With the Feds Bill and Melinda Gatess Epic Divorce Saga Enters Its Next Phase Juneteenth, Critical Race Theory, and the Winding Road Toward Reckoning Trump Is Now Urging People Not to Vaccinate Their Kids Against COVID From the Archive: Microsofts Odd Couple, in the Words of Paul Allen Not a subscriber? The U.S. Army announced Saturday that a soldier was found dead in the . Despite 10,000 hours of investigation and 300 interviews, much about Guillens death remained a mystery. Then they tried burning the body. Drugs suspected in case of two Fort Bragg soldiers found dead in barracks Is it possible Elder killed himself? 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. On May 11, however, Fernandes reported to Fort Hood "abusive sexual contact" from a staff sergeant, whom he alleged groped him in a supply room, according to the redacted military investigation report. And so his disappearance was no surprise, his father told me. 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. 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. Why was Robinson not put under watch? Maxwell Hockin, was found dead outside his company barracks on Saturday, October 9. 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. 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. On Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Guillen reported for duty at Fort Hood. A soft October wind carried the first chill of the season. Bill to attend technical school in Houston to work on wind turbines or oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. There was a deep cut above his left eye, and cuts all over his legs. The circumstances are so strange and awful that fully understanding the events can be difficult. Why is Fort Hood the Army's most crime-ridden post? I am astounded nobody is interested, the Fernandes family lawyer Lenny Kesten told me. Boots and hat at Vanessa Guillens memorial, Killeen TX, Jeffrey Epsteins Decades-Long Relationship. I will tell you everything." Basic details of the incident kept changing. He was assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Gloria had noticed her losing weight and pressed her for why. As publication approached, it stopped responding to emails pertaining to both specific questions about individual cases as well as broader queries about the base.). 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. The U.S. Army on Tuesday announced the removal . 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. Mayra wept during the journey, already fearing the worst. 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. Dead soldier at Fort Hood identified, cause of death not released FORT HOOD, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - U.S. Army officials at Fort Hood have identified the soldier who was found dead Saturday, Oct. 13 behind his company barracks. 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. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. But advocates for. Fort Hood's toxic culture? Red flags raised over mysterious Army disciplines 21 at Fort Hood in probe of soldier's death - Spokesman Later Fort Hood confirmed it was for violating quarantine.
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