More Heroes at Fort Hood

Reverend Amy wrote about the heroic civilian police officer Sgt. Kim Munley, barely five feet tall, in “The Fort Hood Shooting, And Its Hero.” And, below, I have added a NEW story published today about Sgt. Munley, courtesy of the Houston Chronicle which offers a truly detailed account of exactly what she did in those fateful seconds. First, here are some more heroes who went above and beyond at Fort Hood. I have bold-faced their identities for you. First, from the Houston Chronicle’s November 6th story, “Army: Fort Hood suspect shouted religious slogan before firing“:

[A]ll the wounded were in stable condition, including the suspect and the policewoman who shot him, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34.
“It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” said Cone, praising her for stopping the gunman despite already being wounded herself. … [Hasan] shot more than 40 people before military police and civilian police officers responded, officials said. He was wounded by a civilian policewoman, who was injured in the exchange, police said.

[...]

Lt. Col. Larry Masullo, acting chief of the post’s emergency hospital, said that within minutes of the first shooting report, his staff began calling every physician, nurse and medic available.

About 100 medical personnel converged at Darnall as teams were assembled into trauma bays, he said.

Maj. Stephen Beckwith, a doctor and the post’s EMS director, said shots were still being fired when paramedics arrived on the scene.

One paramedic, who began treating people as officials said Hasan continued to fire, later suffered an “acute stress response,” he said.

Sgt. Andrew Hagerman, a military police officer, had been patrolling a housing area when he heard reports of a shooting. He said he first suspected kids with firecrackers but raced toward the scene when he realized what was happening. [...]

Beckwith said 16 trauma beds were available in the hospital, and medics and doctors treated patients quickly enough that they never ran out of beds.

“You don’t hesitate at all,” said Hagerman, who has deployed to Iraq. “And your main goal is to take the shooter down.”

From the A.P.’s “But for heroes, bloodbath could have been worse“:

Pfc. Marquest Smith, on his way to Afghanistan in January, was completing routine paperwork about a bee-sting allergy when the sounds erupted.

A loud, popping noise. Moans. The sudden, urgent shout of “Gun!”

Smith poked his head over the cubicle’s partition and saw an extraordinary sight: An Army officer with two guns, firing into the crowded room.

The 21-year-old Fort Worth native quickly grabbed the civilian worker who’d been helping with his paperwork and forced her under the desk. He lay low for several minutes, waiting for the shooter to run out of ammunition and wishing he, too, had a gun.

[...]

Pfc. Amber Bahr, 19, of Random Lake, Wis., tore up her blouse and used it as a tourniquet on a wounded comrade. It was only later that she realized she’d been shot in the back, the bullet exiting her abdomen.

Sgt. Andrew Hagerman, a military police officer, was patrolling a housing area when word of shootings crackled over his radio.

As he arrived at the processing center, bloodied soldiers, some shirtless, were already treating each other on the grass outside, ripping pant legs off and tying off wounds. Munley—with whom Hagerman had exchanged small talk on patrols—was being loaded into an ambulance.

Hasan lay on the ground, his two handguns beside him, as medical personnel struggled to remove his handcuffs to treat his wounds.

Hagerman entered the building, took a deep breath and asked himself: “What do I need to do?”

He picked his way around the room’s edges, careful not to step in pools of blood or to kick any spent shell casings. He had seen death during his two tours in Iraq, but nothing that compared with this. …

From the November 7th edition of the Houston Chronicle, “She stood ground, even as bullets struck her“ — and yes, this is a long quote, but every word is worth reading:

FORT HOOD — However complete her training or rounded her experience, Sgt. Kimberly Munley may be forgiven if she never expected a scene quite like the one Thursday, when she found herself in a courtyard facing an Army major apparently gone berserk and a body count that would keep rising unless she stopped him.
Two quick shots from her Beretta 9 mm — pop, pop — and now Munley had the attention of the gunman. She had missed. He was angry. Now his Belgian-made 5.7 mm pistol was pointed not at the already wounded soldier he was chasing, but at Munley, a civilian police officer hired to help keep order at the sprawling base.

He charged her, firing rapidly along the way. She returned fire and dropped to the ground to give herself more cover. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who in an inexplicable instant had turned from caregiver to accused mass murderer, was allegedly in the process of killing 13 people and wounding 38 more. He now had Munley in his sights.

Hasan “was interested in nothing else but trying to eliminate her as his threat,” said Chuck Medley, head of the Fort Hood police and fire departments, which are civilian operations contracted to the Army.
The two fired again, perhaps simultaneously, Medley said. Each was struck. The gunman took a bullet to the upper torso; Munley was hit in her legs and wrists. Both would survive and the carnage had ended.

“He went down,” Medley said. “She eliminated the threat. She did what she was trained to do.”

And the lives she saved?

“Countless,” he said.

Second officer also fired

Munley was one of two people who shot the gunman, officials said Friday. Little information was available about Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, who also engaged the gunman and shot at him.

Munley, a 5-foot-2 weapons expert, was still on the scene when paramedics rushed Hasan to the hospital, Medley said. He visited the 34-year-old police officer in her hospital room Friday afternoon and found her in high spirits. She had only one request for her boss: Bring her husband, Staff Sgt. Matthew Munley — a soldier who recently transferred to Fort Bragg, N.C. — to Fort Hood to see her. The Army agreed, small compensation for a big act.

Surgeons repaired damage to Munley’s left leg and knee, but they still have to remove a bullet from the right thigh. She is expected to recover.

Department of the Army police officers are civilians that compensate for the deployments of military police.

“She’s a small young lady, but don’t let that fool you at all,” Medley said. “She’s very, very, very physically fit, and very capable, especially with firearms.”

Kept neighbors safe

As military wives on Munley’s street cared for families while their husbands were deployed, she would keep an eye out for them and let them know of any criminal activity, said Erin Houston, a neighbor. “I’ve always found her to be a very strong woman,” Houston said.

One night Munley shooed away a couple of men trying to break into their house, telling them, “If you try to come in, I’m going to shoot you,” Houston said. “After they went away, she walked the neighborhood — by herself — to make sure they were nowhere around.”

[...]

Lastly, here’s a great story that Sara in Italy discovered, from MSN, “Military hails 2 heroes in Fort Hood rampage,” with more details about the 19-year-old nutritionist who was so brave:

FORT HOOD, Texas – The top commander at Fort Hood is crediting a civilian police officer for stopping the shooting rampage that killed 13 people at the Texas post. Lt. Gen. Bob Cone also hailed a young Army nutritionist who helped wounded victims.

Both women heroically intervened despite being shot.

[...]

Cone also hailed Amber Bahr, 19, as an “amazing young lady.”

The commander told NBC’s TODAY show that the nutritionist put a tourniquet on a wounded soldier and carried him out to medical care. And only after she had taken care of others did she realize she had been shot, he said.

‘In and out of pain’

On Thursday, her mother, Lisa Pfund, told the Sheboygan Press that she spoke briefly to Bahr after she was taken to a community hospital.

“I actually got to talk to Amber and I talked to her for about 30 seconds and she was in a lot of pain,” Pfund said. “She couldn’t tell me nothing, either.”

[...]

Later that night, she was able to speak with her recovering daughter, she told the Sheboygan Press. She was “in and out of pain” and on medication but in good spirits, adding that she tried to help others during the rampage, the Sheboygan Press reported. …

I am sure that there were countless others that day who were extraordinarily brave. Thank you to them all. And, if YOU spotted a story we haven’t included, please share it.

Here’s the ending of today’s Chronicle story:

Munley completed 80 hours of firearms instructor certification taught by Texas A&M University’s Texas Engineering Extension Service last September, said Lee Santo, the TEEX training manager. “She knows what she’s doing with a pistol in her hand,” he said.

Nobody will ever doubt it.

“She ran into gunfire and stopped the bad guy,” Santo said. “I think she’s a hero.”

Nobody would doubt that, either.