Keep It Coming
Killeen -- “I’m blessed.” Those are the two most important words I jotted down as I stood in the courtyard of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s apartment complex, 27 hours after he’d allegedly shot 55 men and women. Thirteen of his 55 military and civilian victims at Fort Hood had died, including Pvt. Francheska Velez, a pregnant, 21-year-old Iraqi war veteran from Chicago, and Michael Grant Cahill, a 62-year-old physician’s assistant from Cameron.
“I’m blessed.” I wrote those words in black ink, on a crumpled piece of yellow legal paper as I listened to Alice Thompson, the apartment manager. The phrase is simple, yet in this context shocking.
Thompson sat in a dark green, plastic chair just outside her apartment door. Through her front window, I could see a fully decorated, full-sized, artificial Christmas tree and hear her television set. Earlier she’d gone inside, then called to her neighbors, “It’s on TV. Come in.” I presumed she meant an interview, probably with her. A network camera crew sat on the steps leading up to Hasan’s second floor apartment – number 9. A central Texas camera crew prepped for a live shot in a grassy area that would become a shrine to the 13 dead. Uplink trunks hummed in the distance.
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