FORT HOOD, Texas — When Selinsgrove native Amie Longacre received a call from her husband Thursday, she was unaware that a massacre had just taken place only 10 miles away, on the military base where Robert Longacre was stationed.
“He wanted to tell me to stay clear of the post because there was an incident, and that I didn’t need to be there,” she said.
Amie Longacre was honorably discharged from Army in 2006 as a private first class. Robert, a sergeant first class and 14th-year member of the military, are natives of Selinsgrove and have been stationed at Fort Hood for four years.
“I was worried for him,” Longacre said, “but glad to hear his voice.”
Thankfully, Robert does not work at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center, where 13 people were killed and more than 40 others injured Thursday, when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist, opened fire at the 339-square-mile military base, home to about 52,000 troops.
Hasan was about to be deployed overseas, and reports indicate he was fighting his deployment and argued with those who supported U.S. wars.
“It’s not just your everyday average Joe than can have a mental breakdown,” Longacre said. “Anything like this can happen anywhere in the world, not just at Fort Hood. My heart just goes out to all who were involved in this horrific event.”
U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-10, of Dimock, a commander in the Navy Reserve, said he is likewise devastated by the shootings.
“The last place you would expect to feel in danger is in fort, among your comrades,” he said Friday. “The fact that this happened obviously is a tragedy, but we need to explore the deeper reasons why and take the steps we need to prevent incidents like this from happening again.”
Hasan, while an intern at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, reportedly required counseling and extra supervision because of problems that occurred during his interactions with patients.
“We need to do a more thorough job screening everybody who will wear the uniform and will be in a position to lead our soldiers,” Carney said. “I hope we are not at a point in our history where we are letting those kinds of determinations of personnel slide because of manning shortages.”
In addition, there has been a transition on U.S. military bases in terms of forced protection, he said.
“A lot of security guards on bases across the country are privately contracted, not military police,” Carney said. “There is a definite change in terms of who is at the guard gates.”
Longacre said her husband returned to work on Friday.
“Work must still go on,” she said, adding that she believes the tragic event is not a cause to be overcome with fear.
“I don’t think that people can live like that, because that’s not living at all,” she said. “The best thing to learn from it and think about it, is to tell the people you love that you love them, every day, because you don’t know when the last time will be that you can say it.”
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