Communities such as Colorado Springs and Killeen, Texas, outside Fort Hood, will feel the effects of the shootings Thursday, allegedly by an Army psychiatrist, because of their close ties to the military.
“Clearly it will ripple through the community, first shock, then caring for the soldiers involved and the other families involved,” said Brian Binn, a retired Air Force colonel who oversees military affairs for the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce.
Carissa Picard, former president of the advocacy group Military Spouses of America and a Fort Hood spouse who lives a few minutes from the site of the shootings, said she was at home when a tornado siren was activated, which she at first though it was a test.
But the siren was followed by ominous orders over a loudspeaker: “Seek shelter immediately, close and lock your windows and doors and turn off your ventilation system,” she said. “We were a little bit perplexed about what was going on.”
Picard wondered if stress factored into Thursday’s shootings.
At Fort Hood, “we’ve lost the most people in the war in Iraq. The op tempo is just incredibly high,” she said.
There have been a series of shootings, including suicides, at Fort Hood already this year, and “there’s a great deal of deployment tension at Fort Hood,” she said. “Repeat deployments exacerbate that.”
In Colorado, Fort Carson has wrestled with off-post violence.
After Iraq war veterans from a single brigade were accused of connections to 11 slayings since 2005, a military study said the psychological trauma of combat may have helped drive the violence.
The report, issued in July, suggested fierce combat was a factor — as well as the length of deployments and the prospect of humiliation for combat vets who seek mental health treatment at home.
In a series last year, The Battle Within, The Denver Post reported that in 2006 and 2007, 20 of the 59 soldiers who killed themselves in Iraq were deployed from a single post — Fort Hood.
At Colorado’s major military installations, no extra security precautions had been taken Thursday afternoon.
“We always remain vigilant and always have precautions in place, but we haven’t done anything specifically for today,” said Tech. Sgt. Jill Lavoie, a spokeswoman for Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.
At Fort Carson outside Colorado Springs, Lt. Col. Steve Wollman declined to say whether security measures had been tightened but said they were “appropriate.”
Wollman said that about 2,000 soldiers moved from Fort Hood to Fort Carson this year, but he said he didn’t know whether any had a connection with the events in Texas.
Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, home of the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, made no security changes, Tech. Sgt. Amanda Callahan said.
The Air Force Academy and Schriever Air Force Base, both outside Colorado Springs, reported no additional security.
A former soldier from Thornton remembered happier times when he was based at Fort Hood.
“The (deployment center)used to be a sports bar, and I watched the Broncos win their first Super Bowl in there,” said Brian O’Quinn, 31. He was stationed at the post from 1998-2000.
“It’s just hard to believe,” he added. “It’s one thing for an outsider to do this, but for a soldier to turn on his own is something else.”
Denver Post staff writers David Olinger and Daniel Petty contributed to this report.
