Funerals held for Fort Hood victims
Last Updated: Saturday, November 14, 2009 | 10:16 PM ET
The Associated Press
Across America, many people stood before several flag-draped coffins during funeral services for some of the 13 victims of the Nov. 5 shootings in Fort Hood, Texas.
The hundreds of people who lined the main street of the small Indiana city of Plymouth on Saturday fell silent as a white hearse passed by on its way to the church. Sheila Ellabarger had placed two 30-centimetre-high American flags in the grass where she watched the procession for Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow.
Mourners streamed into a Wisconsin gymnasium to remember a soldier who once promised to take down Osama bin Laden. The high school gym in Kiel was filled Saturday for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger's funeral.
Krueger was to deploy to Afghanistan for a second time in December and had recently been sent for training at Fort Hood, where authorities allege Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, opened fire at a processing centre. He remains in hospital and has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder under the American military's legal system.
During services in Norman, Okla., snapshots from U.S. Army Spc. Jason Dean Hunt's recent wedding were projected near his casket.
In Utah, among those crowded into a Mormon chapel were Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz and U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, said Lt.-Col. Lisa Olsen, a Utah National Guard spokesman.
They joined the family and friends of Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka for the funeral honouring the 19-year-old. Nemelka, of West Jordan, Utah, joined the Army a little more than a year ago and was preparing to deploy to Iraq. He was trained to defuse bombs and relatives said he was planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him in December during a visit home.
Other funerals on Saturday were for Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif., and Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, of Bolingbrook, Ill.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes.
On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theatre." He said those who died at the largest Army post in the U.S. deserve justice, not political stagecraft.
