Fort Hood: Why Mama?

I will admit I don't watch the news on TV. I get all of the news via the internet. I do this mainly so I can be aware of what's going on in the world with little to no exposure to the kids. I can read the latest on my computer screen and they are clueless. However, yesterday was different. As soon as I heard what was going on @ Ft. Hood, I had the TV on, the phone at my side, and the computer in my lap. I was extremaly tuned in to what was going on @ Ft. Hood.

Why? Well that is where my dear sister is station @ and that is where the kids and I went over the summer. We had been there @ Ft. Hood enjoy the site; we knew that my sister (Auntie) was there.

This is Auntie, Web-Princess, Little Man (Auntie's son) and Superstar @ Ft. Hood Aug 2009.

At first we didn't know if she was one of the ones injured or hurt, that was until her text message came over my phone.

yes there is a mass shooting here, yes we are in lock down, I am not hurt, on base, the boys at home.

This meant she was safe on base and her son and boyfriend where at their home off of base. I was thankful to have read that text. I knew then that one of the fallen was not my sister. Although, I still didn't understand fully what was going on.

As the day went on from watching the new, receiving text and phone calls from my sister, we learn that the shooter was a fellow soldier. This left my kids asking: Why Mama? Why would a soldier do that to a fellow soldier?

I simply told them I don't know know. Clearly he wasn't thinking properly. At the end of the day, I talked to my sister again, and I was telling her how her niece and nephew couldn't understand how a soldier would do this to another soldier, to one of their own.


My sister, a fellow soldier, of the Ft. Hood shooter, said to me "Tell them that war does crazy things to people minds. Tell them that sometimes they don't realize what they are doing, they aren't thinking straight. Your kids are smart they'll understand that."

Honestly, I don't know if my kids will understand that, but I felt her words being right in the mix was so important. They know how war messes up people. She knows having been in Afghanistan for 14 months. She knows what it's like having to be deployed, what it's like having to leave your family behind, what it's like being gone for over a year, and what she's going through being back. She knows how war can mess up your head!  My sister may understand it, but I know she doesn't excuse it!!!

I asked her where she was during the shooting. She said she was on base just 2 blocks away from it. So she really was in the mix of it. She could NOT share what she was doing at that time, but she was there and she was safe! Thank-God.