Civil Liberties
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Eyewitness to Terror
November 9, 2009 - 3:31 PM | by: Rick LeventhalThomas "Tommy" Vecera spoke to Fox News this morning outside the III Corp Headquarters building on post at Fort Hood.
The native of Flower Mound Texas is an E-4 Specialist in Mental Health preparing to ship off to Afghanistan. He was in a building next door to the Soldier Processing Center when the shooting began last Thursday.
He tells Fox he heard the shots, saw victims being brought into his location and helped tend to their wounds.
Then he looked out the window and saw the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
"We started assisting the soldiers, trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone was screaming, running around... our main concern was taking care of the soldiers that were down."
"Did you ever see the shooter?" I asked.
"Later on... I looked out the window and at that time, I saw the gunman come out of one of the buildings. "
"What was he doing?"
"He was waving the gun around and firing at the crowd that was running from the building."
"Shooting at people running away?"
"Yes sir"
"Did you see the other officers arrive on the scene and shoot him?"
"Yes sir I did see the initial one officer arrive at the scene. I could see it. I was looking out the window. I could see her approaching where he was at, and then she turned the corner and basically there was a face off."
"You witnessed this?"
"Yes sir I did."
"They were both probably about 20 feet away from each other, they were shooting, just both shooting each other. I didn't know who was hit at the time. The officer retreated back behind the building and he followed her. I think she retreated to get a better shot at him. She retreated back, he followed her and at that point he shot her again."
"It was hard to....it was just right in front of me and I couldn't do anything. I could not do anything and uh...I was looking out the window and watched it all take place and I was helpless at that point."
"It definitely felt like what I would imagine a combat zone to be. Bullets flying, people running, people screaming, people that had been hit asking for help."
"I kept moving to help each of the fallen soldiers that I could, moving around the building to assist where I could."
When asked if his resolve had been shaken he said no.
"We need to press on. We need to honor the fallen soldiers and press on with the mission."
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