Medical tech tells macabre details of Hasan attack

Near the center left, the chairs and Station 13 at the Soldier Readiness Center
Click the image to enlarge the image (sketch by Brigitte Woosley)

Ft. Hood – Ted Coukoulis recognized Major Nidal Malik Hasan the moment he saw him.

He had been in his part of the building – the inoculations station – only the week prior and started a big argument over a flu shot.

He couldn't remember what kind of smallpox inoculation he'd had, and if he took a flu shot, he could have had a very bad reaction. As the argument grew more heated, he had Maj. Hasan go to the Officer in Charge to take up the discussion with her.

The bottom line, recalled Mr. Coukoulis was this. Hasan would either have a flu shot, or he wouldn't be able to deploy. Someboy had a problem, and it wasn't the Officer In Charge of the Soldier Readiness Program.

But that wasn't the end of the story.

By the time Nov. 5, 2009, ended, Mr. Coukoulis told the jury of high-ranking officers, he found himself trying to help a pair of female medical technicians treat Lt. Col. Juanita L. Warman – to no avail.

Her back, he explained, was spraying blood from a line of through and through exit wounds that ran down her spine “like a soaker garden hose.”

A witness who testified earlier told jurors how the Colonel told her to let her family know she loved them, and to go on and treat others who could make it. She knew, she told her would-be rescuers, that she was a goner.

But this testimony paled in comparison to Mr. Coukoulis' recollection of watching as Maj. Hasan strolled up to three soldiers who were pinned down point blank in front of a large refrigerator used to store medicines, and casually shot them to death – one – two - three.

He took refuge underneath a desk, and when Hasan returned, he watched as the red tendrils of the laser sight snaked across the floor to find him.

“I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue. I thought it would be easier to clean up my brains if I had mouth open.”

And then, inexplicably, Hasan raised up and walked away. “Clack, clack, clack,” said Mr. Coukoulis, imitating the sound of Hasan's boots slapping the blood-slickened floor.

Like most of the 18 witnesses who appeared, he, too, thought the shootings were part of a training exercise, “until the smoke started to come in over the dividers” between cubicles. “Then I knew it was real.”

His recollection echos that of Lt. Col. Randy Royer, a National Guard officer from a Birmingham, Alabama, logistics unit that was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. He saw three flashes of light out of the corner of his eye and heard someone yell “Allahu Akbar.”

“I thought it was some kind of training scenario. When I seen those flashes of light, I didn't waste no time. North Fort Hood is set up for that. If you've ever been to Fort Hood, you know.”

At that point, “my arm and leg started hurting real bad.”

By that time, it had become “deathly silent” in the building,” said Col. Royer.

In a bizarre twist, a man in a mortar board cap and gown stepped up to him and asked if he could walk. “They'd had some kind of graduation in there,” at the sports dome next door. Some soldiers and some nurses helped give him first aid.

They carried him out on a table.

Specialist Kassidy Givens thought the same thing – a training exercise using live fire blanks, until he bent over to get one of boot laces to use for a tourniquet, and found 3 charred holes in his trouser leg. He was not wounded, but when he looked out the window, he saw a female soldier running a zig zag pattern past the building next door. Puffs of red dust from where the bullets were striking the brick followed her.

Sgt. Mick Engnehel thought his wounds in the tip of a finger on his right hand and a through and through wound that entered the back of his left leg and exited on the right side of his waist were caused by the impact of rubber bullets. Until he put his hand up to his right ear and it came away bloody.

“They didn't give me anything to use for blood. It was my own blood,” he concluded.”

Testimony resumes Tuesday morning, August 13, at 9 a.m.

'Combat lifesavers' enabled survivors to evade Hasan

Most thought attack at SRP was 'training'

Ft. Hood –  Operant conditioning is an industrial psychology principle used to ready men and women for everything from fighting fires and space flight to conducting courtroom procedures and keeping books. It works great when bullets fly and blood flows.

Staff Sergeant Christopher Burgess was with the same Signal Batallion he's with today when Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan burst into the Soldier Readiness Center, screamed something in Arabic, and started killing. He's been on this bleak post for five years.

A buck sergeant at the time, one moment he was watching TV and talking with other soldiers who were preparing to deploy, the next, a “heavy-set, balding man” started screaming in the Arabic language and firing on the group with whom he was sitting a few minutes after 1 p.m. on that fateful Thursday, Guy Fawkes Day, Nov. 5, 2009.

As he testified, an Army prosecutor asked him, “Did anything happen that made you question if it was a training exercise?”

He answered readily, “There was blood on the floor, the smell of blood, urine, and then somebody started screaming, 'It's a real gun. It's a real gun.'”

From that moment on, the former Army psychiatrist had people in Building 42003 pinned down. If they ran to the south, he headed them off and forced them to go back to the north end of the building. When they tried to escape out of doors at the north end, from the commanding area between Stations 12, 13 and 14 where he had excellent, multiple fields of fire, he forced then back to the south.

How did he feel as he dealt with the situation, the prosecutor asked Sgt. Burgess.

“Try to get the hell out of there, sir.” Sgt. Burgess is a veteran of deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He has experienced combat – many times.

There you have it. The training regimen Hasan assigned himself at Stan's Shooting Range near Florence, Texas – where he burned up as much as two to three hundred dollars worth of ammo each week practicing on a rifle range 100 yards in length while using a laser sight – paid off as he emptied magazines and replaced them while keeping up a continuous rate of fire.

Every wounded survivor who has testified so far came away with the same impression. The firing did not slow down, or even waver.

The impression is accurate when compared to a 911 call played for the jurors as Shemeka Hairston testified about her reactions during the deadly assault.

Unable to suppress her emotions, she sobbed profusely as an audio recording played the non-stop sound of the pistol firing, with no pause between reloading. Though she was at first confused and panicked, her previous 4 years of experience told her what she was hearing was gunfire. She called 911 immediately.

And then, just like Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot 7 times, Sgt. Burgess, First Sgt. Maria Guerra, and dozens of others, her training took over. It's a vital program called Combat Lifesavers that teaches – inculcates and conditions – troopers to adapt, improvise and overcome the worst of the worst, to use belts as tourniquets, battle dressings to suppress bleeding, to make vital decisions as to which of their wounded comrades are goners, and which ones will make it if they get the minimum of care and some help getting to an aide station, thence to a waiting ambulance.

Those who can still move, run, crawl, walk – they are encouraged to boogie, and get out fast. If there is an ambush waiting for them, they are warned to hide, watch, wait.

Each witness has told the story the same way because that is how it is. Hasan targeted fellow soldiers wearing the Army's combat uniform, the camouflaged, light green combat fatigues and desert boots, long-sleeved tunics and undershirts.

The troopers reacted by doing exactly the thing they have been trained to do under simulated conditions using live fire with blank rounds, smoke and flash-bang grenades and yelling, harrassing NCO's.

And they excelled.

Had they not, they would not have be seated in the witness stand at the Williams Justice Center, responding to questions by the prosecutors.

We the people are witnessing a parade of heros who are unaware of their superlative performance.

How Wall St. works the real Capitol Hill deal

Fighting Dodd-Frank worth money

Washington, D.C. - Vote Republican? Great. Wall Street bought and paid for your ballot.

Democrat? Same story.

Here is how they did it. And why.

Jeb Hensarling, first elected to Congress in 2002 (R-Stephenville, Texas Dist. 5), chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. He's such an important person on The Hill that he received $282,000 in campaign contributions from PAC's that represent the financial services industry. He's the top recipient in the dash for cash.

For a listing of industry players and how they contributed in the most recent reporting period, click here. (click here)

Fundraising is key to any congressional career, but when you occupy a seat on the committee most relevant to the cost of doing business in investment banking and derivatives trading, a freshman with little knowledge of the world of finance finds his chances at seniority to be gold-plated - over night.

The financial players consider it an investment. They bid heavily and reap huge returns. Their largesse finds its way to politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Each of the seven freshmen Democrats who made it onto the Financial Services Committee in their first term during this session have raised more than the committee's most senior Democrat.

How big is the money? Here's a clue. PAC's spent $9.4 million on the re-election of Financial Services Committee members, nearly $2 million more than their counterparts contributed to the re-election campaigns of members of the Armed Services Committee. 

That's part of why it became necessary to install four tiers of seats to accommodate the 61 members who now occupy Wall Street's corner of the Rayburn Office building – up from a mere 41 in 1980.

It's hard to say how a financial novice like Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky), a freshman from the Blue Grass, snagged his key committee assignment through the office of Speaker John Boehner, but it would be safe to say he got there with a little help from his friends.

In his first six months, he has raised $150,000 from PAC's that service financial services outfits, banking houses and securities traders.

Recently, Rep. Barr has received a lot of press attention from the likes of the “New York Times,” network television, “The Huffington Post,” and policy wonk blogsters of every description.

Apparently, when you're an overnight success on the Financial Services Committee, you get just as much ink when you turn down interviews as you do by granting them.

Said his flack, “People support him because they agree with him.”

His campaign slogan: “Fighting to put Kentuckians back to work!”

His legislative record so far includes introduction of H.R. 2673, legislation aimed at the elimination of requirements built into the Dodd-Frank financial services act that prevents banks from issuing mortgages to customers who cannot afford to repay the debt. According to a legislative tracking service, the measure has only an 18 percent chance of making it past committee, a 3 percent chance of enactment. (click here)

Like Mt. Everest, it's there. That's worth money.

Industry lobbyists reportedly crowded his office at a recent reception prior to a key committee hearing in which he promised and delivered to fight a provision that would have eliminated a $500 million tax break for credit unions.

Vote early and often! And above all, dear hearts, avoid saloons where the beer is not on the house on election days.

Lagniappe. Au revoir, cher.

How would this look on the wall at McDonald's?

Art? I know what I like, but...

Dead, at age 18, the noted Colombian artist Israel “Reefa” Hernandez-Llach, late of Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.

A painting by "Reefa" Hernandez

Police apprehended Mr. Hernandez about 5:15 a.m. outside a closed McDonald's franchise as he and a helper who serves as a lookout prepared to paint an impromptu mural on the wall. As he fled, they gave chase and caught him a few blocks away, where they made use of a Taser to subdue him.

An hour later, authorities reported his death at a community hospital.

A native of Barranquilla, Colombia, and a former student of Miami Beach High School, he was the son of a former Avianca pilot, who told the press, “Not even animals deserve that kind of treatment.”

Lawyers who represent the family speculated that had he lived, he would have been charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor crime that rarely results in a jail sentence.

In his world, in which he cut a figure skateboarding, sculpting, painting, and making photographs, he was known best for his “tagging” buildings with his rapid-fire murals. He had achieved local renown as an accomplished artist. Two of his sculptures had been displayed in the Miami Art Museum. Friends and family noted that he failed to graduate with his class at Miami Beach High School because of his inability to adjust to Physical Education classes. He was a slender 5 foot, 10 inches in build.

Miami Beach Police Chief Raymond Martinez said he awaits toxicology reports from an autopsy ordered to examine the cause of Mr. Hernandez' youthful demise. He had no other injuries.

A 2011 Department of Justice report found that the devices are considered safe for a vast majority of those who are subjected to them and can save lives by immobilizing suspects. Taser use results in few injuries, the study found. Although people have died, the risk is extremely low, the report stated. Often, deaths are associated with pre-existing medical conditions, drug use or a subsequent fall. Continuous or repeated shocks are also associated with deaths, the report stated.

According to Amnesty International,  the 17,000 police agencies worldwide that use tasers reported 500 deaths as a result of their use last year.

Govt. terrorism case shows in stories of the gun

How Hasan learned to shoot with deadly accuracy

John Choats, NRA pistol instructor at Stan's Gun Range

Ft. Hood – The first thing Maj. Abu Nidal Malik Hasan did when he arrived at his new duty station was to rent an apartment. Then he went shopping for a gun, according to testimony in his general court martial for mass murder.

He wanted only the best, a handgun capable of rapid fire with dead-on accuracy under combat conditions.

Guns Galore is a cinderblock emporium of firearms with long, dark aisles lined with two-high racks of rifles of all types, glass display cases stuffed with pistols and revolvers of all description, and ammunition, reloading supplies – everything it takes.

When he made his first visit, Hasan told sales clerks what he wanted – the best – a handgun with a high capacity for rounds and deadly accuracy, something that could pierce body armor, easy to aim.

He spent a couple of hours talking to a local enthusiast on active duty in the Army. When he left, he was sold on the Herstal FN 5.7 x 28 mm, an ultra-fast, flat-shooting round with little bullet drop in its trajectories, a standard magazine capacity of 20 rounds, easily expanded to 30.

5.7 x 28 mm FN Herstal round, not much larger than .22 cal.

According to the sales clerk who closed the deal with him, it's “the most technologically advanced pistol of its type available today.”

He was back the next day to buy one, according to Frederick Brannan, the man who sold it to him, along with a green laser sight, $350 to $400 the copy. He bought enough ammunition - $24 per 50-round box - to get acquainted with the weapon.

His next stop, according to Maj. Larry Dommend, an assistant prosecutor, was Stan's Gun Range, located a half-hour's drive south of Killeen on Hwy 183 near Florence, Texas.

On direct examination, John Choats said that when he first arrived at the target range, his shots were “all over the target.” He bought a day pass and decided to return for a concealed carry handgun license class.

He passed and received a certificate from the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Mr. Choats, his instructor.

From there, his dedication to becoming the best shot he could be took off. He paid $200 for a year's pass and began to learn combat shooting techniques, Mr. Choats said.

He bought additional magazines and extensions that would raise their capacity to 30 rounds, said Mr. Brannan. In fact, he had quite a budget for ammunition. “Most people don't have two to three hundred dollars to spend on an afternoon's shooting session,” he said. “Apparently, he had the money.”

Hasan made a purchase of at least that amount, “Pretty much every week,” said Mr. Brannan. “Typically on Fridays.”

Asked why he had so many magazines, Mr. Brannan said Hasan once told him he preferred to spend his time at the range shooting, not reloading. At night, he recalled, Hasan said he would watch television and load magazines to prepare for the next day's practice session.

Hasan's practice regimen was rigorous. Shooting skills required to obtain a concealed carry license are minimal. The kind of skills needed to win a gunfight with a professional soldier or police officer are something very different.

John Choats started him on the 25-yard-line to hone his ability to draw and train the weapon on center mass, or head shots, at silhouette targets.

And, then, they moved back to the 100-yard line on a rifle range, where Hasan practiced combat reloading techniques of dropping an empty and smoothly putting another loaded magazine into the weapon.

“I told him it was a matter of individual learning. I suggested he practice at night, in the dark, without looking at the weapon, to the point where he could do it without any fumbling,” Mr. Choats said.

Practice makes perfect, and Hasan learned particulars and common sense techniques that made him extremely good at his chosen vocation.

When a police officer cut him down in the final moments of the drama for which he had practiced so long and diligently, police found the cargo pockets of his Army Combat Uniform fatigues stuffed with paper towels he used to keep the magazines from clanking together as he walked.

With the twin laser sights, a red and green combination that allowed him to merely point a dot at wherever he wished the bullet to strike, he was soon able to shoot at man-sized silhouette targets with deadly accuracy - “mostly center mass and head shots,” said Mr. Choats – in rapid fire.

FBI evidence technicians found enough empty magazines in the wake of the deadly path of Hasan's attack to account for more than 80 expended cartridge casings for his brand of armor-piercing ammo in 5.7 x 28 mm. The brand, SS 192, is designed to pierce body armor of the type soldiers and police officers wear in combat assignments. The ATF had ordered the manufacturer to cease making that grade of cartridge and bullet combination. Licensed dealers were to be allowed to sell off their existing stocks of the special ammunition.

Today, that brand is unavailable.

'When did you realize it wasn't training?'

Designated pool reporters march to the Courthouse 

Ft. Hood – Capt. Brandy Mason went from Specialist to field grade officer in the same brigade, stationed at this post.

She's going through a Captain's career training course at present.

Capt. Mason flew in from Ft. Riley, Kansas, on Friday morning, Aug. 9, to testify about what happened to her on the afternoon of Nov. 5, 2009, the day 13 persons died in a deadly handgun assault for which Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is accused and more than 30 others were wounded.

M.O.U.T. house on No. Ft. Hood is used
 to simulate live fire combat operations
 in an urban environment

The first order for a female going through the Soldier Readiness Program is to take a pregnancy test at a temporary outbuilding at the rear of the center. When lunch was over, she reported to the building to learn the results of her pregnancy test, then took a seat in Station 13 to wait for inoculations and other tests. Out came the cell phone and she began to concentrate on a game called “Pocket Tanks.”

“At that time, somebody stood up and hollered 'Allahu Akbar.'”

Asked what did she see, she replied, “There was a middle-aged, medium height man pointing a gun at my head.”

The prosecutor asked her, “What did you think?”

“Are you kidding? Middle of the day? SRP?” She paused. 

“Training.”

That's when the man with the gun turned away from her and began firing.

“Something wet splashed on my phone and on my medical records. I wiped it off and went looking for a place to hide.”

In the rear of the building, she found a group of empty tables with boxes of printer cartridges stored underneath, so she climbed behind some boxes and hid.

“When I peeked out, I was looking down the barrel of the gun, so I pulled my head back in.”

And then she felt a burning sensation in her hip.

“I said, 'What did that stupid blankety blank blank hit me with?”

She still thought it was a training exercise, that what she was feeling was a paint ball, as a medic doctored her wound, mopping up blood where a single bullet entered her upper thigh and lodged in her left glute.

“He didn't tell me. He just let me believe it was training.”

Other soldiers carried her out of the building to an ambulance. As they crossed the area at Station 13, the place where the attacker dealt the most carnage, she saw a familiar person, Mr. Cahill, a retired Chief Warrant Officer who had worked as a health services provider in the SRP since she was a Specialist.

Mr. Cahill died as he charged Maj. Hasan with a folding chair, trying to knock him down and disarm him.

At what point did she realize it wasn't just training?

“When I saw Mr. Cahill,” she replied. Crime scene technicians had not at the time covered his body with a sheet or blanket.

Was the man who shot her present in the courtroom?

Yes.

Did she recognize him?

“He's not clean shaven, but that's him,” she said, pointing to Maj. Hasan.

Prosecutors wanted to show her a picture of Mr. Cahill's lifeless body, but first had to show it to Hasan to learn if he had objections.

“I object,” Hasan said, and they found a different picture to show her, which she identified.

Presentation of evidence and testimony will continue the rest of the day, and resume on Monday.

Dead soldier sitting up straight – 'He was white as a ghost'

Chris Haug, Capt. Elston brief national media prior to first day of Hasan trial

'That's what sticks out with me...'

"He knew he wasn't alive, but he hadn't realized it yet."

Ft. Hood – In the great scheme of war – hate – religious conflict, all this has happened before, many times. The massacre that occurred on Nov. 5, 2009, at this giant Army post situated on a raw Texas prairie is hardly unique.

Zealous men have killed in religious fervor, striking targets of opportunity by surprise; people in no position to defend themselves have perished in massacres, large and small.

This time, it's different. The world is taking time to remember, in near infinite detail, exactly how this happened, if not why, then how, their words evoking graphic images in the mind's eye as to exactly what did in fact occur.

As the witnesses respond to the expert questioning of an Army prosecutor who has had three and a half long years to prepare his case, long years spent poring over statements, reports, photos, video, the thing that strikes an observer is that in the midst of the horror and blood and gunsmoke, training – conditioning - kicks in.

People do what they have been trained to do, almost automatically, once the shock of events has worn off to some small degree, however slight.

Certainly, the mental pictures that come through rival those sketched in words by the likes of Stephen Crane and Ambrose Bierce, authors who wrote so eloquently of the smoke and confusion of the Civil War.

Highlights of two of the morning's witnesses at the trial of Major Abu Nidal Malik Hasan recall the fate of a trooper who was sitting up soldier straight in a chair in Area 13, the reception area of Soldier Readiness Processing Center, Building 42003.

Said Monique Archuleta, a nurse who worked for Sgt. First Class Maria Guerra, “He knew he wasn't alive, but he hadn't realized it yet.”

The soldier sitting next to him was slumped over; he had accepted his fate, but not Pvt. Aaron Nemelka. He was sitting up straight, staring straight ahead, his eyes unblinking, his affect neutral.

She and Sgt. Guerra were having lunch in her office when Major Hasan opened fire, so close, “You could hear the shells hitting the ground.” They hid under desks, and when they emerged, “It looked like the lights were out in the building. It was very dark because of the smoke from the bullets.”

Another soldier was waving his arm, shouting, “I'm here. I'm here.” She went to his aid, and soon realized that he was not making contact, that he was incoherent. “So I scanned his head and saw a bullet hole. Then I swiped my hand across the back of his head and it came away bloody, and there was brain matter on it.”

It was time to make a decision. In the classic model of triage, a simple medical complexity expressed in one French word, battlefield casualties are of three types. Some will get better and recover on their own, with minimal care. Others will respond well to treatment and eventually return to their units with the proper surgery or therapy.

In the third class, no matter what is done, the casualty will perish, a victim of war who died a soldier's death, facing an enemy - on a battlefield.

That was when the Non-commissioned Officer in Charge, Sergeant First Class Maria Guerra took charge.

When she emerged from the relative safety of her office, she recalled, the smoke grabbed her attention first.

“I can taste it, and I can see it.”

The lack of sound was an immediate source of her attention.

“It was silent. I could have heard a pin drop.

“Then, sound came back. I could hear people saying, 'Help me. I'm bleeding. I'm in shock.'

“So, I said, 'I'll get help”

The prosecutor asked her “What did you do?”

“I started to leave. Then, I said, 'Where the f____ am I going? My staff is in there.”

She yelled, “If you can walk, if you can run, get out! And everybody started to run.”

Then she started yelling, “Mass cal! Mass cal!,” which is Army parlance for mass casualties, and her people slowly came out of hiding and started to apply pressure bandages called “chucks.”

She yelled “Triage, triage, triage,” instructing her people to leave those who clearly were no more, telling them focus on those who could be evacuated, treated, or who could walk away on their own in order to get treatment. She ordered them to “Utilize belts!” It was something she had already done by threading her belt through the handles of an exit door to keep the shooter from getting back inside and renewing his attack. Her people undoubtedly save many lives fashioning makeshift tourniquets from their web belts. Someone else had stuck a chair between the door handles to prevent re-entry through another door.

Some people were clearly not quite over the shock.

“Someone was working on Mr. Nemelka again, and I yelled, 'He's dead!'”

So she decided to unfold blue chucks and put them over the heads of those who had clearly expired.

On some, she wrote with a marker pen, “D – 13:25.”

Did you do that?

“I did. I placed a blue chuck on Mr. Cahill, and I placed a blue chuck on Mr. Nemelka,” and then she broke down, taking long moments to regain her composure.

“After that, I focused on getting the bodies out.”

What happened then?

“After that, the cops came.”

What did they do?

“They yelled “Freeze! Don't anybody move,' so nobody moved, and I shouted out, 'Freeze, don't anybody move.'”

Outside, she spotted Major Abu Nidal Malik Hasan walking past the door, gun in hand, shooting, changing magazines in a smooth motion, and firing again.

She realized she had seen him before on a previous visit he made to the Soldier Readiness Processing to prepare for a deployment to Afghanistan.

He had refused to submit to a flu inoculation, so when her people brought him to her, she referred him to the Officer in Charge, a female Major, who also got nowhere with Hasan.

That was his first impression on the First Shirt at SRP. His second impression involved shooting and reloading in smooth, automatic movements that impressed everyone who saw him they should run, or hide.

“If you were moving, he was shooting at you; if you were trying to get away, he was shooting at you.”

When her questioner announced to the Court that he had no further questions, she asked, “Can I say something?”

Judge Tara Osborn, a full bird Colonel, thought for a moment, and woman to woman, she said, “We don't it that way, here. Lawyers ask you questions and you respond to the questions.”

A brief silence passed between the two women, and then it was time to tell the First Shirt that she was subject to recall, and she should not discuss her testimony with anyone until she is released from her subpoena.