Fort Hood Unarmed soldiers caught up in a deadly shooting rampage as they were preparing to deploy from Fort Hood reacted as though they had already reached a combat zone, playing dead to avoid direct gunfire and refusing to leave their fallen comrades behind.
Most took just moments to realise that the chaos of gunfire, smoke and lasers dancing across walls and bodies was not a drill, and their survival instincts and military training kicked in.
“I laid back down on the ground and played dead,” Specialist Alan Carroll told a military court on Thursday. “I tried to get up again and was shot again in the leg. I was holding my breath, trying not to move... If I was moving, I thought he would come to me.”
Carroll, who was shot several times in the November 5 attack, testified at the hearing via video link from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The hearing will determine if Major Nidal Hasan, who has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, should stand trial.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial.
Staff Sergeant Paul Martin said he also threw himself to the ground and played dead, while Specialist Grant Moxon told the court he played dead too - by lying across his squadron leader in hopes of protecting the already wounded man from the onslaught of bullets.
“He was bleeding pretty badly. He was my squadron leader. I kind of tried to help him,” said Moxon, a member of the 467th Medical Detachment that had arrived at Fort Hood a day earlier. Hasan was supposed to deploy with the 467th.
Carroll said he tried to concentrate on helping his friend, Private Aaron Thomas Nemelka, who had been shot in the neck.
“The only person I could see from the ground was Private Nemelka,” Carroll said . “I ... told him to roll over on his stomach and play dead.”
Carroll, who was subsequently shot in the back and leg, said he could have reached the door and escaped, but that his training prevented him from fleeing the bloodshed without the gravely wounded Nemelka.
“I'd been told to never leave a fallen comrade. That's what was going through my mind. I needed to get out, but I needed to get him out with me,” said Carroll, who was deployed to Afghanistan 10 months ago.
Nemelka and Carroll had entered the building with two other buddies, Specialist Frederick Greene and Private Michael Pearson.
Carroll was the only one of the four who survived the attack.
On the second day of the hearing, several witnesses again said Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” - “God is Great!” in Arabic - before unleashing a volley of gunfire in a centre where soldiers undergo medical tests before deploying. They testified that Hasan started firing toward a crowded waiting area, then walked around and shot soldiers trying to hide under desks, chairs or tables and only paused to reload.
In the days after last year's shooting, reports emerged that the 40-year-old American-born Muslim had been trying to get out of his pending deployment because he opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had been saying goodbye to friends and neighbours, and had given away his Quran and other belongings.
1st Lieutenant Brandy Nicole Mason was among many soldiers in the processing centre when the gunfire broke out who wondered if it was a drill.
“Someone hollered: 'Training or not, get down! Get down!”' Mason testified.
Staff Sergeant Joy Clark told the court that one of two friends pulled her to the ground when the gunfire began. Lying on the floor, she called her friends' names, then checked their pulses. Captain Russell Seager and Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman had been fatally shot.
Earlier Thursday, Private Najee Hull, who was shot in the knee and back, said the gunman had been carrying two weapons - one “with a red laser on it” and one with a green laser.
The prosecutor asked Hull if the gunman was in the courtroom. Hull looked to where Hasan sat, just a dozen feet away, and asked if he could remove his knit cap.
Hull stood up, looked at Hasan and said: “That's him.”
Hasan has been paralysed from the chest down since Fort Hood police officers shot him during the attack. He attended the hearing seated in a wheelchair. While dressed in Army combat uniform, Hasan has been wearing the cap and sometimes has a blanket draped around his shoulders because the paralysis makes him cold. - Sapa-AP