Military commanders, enlisted men, President Obama and others converged on the largest military base in the free world today to pay tribute to the 13 troops killed in last week's massacre at Fort Hood.
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Soldiers standing in the Texas sun during the roughly hour-long ceremony wore their black berets and dark sunglasses, which could not conceal the occasional tear that would roll down their cheeks.
The President assured the crowd that the lives lost in the attack were not in vain. "Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town, every dawn that a flag is unfurled, every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ...that is their legacy," he said. President Obama also said the accused shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, will face justice. "We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process just as surely as we will see he pays for his crimes," Mr. Obama said.
Addressing concerns that those of the Islamic faith should not be in the military, Obama said no faith "justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor."
Army Chief of Staff General George Casey quoted from the bible and said the soldiers killed in the massacre lived up to the ideals that mean so much to the United States Armed Forces. Gen. Casey has said it would be a "bigger tragedy" if the diversity of the Army was hurt by last week's attack.
In the last 6 years, Fort Hood has held memorial services for 545 young men and women who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. President Obama is poised to send as many as nearly 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
- Story by DISH contributer Scott Braddock
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