As questions swirl about alleged Fort Hood gunman, resolute soldiers ready to get back to work

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Resolute Fort Hood soldiers ready for return

FORT HOOD, Texas — Pvt. Joseph Foster took a bullet in the leg during the Fort Hood shooting rampage. He pauses when he’s asked about the mayhem, then credits a stout heritage with bringing him through the ordeal and leaving him eager for his scheduled January deployment to Afghanistan.

“I’m Irish. It hit the bone and bounced out,” Foster, of Ogden, Utah, said Sunday of the bullet that tore into his left hip. His wife is uneasy about the deployment, but the 21-year-old Foster is resolute. “I’m a soldier. It’s my job.”

Across Fort Hood, signs point to a post on the mend after the shooting spree Thursday that killed 13 and wounded 29. Accused gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, shot in the torso by civilian police to end the rampage, was in stable condition and able to talk Monday at an Army hospital in San Antonio.

Authorities continue to refer to Hasan, 39, as the only suspect in the shootings but they won’t say when charges would be filed and have said they have not determined a motive.

Sixteen victims remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and seven were in intensive care.

Even as the community took time to mourn the victims at worship services on and off the post Sunday, Fort Hood spokesman Col. John Rossi said the country’s largest military installation was moving forward with the business of soldiering. The processing center where Hasan allegedly opened fire remains a crime scene, but the activities that went on there were relocated, with the goal of soon reopening the center.

“There’s a lot of routine activity still happening. You’ll hear cannon fire and artillery fire,” Rossi said. “Soldiers in units are still trying to execute the missions we have been tasked with.”

President Barack Obama will attend a memorial service Tuesday honoring victims of the attack, amid growing suggestions that Hasan’s superior officers may have missed signs that he was embracing an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack and whether warning signs were missed. A day earlier, classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master’s program at a military college told The Associated Press that they complained to faculty during the program about what they considered to be Hasan’s anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on “Fox News Sunday.” ”He should have been gone.”

The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers praised Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion. Two U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press the Web site was Al Awlaki’s. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence collection.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey warned Sunday against reaching conclusions about the suspected shooter’s motives until investigators have fully explored the attack. “I think the speculation (on Hasan’s Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Sgt. 1st Class Frank Minnie was in the processing center Monday and Wednesday, getting some health tests and immunizations in preparation for his deployment. The mass shooting happened Thursday, but Minnie said Fort Hood soldiers have the attitude that “the mission still goes on.”

“Everybody’s going to grieve a little bit. It hurts a lot because it’s one of your battle buddies, and someone lost a mom, dad, brother or sister,” said Minnie, 37, who served in Iraq in 2006. “But it doesn’t change my perspective of going to war. I’ve got a job to do.”

Associated Press writers Allen Breed and Jeff Carlton in Fort Hood and Pamela Hess, Devlin Barrett, Richard Lardner and Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report.