In various places in the country, several of the victims who died during the tragedy at Fort Hood were laid to rest. While a certain air of solemnity has hung over America in general as people try to make sense of what took place at Fort Hood, this solemnity intensified even more as funeral services were held over the weekend.
Plymouth, Indiana, mourned the loss of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow, and its citizens joined DeCrow’s family in their grief. They lined the streets of downtown Plymouth, waiting for the funeral procession as it made its way towards Plymouth Wesleyan Church where the funeral service for DeCrow was held.
In Norman, Oklahoma, the community grieved along with Army Spc Jason Dean Hunt’s wife of only three months. Members of the Patriot Guard escorted his hearse to his final resting place, the Sunset Cemetery in Norman, Oklahoma.
In Kiel, Wisconsin, people gathered at the gymnasium of the former high school of Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger to pay their final respects. Her mother recalls how the attacks of 9/11 affected Krueger so intensely that she vowed to hunt down Osama Bin Laden.
Teena Nemelka, mother of Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, clutched the flag that was draped over her son’s casket. The 19 year-old was due for deployment to Afghanistan; a burial ceremony was held in his honor at snow-draped Camp Williams in Utah.
Funeral services were also held last Saturday for Capt. John Paul Gaffaney at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, and for Pfc. Michael Pearson at the Abraham Lincoln National Ceremony in Elwood, Illinois.
At the processing center in Fort Hood, where all the reason for all these funeral services began, life seems to go on. Deployment plans are being put into action, and the fallen soldiers’ comrades are still set to leave for Afghanistan. It will, however, simply never be the same. In television interviews, some of the soldiers who have already arrived in Afghanistan expressed how they felt like they could no longer be safe anywhere. America, after all, is their home, the place where they feel safe; now, they are no longer so sure.
