WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Vermont Soldier Returns to Work at Fort Hood

Vermont Soldier Returns to Work at Fort Hood

Fort Hood, Texas - November 9, 2009

Monday, a Vermont soldier stationed at Fort Hood went back to work on the base for the first time since the deadly shooting spree last week.

"You can't believe it happened," said Specialist Adam Fletcher.

Fletcher is still in shock after last week's deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood. He was just two blocks away when it happened.

You could hear the shots fired, you could also hear the ambulances and fire trucks rolling out," he said. 

The base went into lockdown. The 22-year-old from Milton, who served a year in Iraq, felt helpless.

"One of the hardest things to deal with is for everybody is the fact that in Iraq stuff like this is expected to happen, we're ready for it, so if something like this happened I'd be able to help,  but when this happened on Thursday I was stuck inside a building. I couldn't do anything," he recalled. 

Fletcher says it's also difficult because the suspect is a fellow soldier, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Fletcher had seen Hasan around the base. Hasan was a psychiatrist helping soldiers deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"People who had seen him before and talked to him they said he seemed like a nice guy," said Fletcher. 

Fletcher returned to work Monday for the first time since last week.

Here you are supposed to be protected, you are not supposed to lose people here, so it feels a little harder to deal with," said Fletcher. 

"Do you feel secure on the base?" asked reporter Kristin Carlson. 

"I do, this is a great place for my family, and a great place to work responded Fletcher.

Fletcher is grieving the loss of the soldiers killed. Some he knew. He put together a memorial on You Tube to help process his pain.

"The people we lost should never be forgotten, they were a bunch of great people," he said.

Tuesday, the base will honor the 13 people killed, and the almost 30 people injured in the attack. The President is set to lead that memorial service.

Kristin Carlson - WCAX News