Fort Hood families remember loved ones 17 years after deadly attack

Seventeen years after an Army psychiatrist killed 13 people at Fort Hood, the families of three victims continue to live with their loss. They say the values their father, daughter and husband passed on remain a source of strength.

When Keely Cahill Vanacker was growing up, her father, Michael Cahill, had a familiar response whenever she felt discouraged: “It builds character, kid.” He would deliver the line with a playful punch to her arm.

Cahill served for 23 years as an infantryman in the Army National Guard. He later earned a psychology degree and trained as a physician assistant, caring for soldiers. Vanacker remembers how much he valued people and how many lives he touched.

The family moved around the country during Cahill’s military career. Vanacker watched him treat people with fairness and compassion, including patients who struggled to afford basic medicine. If someone at a rural Texas post couldn’t pay for asthma medication, she said, her father would try to find a way to help.

Service remained important to Cahill after he retired from the military. He continued working as a civilian physician assistant at Fort Hood.

Amy Krueger’s decision to serve came after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That afternoon, while she was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Sheboygan campus, she told her mother, Jeri, she was joining the Army.

Jeri questioned whether her daughter could make a difference in the fight against terrorism. Amy’s answer was simple: “Watch me.” The next day, she visited a recruiter. She went on to become Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger.

“When Amy said she was going to do something, she did it,” her mother said.

After deploying to Afghanistan in 2003, Amy continued her education and trained as an Army mental health specialist. She also completed programs to become an emergency medical technician and a certified nursing assistant while studying psychology. Her mother believed she had a gift for helping people through difficult experiences.

Amy volunteered for another Afghanistan tour in 2008. Between deployments, she came home to family and friends, though her commitment to military service never seemed far from her mind.

Once, while Jeri was at work, Amy sent her a photo of a tattoo that had taken hours to complete. It showed an American flag draped across her back beside a firearm and a soldier’s hat. The words read: “All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice.”

Jeri told her daughter she didn’t like it. Amy assumed her mother was objecting to the tattoo itself, but Jeri said the wording worried her. It felt like a bad omen, she told Amy. Her daughter laughed off the concern.

Looking back, Jeri believes Amy may have understood that she might not return from war. The tattoo, she said, seemed to reflect a readiness to fight and accept the risks.

In October 2009, Amy arrived at Fort Hood to prepare for a deployment scheduled for December. She never left for it.

Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow was also at Fort Hood preparing for deployment, in his case to Iraq. He had wanted to join the Army from an early age, influenced by his father, Daniel, who served in the Vietnam War. Justin became a satellite communications instructor and was remembered for his work ethic and ability to encourage those around him.

His wife, Marikay DeCrow, said his humor and optimism helped other soldiers through hard times. When someone was struggling, Justin would stay to teach, support and encourage them. Giving up was not in his nature.

Justin and Marikay had known each other since childhood; he was friends with her brother. Their relationship changed when she invited him to her senior prom. After that, she said, they were rarely apart. She remembers the love she saw in his eyes and says she couldn’t imagine life without him.

When their daughter, Kylah, was born, Justin was away and didn’t meet her until she was six weeks old. He learned about the birth a day later, when he was finally able to call Marikay at the hospital. The couple sometimes managed only a brief call each day.

Later, while Justin attended advanced individual training in South Carolina, Marikay travelled back and forth every other weekend to see him. Some visits lasted only a day; occasionally he was allowed to stay overnight. Each trip mattered, she said, and Justin spent as much time as he could holding Kylah. Saying goodbye was painful.

As Kylah grew up, Marikay saw her father’s qualities in her: a quick wit, a sense of humor and deep concern for other people. The family did not know how precious those early days together would become before Justin went to Fort Hood.

On a Thursday at the post’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire. Thirteen people were killed and 31 were wounded. Hasan was driven by Islamic extremism and opposed U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cahill, Krueger and DeCrow were among those killed. Their families were left not only with grief, but with questions about what had happened and how their loved ones had spent their final moments.

For Vanacker, the details were slow to emerge. Witnesses were injured or scattered across the country, and many of her father’s colleagues had not seen what happened to him. At a memorial, a soldier who had shared a cubicle with Cahill finally gave her an account. He said it had seemed like an ordinary workday until gunfire sounded down the hall. Cahill got up and went toward it.

Vanacker spent nearly a year wondering whether her father had been shot while trying to help someone. The uncertainty, she recalled, became a long and difficult wait for answers.

During the pretrial proceedings, she learned that Cahill had come out of an examination room, picked up a chair by its legs and charged at Hasan. To Vanacker, that act reflected the courage and character her father had spent a lifetime teaching his children.

In August 2013, a military jury convicted Hasan on all 42 counts and unanimously sentenced him to death. He has been on military death row for 13 years.

Congress expanded Purple Heart eligibility in 2015, allowing military victims of the attack to receive the award. Eligible civilian victims, including Cahill, received the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom.

On Oct. 2, President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s sentence. Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directed that the execution be carried out by firing squad on Dec. 3. If carried out, it would be the military’s first execution since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945.

Marikay said she cried when she received the message that Trump had signed the execution order. She has waited 17 years to hear that Hasan would face the death penalty, she said. The method matters less to her than seeing the sentence carried out.

She described the loss of the life she and Justin expected to share: he never got to watch Kylah grow up or graduate, walk her down the aisle, or meet his granddaughters. They had planned to grow old together.

Vanacker and Jeri Krueger said Hasan’s execution was not something they needed in order to find closure. Vanacker said she had already stopped thinking about him, while Krueger said he had been absent from her thoughts for a long time.

Both women also questioned whether an execution might serve Hasan’s wish to become a martyr. Krueger wondered whether carrying it out would fulfill his aims. Vanacker said the attack had brought him the attention he sought.

The discussion took another turn when War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the administration planned to livestream the execution so the public could see the consequences of such crimes. The families said they had not heard about the plan before it was announced.

Krueger said the idea felt disrespectful and that officials should have considered the families who would be affected. Vanacker worried that the administration’s approach could put the execution at risk, and said the tragedy should not be turned into entertainment. She urged Congress to use the National Defense Authorization Act to prohibit livestreamed military executions.

Trump later announced that the livestream would not go ahead. Krueger said she was grateful the plan had been dropped.

Victims’ families may attend Hasan’s execution. Marikay said she knew, from the day the date was announced, that she would return to Fort Hood one last time. She sees the execution as a chance to bring this chapter to an end.

For the families, Nov. 5 remains a day focused on the people they lost, not Hasan. Jeri remembers Amy as energetic and strong, with a way of passing that strength to others. She said she hates the ideas that influenced Hasan, while also recognizing that he was a person who chose to carry out a devastating attack.

Amy’s family keeps her memory alive through an annual fundraiser for a scholarship in her name at the local high school. The event, called Krueg’s Crawl, is a bar crawl with prizes. This year’s gathering took place on Halloween and included a costume contest.

On the anniversary of the attack, the family usually gathers, visits the cemetery and shares memories of Amy. Vanacker and her family also visit her father and leave flowers.

The words Cahill used to comfort his daughter helped Vanacker through the first anniversary: “It builds character, kid.” This year feels different, she said. The surrounding attention has brought up more emotions and made the day harder in some ways.

The media focus has reopened difficult feelings, but the tragedy has also brought the families closer. Krueger said they have come to feel like a family, and that being together on anniversaries has meant a great deal to her.

The three families remain connected, drawing on the values their loved ones left behind as they remember the lives that were taken.