A wounded soldier with a clear path to the exit refused to leave his fallen comrade behind even as a gunman fired off shots near them during last year's deadly rampage at the Fort Hood Army post, a military court heard Thursday.
Spc. Alan Carroll said he had been shot in the arm but that as soon as he realized the chaos unfolding around him was not a training exercise he had to concentrate on helping a more seriously wounded fellow soldier.
"The only person I could see from ground was Pfc. (Aaron Thomas) Nemelka," Carroll said to the Article 32 hearing via a live video link from Kandahar, Afghanistan. "I told him it was not training and to get down."
Carroll was subsequently shot in the back and leg, but said he could have reached the door. Nevertheless, his training prevented him from escaping the bloodshed without Nemelka.
"I'd been told never leave a fallen comrade. That's what was going through my mind. I needed to get out, but I needed to get him out with me," said Carroll, who was deployed to Afghanistan 10 months ago.
He testified that Nemelka had been shot between his Adams' apple and his chest. Nemelka was among the 13 soldiers killed in the Nov. 5 attack.
The hearing will determine if Maj. Nidal Hasan, 40, should stand trial in the Fort Hood shootings. He is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.
Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial.
On Wednesday, witnesses testified that the Army psychiatrist shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is Great!" in Arabic — before unleashing a volley of gunfire in a center where soldiers from across the country were preparing to deploy.
On Thursday, Pfc. Najee Hull, who was shot in the knee and back, said the gunman had been carrying two weapons — one "with a red laser on it" and one with a green laser. Earlier witness testimony described one of the guns as "old-fashioned." Other witnesses have said the shooter took some 100 shots at about 300 people at the center where soldiers were making final preparations to deploy.
The prosecutor asked Hull if the gunman was in the courtroom. Hull looked to where Hasan sat, just a dozen feet away, and asked if he could remove his hat. Defense attorney John Galligan objected but Col. James L. Pohl, a military judge presiding over the hearing as its investigating officer, overruled the objection. Hull stood up, looked at Hasan and said "That's him."
Hasan has been paralyzed from the chest down since Fort Hood police officers shot him during the attack. He attended the hearing seated in a wheelchair. While dressed in Army combat uniform, Hasan must wear a knitted cap and has a blanket draped around his shoulders because the paralysis makes him cold.
1st Lt. Brandy Nicole Mason said she had been sitting in the processing center texting a friend when the shooting broke out. She was among many soldiers who wondered if it was a drill.
"Someone hollered: 'Training or not, get down! Get down!'" Mason testified. She said she initially was "dumbfounded and awestruck" but realized it was serious when she saw blood on her cell phone.
She said hid behind some tables and waited for the noise of gunfire to subside.
"I didn't hear anything and peeked to look out. He had the gun pointed at my head. It was pointed at my head," said Mason, who was shot in the left thigh. She hid again and eventually was rescued by a SWAT team.
As she left the room, she saw the body of a civilian physician assistant, Michael Grant Cahill, who according to testimony Wednesday was fatally shot after trying to knock down the gunman with a chair.
"I realized this was real," Mason said. "I said, 'So he really shot me?' and they (the SWAT team) said, 'Yes ma'am.'"
