SALT LAKE CITY -- The family of a Utah man said Friday he is among 13 people killed in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas.
The family of Army Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, said in a statement that he was to be deployed to Afghanistan in January.
Authorities say Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, went on the shooting spree at the sprawling Texas post on Thursday. He is among about 30 people who were wounded.
Nemelka, the youngest of Michael and Teena Nemelka's four children, belonged to the 5/10th Engineering Company, 20th Infantry Battalion, 36th Engineering Brigade.
Nemelka enlisted in the Army in October 2008, Utah National Guard Lt. Col. Lisa Olsen said. It wasn't clear how long he had been at Fort Hood. The family was informed of Aaron Nemelka's death about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, Olsen said.
"As a person, Aaron was as soft and kind and as gentle as they come, a sweetheart," his uncle, Christopher Nemelka, told The Associated Press Friday. "What I loved about the kid was his independence of thought."
Christopher Nemelka said his nephew chose to join the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier from Ogden who was wounded in the mass shooting was reportedly doing well Friday after being treated for an injury, his mother said. Pfc. Joey Foster's mother, Aggie Foster, released the information through a spokesman at her job.
Joey Foster's wife, Mandy Foster, told Ogden's Standard-Examiner that she first learned about the shootings in a call from a friend Thursday afternoon.
Mandy Foster tried to reach her husband but didn't speak to him for about an hour, when he called to say he'd been shot in the hip but would be OK.
Joey Foster, 21, joined the Army in November 2008, and the couple has two children, a 2-year-old son and an infant daughter. He was preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan and was at the Soldier Readiness Center when the rampage started, said Mandy Foster, 23.
"(Joey) said that he was standing in line to turn in papers at the readiness center, and a guy who looked like a regular soldier just all of a sudden jumped up ... and started shooting," she told the newspaper from Texas.
Joey Foster didn't realize he'd been shot until later, Mandy Foster said.
"He said he doesn't even know when he got hit," she said. "He just knows that he grabbed as many people as he could that were being shot by (the gunman) and ran to the back around the corner."
Aggie Foster told the newspaper she spoke to her son later Thursday.
"It sounds like none of the other guys had guns, so they couldn't shoot back," she said.
Comments