FORT HOOD, Texas -- Sketching out lives that ended too soon, President Obama remembered those slain at Fort Hood as husbands and fathers, immigrants and scholars, optimists and patriots -- an expectant mother, a granddaughter of veterans and a music teacher.
Just below his speaking platform Tuesday, before thousands of mourners, the dead were remembered in a traditional Army way: 13 pairs of combat boots, each with an inverted rifle topped with a helmet. A picture of each person rested below the boots.
"Neither this country, nor the values that we were founded upon, could exist without men and women like these 13 Americans," Obama told the throng. "And that is why we must pay tribute to their stories."
Obama had words, as well, for a nation demanding answers for last Thursday's massacre at this Texas Army post. He spoke forcefully if indirectly of the alleged shooter's motives, never mentioning Maj. Nidal Hasan by name.
The president's remarks at a memorial service were personal, more about how the victims lived than how they died.
The president spent more time meeting privately with the wounded and with loved ones of those killed than speaking in public.
His tone stern, Obama pledged to the crowd that "the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next."
On a steamy Texas day, Obama stepped into a scene filled with military resolve and tender moments. Soldiers helped wounded friends to their seats.
Thousands upon thousands gathered on a field for the ceremony.
Riflemen fired a last salute. A bugler played taps.
After the ceremony, Obama walked solemnly along the row of boots, placing a commander-in-chief's coin next to each victim's photo in tribute.
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