Fort Hood soldiers ready to return

FORT HOOD, Texas -– Pvt. Joseph Foster took a bullet in the leg during the Fort Hood shooting rampage. He pauses when he's asked about the assault, then credits a stout heritage with bringing him through the ordeal and leaving him eager for his scheduled January deployment to Afghanistan.

"I'm Irish. It hit the bone and bounced out," Foster, of Ogden, Utah, said Sunday of the bullet that tore into his left hip. His wife is uneasy about the deployment, but the 21-year-old Foster is resolute. "I'm a soldier. It's my job."

Across Fort Hood, signs point to a post on the mend after Thursday's shooting spree that killed 13 and wounded another 29.

Gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, shot in the torso by civilian police to end the rampage, was in critical but stable condition and breathing on his own at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio.

Authorities continue to refer to Hasan, 39, as the only suspect in the shootings but they won't say when charges would be filed and have said they have not determined a motive.

Hasan's condition has not changed since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.

Sixteen victims remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and seven were in intensive care.

Even as the community took time to mourn the victims at worship services on and off the post Sunday, Fort Hood spokesman Col. John Rossi said the country's largest military installation was moving forward with the business of soldiering. The processing center where Hasan allegedly opened fire remains a crime scene, but the activities that went on there were relocated, with the goal of soon reopening the center.

"There's a lot of routine activity still happening. You'll hear cannon fire and artillery fire," Rossi said. "Soldiers in units are still trying to execute the missions we have been tasked with."

President Barack Obama will attend a memorial service Tuesday honoring victims of the attack, amid growing suggestions that Hasan's superior officers may have missed signs that he was embracing an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he would begin an investigation into what the Army should have known about Hasan. A day earlier, classmates who participated in a 2007-08 master's program at a military college said they complained to faculty about what they considered to be Hasan's anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance," Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on "Fox News Sunday." "He should have been gone."

Army Chief of Staff George Casey warned Sunday against reaching conclusions about the suspected shooter's motives until investigators have fully explored the attack. "I think the speculation (on Hasan's Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Sgt. 1st Class Frank Minnie was in the processing center Monday and Wednesday, getting some health tests and immunizations in preparation for his deployment. The mass shooting happened Thursday, but Minnie said Fort Hood soldiers have the attitude that "the mission still goes on."

"Everybody's going to grieve a little bit. It hurts a lot because it's one of your battle buddies, and someone lost a mom, dad, brother or sister," said Minnie, 37, who served in Iraq in 2006. "But it doesn't change my perspective of going to war. I've got a job to do."

MUSLIM TIES

WASHINGTON -– The family of the alleged Fort Hood shooter held his mother's funeral at the same Virginia mosque that two Sept. 11 hijackers attended in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.

Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 and wounding 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother's funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.

In 2001, Anwar Aulaqi was an imam, or spiritual leader, at the Washington-area mosque. Aulaqi told the FBI in 2001 that, before he moved to Virginia in early 2001, he met with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi several times in San Diego. Al-Hazmi was at the time living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another hijacker. Al-Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Virginia in early April 2001.

In his FBI interview, Aulaqi denied ever meeting with al-Hazmi and Hanjour while in Virginia.

Aulaqi, a native-born U.S. citizen, left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He was investigated by the FBI in 1999 and 2000 after it was learned that he may have been contacted by a possible procurement agent for Osama bin Laden. During this investigation, the FBI learned that Aulaqi knew people involved in raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian group on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at Dar al Hijrah, said he did not know whether Hasan ever attended the mosque but confirmed that the Hasan family participated in services there. Abdul-Malik said the Hasans were not leaders at the mosque and their attendance was utterly normal.

The Falls Church mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week. Abdul-Malik said it's a mistake for people to conflate regular attendance at a mosque with extremism.

Many Muslims pray at the mosque multiple times a day, he said. "It's part of family life. It's like going out for ice cream after dinner."

Faizul Khan, former imam of the Muslim Community Center in nearby Silver Spring, Md., where Hasan also worshipped, said he was not aware that Hasan had attended services at Dar al Hijrah but said it would not be unusual for Hasan to attend more than one mosque concurrently.

Khan said he did not recall Hasan mentioning having been taught or preached to by Aulaqi.

The London Telegraph first reported the potential link between Hasan and the mosque.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Sunday it's important for the country not to get caught up in speculation about Hasan's Muslim faith, and he has instructed his commanders to be on the lookout for anti-Muslim reaction to the killings at the Texas post.

He says focusing on the Islamic roots of the suspected shooter could "heighten the backlash" against all Muslims in the military.

Casey says diversity in the military "gives us strength."

Casey declined to answer questions about the investigation into the shooting, but said evidence to this point shows that Hasan acted alone.