U.S. Army soldiers salute their fallen comrades during the III Corps and Fort Hood Memorial Ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, November 10, 2009. The memorial was held to honor the 13 victims of the shootings which took place on the Fort Hood Army post on November 5. (Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi)
Seventeen years after an Army psychiatrist opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 people in 2009, the families of three victims continue to build lives shaped by the values and lessons their loved ones left behind.
“It builds character, kid,” Keely Cahill Vanacker remembers her father, Michael Cahill, telling her throughout her teenage years. He usually delivered the line with a playful punch to the arm whenever she was upset.
Cahill spent 23 years in the Army National Guard as an infantryman before earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and training as a physician assistant, where he cared for fellow soldiers.
“My dad really valued people, and he touched a lot of lives,” Vanacker said.
Raised in a military family that moved across the country, Vanacker watched her father model compassion and fairness in his medical work.
Michael Cahill served in the Army National Guard for 23 years before training to become a physician assistant. (Courtesy of Keely Vanacker)
“If you were somebody living in a rural Texas post and struggling to pay for asthma medication, my dad would find a way for you to get it,” she said.
For Cahill, helping others was a calling that continued after he left the military. He later worked as a civilian physician assistant at Fort Hood.
For Amy Krueger, the decision to serve came after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“I’m going in.”
Those were the words Amy told her mother, Jeri Krueger, on the afternoon of Sept. 11.
At the time, Amy was attending the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Sheboygan Campus.
“Going in?” her mother recalled asking.
“I’m joining the Army, Mom.”
Krueger was unsure whether her daughter could make a difference in the fight against terrorism.
“Oh, Amy, you can’t take on bin Laden all by yourself,” she told her.
“Watch me,” Amy replied.
The following day, Amy sat in a recruiter’s office. She would go 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 and serving at Bagram Airfield, Amy returned home and continued her education. She worked as an Army mental health specialist while completing Emergency Medical Technician and Certified Nursing Assistant programs and studying psychology.
Amy Krueger enrolled in the US military after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack. (Jeri Krueger)
“She wanted to help people get through things,” Krueger said. “Psychology was definitely something she would have been great at.”
Amy volunteered for a second Afghanistan tour in 2008. Between deployments, friends and relatives welcomed her home.
Even away from the battlefield, service remained central to Amy’s life.
Krueger was at work when Amy sent her a photograph of a new tattoo that had taken hours to complete.
“I said, ‘I don’t like it,’” Krueger recalled.
Amy assumed her mother was expressing the usual parental disapproval of a new tattoo and asked what she meant.
Krueger clarified that it was not necessarily the tattoo itself that troubled her, but its message.
“I feel like it’s a bad omen,” Krueger told her daughter.
Amy laughed off her mother’s concern.
The tattoo showed an American flag draped across her back beside a firearm and a soldier’s hat. It read: “All gave some. Some gave all. Sacrifice.”
Krueger knew her daughter intended to keep serving. Still, she said the tattoo left her with a feeling she could not shake.
“I always thought she had a feeling that she might not come back,” Krueger said. “That tattoo kind of says that. I think she was prepared to fight, to do what she needed to do, and didn’t know if she’d be coming back.”
In October 2009, Amy was sent to Fort Hood to prepare for a December deployment. She never made it.
Amy was not the only soldier arriving at Fort Hood with a deployment ahead. Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow was preparing to deploy to Iraq when he reported to the post.
Justin knew from a young age that he wanted to join the Army, inspired by his father, Daniel J. DeCrow, a Vietnam War veteran. Justin later became a satellite communications instructor known for his work ethic and encouragement of others.
“His positive attitude and humor helped others get through tough times,” said Justin’s wife, Marikay DeCrow.
When fellow soldiers struggled, Justin stayed behind to teach, support and encourage them. He believed failure was not an option.
That warmth also defined his personal life. Justin and Marikay had known each other since childhood because he was friends with her brother. Their relationship changed after she invited him to her senior prom, and the two became inseparable.
“From that time on, we were together,” Marikay said. “When he would look at me, all I saw was the love he had for me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.”
When their daughter, Kylah, was born, Justin could not return home to meet her until she was six weeks old.
Justin DeCrow was among the 13 victims killed at Fort Hood in 2009. (Courtesy of Marikay DeCrow)
Justin learned about Kylah’s birth 24 hours later, when he was finally able to call Marikay at the hospital.
“He was ecstatic to have a daughter,” she said. “We had maybe a five-minute phone call once a day.”
Those calls became a beacon of hope, giving Marikay brief but precious moments of connection with Justin while they were apart.
The separation continued while Justin attended Advanced Individual Training in South Carolina. Marikay traveled back and forth nearly every other weekend to keep the family connected.
“Sometimes we only had a day, and sometimes he was allowed to stay the night with us,” Marikay said. “Every trip meant so much to him and to us. He spent every minute he could holding Kylah. Leaving him each time was incredibly difficult.”
As Kylah grew, Justin remained devoted to her. Marikay said his values live on in their daughter.
“I see so much of Justin in Kylah,” she said. “She is witty and funny, and cares so much about those around her.”
Neither knew how precious those days would become—the final moments they would share before Justin went to Fort Hood.
On a Thursday at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, U.S. Army Maj. and psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 31 others.
Hasan was motivated by Islamic extremism and opposed the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Among the 13 victims were retired Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael Cahill, Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger and Staff Sgt. Justin DeCrow—three people whose lives centered on service, family and deeply held values.
For their families, the attack began a new struggle: understanding what had happened and how their loved ones spent their final moments.
In the aftermath, Vanacker found it difficult to reconstruct the day. Witnesses were hospitalized or scattered across the country, and many of Cahill’s colleagues had not seen what happened to him.
She did not receive a clear account until a memorial, when a soldier who had shared a cubicle with Cahill approached her.
He said the day had begun like any other until gunfire echoed down the hallway.
“And all of a sudden, your dad just got up, and then he was gone,” Vanacker recalled him saying.
Cahill was serving as a civilian physician assistant at Fort Hood when the shooting occurred in 2009. (Courtesy of Keely Vanacker)
For nearly a year, Vanacker lived with uncertainty as she waited to learn what had happened to her father.
“I was just trying to figure out what had happened and whether he was shot trying to help somebody,” she said. “Was it that sort of thing? It leaves things unanswered for a while, and you have this weird waiting game.”
During the pretrial proceedings, she learned that Cahill had left the examination room, grabbed a chair by its legs and charged at Hasan. The act reflected the “character” he 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 spent 13 years on the military’s death row.
In 2015, after Congress expanded eligibility for the Purple Heart, military victims of the massacre received the medals. 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, and acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directed that the execution be carried out by firing squad on Dec. 3.
The execution would be the U.S. military’s first since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945.
“When I received the email that President Trump had signed the execution order, I felt a kind of relief come over me. All I could do was cry,” Marikay said. “I have been waiting 17 years to hear this.”
Although some have questioned the method, Marikay said the manner of execution matters less to her than seeing Hasan held accountable.
“He deserves the death penalty. This is justice,” she said. “This man destroyed our lives. Justin never got to watch Kylah grow up, graduate, walk her down the aisle or hold his beautiful granddaughters. We were supposed to grow old together.”
Vanacker and Krueger said they did not need Hasan’s execution to find closure.
“He was already dead to me, and I did not think about him. An execution is not something I personally needed for closure,” Vanacker said.
Krueger expressed a similar view. “I do not give him any thought ever. He died a long time ago,” she said.
Vanacker and Krueger also questioned whether an execution could fulfill Hasan’s desire for martyrdom.
“He wanted to be a martyr, and that didn’t happen,” Krueger said. “So when this happens, does that fulfill his desires?”
President Donald Trump announces that the execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will not be livestreamed, reversing an earlier Pentagon announcement that the execution would be broadcasted to the public. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images; Bell County Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)
“He carried out that shooting in a way that sought attention and martyrdom, and we have just played right into his hands,” Vanacker said.
The debate intensified when War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the administration planned to livestream the execution.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it in public because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.
The families said they first learned of the livestream proposal through public statements.
“It feels a little bit like a slap in the face, disrespectful,” Krueger said. “I’m sure he didn’t intend it, but there should have been somebody who said, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. There are families who are going to be affected by this.’”
Before Trump announced on Truth Social that the planned livestream had been canceled, Vanacker warned that the administration’s approach could put the execution at risk.
“Hegseth’s obsession with barbaric optics probably put this execution in danger,” Vanacker said. “Our tragedy is not your entertainment.”
She urged Congress to prohibit livestreamed military executions through the National Defense Authorization Act.
“I hope they put it in the NDAA, banning it outright,” she said. “It should never be considered or remain an option. Livestreaming an execution should never be an option.”
Krueger said she felt relieved after the livestream plan was dropped.
“I’m so, so grateful that President Trump took it down,” she said. “That’s a good thing.”
Victims’ families may witness Hasan’s execution, and Marikay said she already knows where she will be on Dec. 3.
“The date it was announced, I knew I would be heading to Fort Hood one last time,” she said. “This is closure. I’m ready for it to be over.”
For the families, Nov. 5 remains a deeply personal day. Their memories center not on Hasan, but on the people they lost.
Krueger remembers Amy as vivacious and strong, someone who shared that strength with others. Those qualities continue to shape how her mother understands the tragedy.
“I hate the ideology that made him do what he did,” Krueger said. “But do I hate him? He’s a human being who was swayed by the beliefs of his leaders and had the free will to carry out a devastating, destructive event.”
To honor Amy’s legacy, her family holds an annual fundraiser for a scholarship in her name at the local high school.
In keeping with Amy’s personality, the fundraiser is built around a lighthearted event: a bar crawl called Krueg’s Crawl.
“It’s a bar crawl, and there are prizes, so it’s fun,” Krueger said.
This year’s event took place on Halloween and included a costume contest, preserving the sense of fun Amy brought to those around her.
When Nov. 5 arrives, the family keeps the day private.
“We typically do the same thing,” Krueger said. “We get together, go to the cemetery, talk about her and remember her. This year, we’re doing that as well.”
Vanacker and her family maintain their own traditions by visiting Cahill’s grave.
“We go, leave flowers and have a remembrance,” she said.
What helped her through the first anniversary was her father’s familiar four-word message: “It builds character, kid.”
“I think this year is a little different,” Vanacker said. “With all the other distractions around, it honestly makes it a little harder. There are a lot more emotions pulling at us this year.”
Although renewed media attention has reopened painful memories, the families say the tragedy and the years of hardship have brought them closer.
“We’ve become like a family,” Krueger said. “There was one year, and then the 10-year anniversary, when seeing them and being with them meant so much to me.”
Three families forever changed by the Fort Hood attack remain connected as they draw strength from the service, character and love their relatives left behind.
