Five Years On, Obama Attends Second Fort Hood Memorial

On April 9, for the second time in five years, President Barack Obama spoke at a memorial ceremony for the victims of a shooting at Forth Hood.

Four people were killed on April 2, when a combat veteran opened fire at the Killeen, Texas, military base. The gunman, 34-year-old Ivan Lopez, was an enlisted soldier, who killed himself after fatally shooting three others. Lopez was an Iraq war veteran assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command and arrived at Fort Hood in February.

The attack comes less than four years and five months after a former United States Army psychiatrist and Medical Corps officer Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and injured more than 30 in a mass shooting at the same military post.

“To the men and women of Fort Hood,” Obama said, “part of what makes this so painful is that we’ve been here before. This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago. Once more, soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home, where they’re supposed to be safe." Credit: The White House