LAFAYETTE — A former Lafayette man wounded in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, described it as the most harrowing experience of his military career — which included 13 months in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
Army Cpl. Nathan Hewitt said he had just received vaccinations Thursday that he needed in order to deploy to Afghanistan when the shooting began. He said he was shot twice while trying to flee the gunman.
"All I heard was him yelling and the gunshots fire," Hewitt told the Journal & Courier. "I saw him after I was trying to move out of the way and get behind something. The only thing I could see was that he was walking around and just shooting."
Hewitt said he was shot once through the calf and another time in the hip. He was soon taken away by an ambulance and was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
"It's a tragedy no one could have anticipated," Hewitt said.
Army Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, who formerly lived in Plymouth, was killed in the shooting. His wife, Marikay DeCrow, said in a statement Saturday that DeCrow's "infectious charm and wit always put others at ease."
A funeral was planned for Plymouth but arrangements were still pending, his wife said.
Authorities accuse Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan of firing more than 100 rounds in a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 29 others in the worst mass shooting on a military facility in the U.S.
Hasan, 39, was seriously wounded by police and is being treated in a military hospital.
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