FT. HOOD, TEXAS — President Obama tried to console a grieving military Tuesday, telling the families of those killed in last week's shooting rampage at Ft. Hood that their "loved ones endure through the life of our nation."
"We come together filled with sorrow for the 13 Americans that we have lost; with gratitude for the lives that they led; and with a determination to honor them through the work we carry on," Obama said.
As he remembered the dead, offering personal details about each one, Obama also praised the modern military and reminded service members that their mission remained difficult and unfinished.
The speech left some of the thousands of military personnel and civilians in attendance in tears. It appeared that Obama too had to compose himself at times.
Many presidents, like Ronald Reagan when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, have assumed this role of counselor in chief. And Like George W. Bush after Sept. 11 -- not quite eight months into his first term -- Obama's time to offer solace came early in his presidency; it also followed his recent somber visit to Dover Air Force Base to salute the bodies of service members and Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed in Afghanistan.
Before the ceremony, held on a sunny day under a flawless sky, survivors of the shootings -- some with arms in slings, some on crutches -- carefully made their way down a set of steps to seats close to the stage. They were followed, solemnly, by families of the dead.
Many members of the audience were military and wore fatigues. Some were civilians from nearby Killeen. Small children played on the grass as the adults listened to the president, who said the tragedy was all the more painful because the shooting had occurred not overseas, but at home.
"This is a time of war," Obama said. "Yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of . . . this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy . . . even more incomprehensible."
Obama directed his remarks to the troops, the nation and, perhaps most movingly of all, the families of the 12 military personnel and one civilian shot down Thursday at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center.
"We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers," he said. "You knew them as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.
