Posted on 11/06/2009 5:24:16 PM PST by EternalVigilance
Francheska Velez, 21, had just finished a tour in Iraq and returned to Ft. Hood three months pregnant. The Army granted Velez, a 2006 graduate of Kelvyn Park High School, a maternity leave of absence and she was set to return to Chicago in just two weeks.
While at first glance, it may be "a shame" that Officer Munley's shots failed to kill this dirtbag, consider G-d's justice in this. He was felled, without killing him, which denies him his "reward" of "jihad", and is evidently going to paralyze him, permanently, for however long his sorry life is going to be. Lastly, he was prevented from reaching the ultimate point of his goal by one who is denigrated, and despised by his barbaric credo, a woman. Truly, G-d is not mocked...
the infowarrior
Let’s see if they feel the same about baby Velez.
Indeed, inasmuch as Baby Velez' mother, just like Laci Peterson, *chose* to carry their child to term, the personhood should in no wise be in doubt, by anyone. We will see if the media denies Baby Velez' personhood...
the infowarrior
Amen!
Not to mention,if and when we hear what the perp has to say for himself,Joe Public might hear a lot of home truths he'd rather not have to deal with.
A wakeup call of sorts.
The media would be more willing to declare Hasan a "victim" before they would declare the child to be anything other than a blob of fetal material.
The only good jihadist is a dead jihadist.
Sad. The article doesn’t cover a couple of things. Married ? Fiance ? She “just finished a tour in Iraq and returned to Ft. Hood three months pregnant.” Did she get pregnant in Iraq, or what?
Just curious.
http://www.southtownstar.com/news/1870465,110809xvelez.article
Pregnancy brought Velez to base early
BY MARK KONKOL AND STEFANO ESPOSITO, Sun-Times Media
Growing up, Army Pvt. Francheska Velez was a ‘fraidy cat’ - horror movies and bugs gave her the willies.
“When she joined the Army that all changed — in a good way,” Velez’s cousin Jennifer Arzuaga said. “She became stronger.”
Army strong. The 2006 graduate of Kelvyn Park High School in Chicago served in Korea and most recently in Iraq, where she drove fuel tankers.
She made her father proud.
“She was the best I have. The light of my family,” Juan Velez said of his only daughter. “She was living my dream — to be part of the military, part of the United States. To be part of something. Just to give back to the United States because this is where we are from.”
On Thursday, Velez, 21, was one of 13 soldiers killed and 30 wounded during an Army psychiatrist’s rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.
She was due back from Iraq on Dec. 10 but came home early after she found out she was three months pregnant. Her family was planning to visit her in Texas next month.
But on Friday, there came a knock on the front door of the Velez family’s two-flat in Chicago’s Humboldt Park community. Army officers had tragic news.
“The hardest thing is to accept the reality that she is gone,” Juan Velez said through an interpreter.
Velez had her father’s electric smile, glorious dance moves and charisma that filled a room, family members said.
“This girl was full of life. — She was a happy girl, and he took her from us,” Velez’s cousin, Sandy Rivera, said of the killer. “She was supposed to have the baby and everything was going to be happy. We were all waiting. It’s not fair.”
In high school, Velez joined ROTC and a dance team. She loved to dance, especially salsa. When they were teenagers, Velez and her cousins would make dance videos, pretending to be the Spice Girls.
“Dance was her passion before going in to the Army,” her cousin, Yesenia Garcia, said. “She felt the music. She would enliven it. She would put her own flavor in it.”
After graduation, Velez enlisted because she wanted to travel, get a degree and make something of herself, family members said.
“I tried to talk her out of it many times. I said, ‘No you’re crazy,’ “ Arzuaga said. “But once her mind was set that was it.”
Once she returned stateside, Velez’s focus was on being a good mom.
Juan Velez, staring into the distance from his front stoop, said he remembers the joy he felt when his little girl called with news that he would be an abuelo - grandfather in Spanish.
“It was happiness. I was full of joy,” he said.
Velez planned to live in Texas during her pregnancy and raise her child there.
Now, “She’ll never know what it’s like to be a mom,” Arzuaga said, trailing off in tears. “She just turned 21. She just turned 21.”
In addition to her father, Velez is survived by her mother Eileen and brothers Juan Guiermo Velez and Andrew Velez. Services are pending.
Shame. Talk about unintended consequences.
FORT HOOD, Texas — The 13 people killed when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, included a pregnant woman who was preparing to return home, a man who quit a furniture company job to join the military about a year ago, a newlywed who had served in Iraq and a woman who had vowed to take on Usama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Here is a look at some of the victims.
———
Francheska Velez
Velez, 21, of Chicago, was pregnant and preparing to return home. A friend of Velez's, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing.
"She was like my sister," Ramos, 21, said. "She was the most fun and happy person you could know. She never did anything wrong to anybody."
Family members said Velez had recently returned from deployment in Iraq and had sought a lifelong career in the Army.
"She was a very happy girl and sweet," said her father, Juan Guillermo Velez, his eyes red from crying. "She had the spirit of a child."
Ramos, who also served briefly in the military, couldn't reconcile that her friend was killed in this country — just after leaving a war zone.
"It makes it a lot harder," she said. "This is not something a soldier expects — to have someone in our uniform go start shooting at us."
———
Capt. John Gaffaney
Gaffaney, 56, was a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif., for more than 20 years and had arrived at Fort Hood the day before the shooting to prepare for a deployment to Iraq.
Gaffaney, who was born in Williston, N.D., had served in the Navy and later the California National Guard as a younger man, his family said. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he tried to sign up again for military service. Although the Army Reserves at first declined, he got the call about two years ago asking him to rejoin, said his close friend and co-worker Stephanie Powell.
"He wanted to help the boys in Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the trauma of what they were seeing," Powell said. "He was an honorable man. He just wanted to serve in any way he can."
His family described him as an avid baseball card collector and fan of the San Diego Padres who liked to read military novels and ride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Gaffaney supervised a team of six social workers, including Powell, at the county's Adult Protective Services department. Ellen Schmeding, assistant deputy director for the county's Health and Human Services Agency, said Gaffaney was a strong leader.
He is survived by a wife and a son.
———
Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka
Nemelka, 19, of the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah, chose to join the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his uncle Christopher Nemelka said.
"As a person, Aaron was as soft and kind and as gentle as they come, a sweetheart," his uncle said. "What I loved about the kid was his independence of thought."
Aaron Nemelka, the youngest of four children, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan in January, his family said in a statement. Nemelka had enlisted in the Army in October 2008, Utah National Guard Lt. Col. Lisa Olsen said.
———
Michael Grant Cahill
Cahill, a 62-year-old physician assistant, suffered a heart attack two weeks ago and returned to work at the base as a civilian employee after taking just one week off for recovery, said his daughter Keely Vanacker.
"He survived that. He was getting back on track, and he gets killed by a gunman," Vanacker said, her words bare with shock and disbelief.
Cahill, of Cameron, Texas, helped treat soldiers returning from tours of duty or preparing for deployment. Often, Vanacker said, Cahill would walk young soldiers where they needed to go, just to make sure they got the right treatment.
"He loved his patients, and his patients loved him," said Vanacker, 33, the oldest of Cahill's three adult children. "He just felt his job was important."
Cahill, who was born in Spokane, Wash., had worked as a civilian contractor at Fort Hood for about four years, after jobs in rural health clinics and at Veterans Affairs hospitals. He and his wife, Joleen, had been married 37 years.
Vanacker described her father as a gregarious man and a voracious reader who could talk for hours about any subject.
The family's typical Thanksgiving dinners ended with board games and long conversations over the table, said Vanacker, whose voice often cracked with emotion as she remembered her father. "Now, who I am going to talk to?"
———
Pfc. Michael Pearson
Pearson, 21, of the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, Ill., quit what he figured was a dead-end furniture company job to join the military about a year ago.
Pearson's mother, Sheryll Pearson, said the 2006 Bolingbrook High School graduate joined the military because he was eager to serve his country and broaden his horizons.
"He was the best son in the whole world," she said. "He was my best friend and I miss him."
His cousin, Mike Dostalek, showed reporters a poem Pearson wrote. "I look only to the future for wisdom. To rock back and forth in my wooden chair," the poem says.
At Pearson's family home Friday, a yellow ribbon was tied to a porch light and a sticker stamped with American flags on the front door read, "United we stand."
Neighbor Jessica Koerber, who was with Pearson's parents when they received word Thursday their son had died, described him as a man who clearly loved his family -- someone who enjoyed horsing around with his nieces and nephews, and other times playing his guitar.
"That family lost their gem," she told the AP. "He was a great kid, a great guy. ... Mikey was one of a kind."
Sheryll Pearson said she hadn't seen her son for a year because he had been training. She told the Tribune that when she last talked to him on the phone two days ago, they had discussed how he would come home for Christmas.
———
Spc. Jason Dean Hunt
Hunt, 22, of Frederick, Okla., went into the military after graduating from Tipton High School in 2005 and had gotten married just two months ago, his mother, Gale Hunt, said. He had served 3 1/2 years in the Army, including a stint in Iraq.
Gale Hunt said two uniformed soldiers came to her door late Thursday night to notify her of her son's death.
Hunt, known as J.D., was "just kind of a quiet boy and a good kid, very kind," said Kathy Gray, an administrative assistant at Tipton Schools.
His mother said he was family oriented.
"He didn't go in for hunting or sports," Gale Hunt said. "He was a very quiet boy who enjoyed video games."
He had re-enlisted for six years after serving his initial two-year assignment, she said. Jason Hunt was previously stationed at Fort Stewart in Georgia.
———
Sgt. Amy Krueger
Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis., joined the Army after the 2001 terrorist attacks and had vowed to take on Usama bin Laden, her mother, Jeri Krueger said.
Amy Krueger arrived at Fort Hood on Tuesday and was scheduled to be sent to Afghanistan in December, the mother told the Herald Times Reporter of Manitowoc.
Jeri Krueger recalled telling her daughter that she could not take on bin Laden by herself.
"Watch me," her daughter replied.
Kiel High School Principal Dario Talerico told The Associated Press that Krueger graduated from the school in 1998 and had spoken at least once to local elementary school students about her career.
"I just remember that Amy was a very good kid, who like most kids in a small town are just looking for what their next step in life was going to be and she chose the military," Talerico said. "Once she got into the military, she really connected with that kind of lifestyle and was really proud to serve her country."
--------
Kham Xiong
Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn., a 2004 graduate of Community of Peace Academy, enjoyed hunting and fishing.
"The sad part is that he had been taught and been trained to protect and to fight. Yet it's such a tragedy that he did not have the opportunity to protect himself and the base," his father, Chor Xiong, told KSTP-TV through an interpreter.
Xiong's 17-year-old brother, Robert, described Kham as "the family clown, just a real good outgoing guy."
Community of Peace Academy Principal Tim McGowan told the AP that Chor Xiong informed the charter school of his son's death. Family members picked up pictures of Xiong on Friday for a memorial service, McGowan said.
"He was just a well-rounded individual with a great personality. He was very fun-loving, one who brought a smile to everyone's face he came across," McGowan said.
----------
Juanita Warman
Warman, 55, was a military physician assistant with two daughters and six grandchildren.
Her sister, Margaret Yaggie of Roaring Branch in north-central Pennsylvania, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that her sister attended Pittsburgh Langley High School and put herself through school at the University of Pittsburgh. She said her sister spent most of her career in the military.
----------
Russell Seager
Russell Seager's uncle said he joined the Army a few years ago because he was a psychiatrist who wanted to help soldiers returning from war adapt to civilian life again. He taught at Bryant & Stratton College in Milwaukee.
Are you directing all this information at me for a reason, or just because mine was the last post ?
You asked for more information, so I gave you what I could find.
And I appreciate it. Thank you.
You’re welcome. The thread needed more information in any case.
Concur...
the infowarrior
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