Military hails 2 heroes in Fort Hood rampage

FORT HOOD, Texas - The top commander at Fort Hood is crediting a civilian police officer for stopping the shooting rampage that killed 13 people at the Texas post. Lt. Gen. Bob Cone also hailed a young Army nutritionist who helped wounded victims.

Both women heroically intervened despite being shot.

Cone said Friday that Fort Hood police Sgt. Kimberly Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire Thursday afternoon. Cone said Munley shot the gunman four times despite being shot herself.

Officials said Munley was in stable condition.

Cone said, "It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer."

On Munley's Twitter page, Munley is pictured with country music star Dierks Bentley at the Fort Hood "Freedom Fest." Her Twitter bio read: 'I live a good life. ... a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone's life."

Munley's father, Dennis Barbour, was making plans to travel to Fort Hood to see his 34-year-old daughter on Friday, Starnewsonline.com in Wilmington, N.C., reported. Barbour is a former mayor of Carolina Beach, a barrier island town near Wilmington.

“We're just so grateful and thankful to the Lord that she's safe,” Munley's stepmother, Wanda Barbour told the newspaper Web site. “Our hearts just ache for the loss of others, too, and hers, too. She's still upset about that.”

Munley is a native of Carolina Beach and served as a police officer in Wrightsville Beach, Starnewsonline.com reported.

Cone also hailed Amber Bahr, 19, as an "amazing young lady."

The commander told NBC's TODAY show that the nutritionist put a tourniquet on a wounded soldier and carried him out to medical care. And only after she had taken care of others did she realize she had been shot, he said.

'In and out of pain'
On Thursday, her mother, Lisa Pfund, told the Sheboygan Press that she spoke briefly to Bahr after she was taken to a community hospital.

"I actually got to talk to Amber and I talked to her for about 30 seconds and she was in a lot of pain," Pfund said. "She couldn't tell me nothing, either."

Later that night, she was able to speak with her recovering daughter, she told the Sheboygan Press. She was "in and out of pain" and on medication but in good spirits, adding that she tried to help others during the rampage, the Sheboygan Press reported.

The suspected gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is hospitalized on a ventilator.

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