Families of Fort Hood soldiers shared tense waiting time

SPC. Darin Harshman of Eolia re-enlisted to serve with the U.S. Army for another three years on Thursday, Nov. 5 - coincidentally on the day 13 people lost their lives in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, where Harshman is stationed.
Harshman is a tank operator, who has been in the Army for three years. He served in Iraq for one year, before returning to Fort Hood in June of this year.
Although Harshman, 22, and the other soldiers at Fort Hood are not at liberty to discuss the tragic shooting - during which Major Nidal Malik Hasan not only took the lives of 13 people but injured another 30 - Harshman called his mother, Karen Powell, Thursday night to assure the family he was OK and end their anxious waiting.
“He was in tank class and was on lockdown” after the shooting, his mother explained. “He said, ‘I’m fine but I can’t talk. We’ll talk later.’
“I told him our prayers were answered, and we would continue to pray for him and for the families of the wounded or dead,” Karen Powell said.
Another Eolia resident, PVT. 2 Josh Vaughn, also informed his family he was unharmed. His dad is Glenn Vaughn of Eolia, and his mother is Holly Dixon of Eolia.
Vaughn has been at Fort Hood only two weeks. After enlisting in the U.S. Army in November 2008, he completed his basic training at Fort Benning, Ga.
Vaughn enlisted because after graduating from Clopton High School, he “wanted new experiences and to get away for awhile.” As an information technology specialist, he works with computers. He does not know if he will be deployed overseas.
Vaughn was not in the building where the tragedy occurred on Thursday. The entire base is as big as Dallas, he said, “but most of it is training ground.” Fort Hood has everything a city needs, he added, “and you really don’t have to leave the base.”
Harshman is not the only member of his extended family at Fort Hood. His stepfather, Paul Powell, has a nephew there. He is SPC. William “Bro Bro” Powell III of Louisiana. Powell has been in the U.S. Army for five years and has been to Iraq three times.
“We talked to him, and he was not harmed,” Karen Powell said. He was one block away from the shooting, and Darin was four blocks away.
Powell’s wife and children live on the base with him, Karen said, “and she was scared because of the sirens. They didn’t get to talk to him until later” Thursday night.

Harshman disposes of bombs:
‘Somebody has to do it’

Karen Powell said her son re-enlisted because, “he was concerned about the economy with no jobs - and he does really like the Army. He talks about it a lot.”
Harshman will be at Fort Hood until he is re-deployed, Karen said. “He will be re-deployed somewhere, if not Afghanistan or Iraq. He was told that before he re-enlisted.
“He has made the comment that in Iraq he disposed of bombs and explosives,” she added. “He said, ‘Mom, my philosophy is somebody has to do it, so it might as well be me.’”
Remembering the year her son was in Iraq, Karen said, “I’ve aged a lot.” Although he was not injured, “a couple of things happened when he was in Iraq,” she said. “It’s not just the service people - it’s the family members who go through it, too.
“But we are all supporting him. I’ve talked to several mothers and kept a journal. Every day I say a prayer for everyone, and at Christmas we ship supplies there (to Iraq), boxes to the troops. We are just so very proud of him, all of our family,” she said.
Darin’s family includes two brothers, Shawn Harshman and his wife, Ann, of Pleasant Hill, Ill., and Jason Harshman and his wife, Tracy, of Troy.
Darin’s grandparents are Howard and Alma Harshman of New Salem, Ill., and Charles and Leona Ralph of Rockport, Ill.
A military veteran, Charles Ralph served in Vietnam and was in the same division of the Army that Darin is now in. While spending summers with the Ralphs, Darin became interested in the Army. “He has talked about the Army since he was 9 years old,” Karen said.
Now, Darin “is a very good soldier,” she said. “He has won several medals and awards.”
Her family has a strong faith in God, Karen said, illustrating this with an incident that happened while Darin was in Iraq. “I’m a computer nut and had my son, Shawn, set up a Web cam. “I heard ‘Mommy, Mommy.’ ... Darin was on my computer in Iraq on his Web cam. He was talking through my computer, and his face was on there.
“It was in the middle of the day, and I was not supposed to be home. I know God put me there at that time. I truly believe that. Once we coincided about what time he would be around, even if it was 2 in the morning or 3, I set my alarm and got up and came to the computer.”