Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 515 - Fort Hood: Murders, Mysteries, and Silence

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

For years, Fort Hood has been plagued by an unsettling string of murders, disappearances, suspicious deaths, and allegations of institutional failure that have left grieving families searching for answers. This week, we dive into the history of one of America's largest military installations, explore the cases that brought it under national scrutiny, and examine the competing theories—from leadership failures and violent crime to cartel rumors and even whispers of something more sinister. What's been going on at  Fort Hood... and why? Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com  Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :) For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast. Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 2026, when we're looking for places to live or a new job, in other words, places where we will be uprooting our lives and spending a lot of time, how do we know what we're getting ourselves into? The internet, for most of us, I would argue, and for some members of the military, even if their jobs look a lot different from the majority of civilians, it's reportedly no different. About a year ago, a young infantryman posted a simple question on the Army subreddit. He had just received orders to report to Fort Hood, and he wanted to know what kind of life awaited him there. The replies are mostly what you'd expect from soldiers discussing a new duty station.

Some talked about the brutal training tempo. Others mentioned nearby weekend escapes to Austin, Dallas, or Houston. A few offered the kind of advice that appears in a lot of military forum threads. Keep your head down, work hard, make the best of it. But then it came a very different kind of response. You going die. Uh, sorry? Come again?

You going die. On most message boards, a comment like that would barely earn a second glance. If it wasn't downright trolling by someone who's anti-military or someone just trying to stir up shit for the sake of stirring up shit or one of those legions of fucking bots, it could have easily been another soldier joking about the danger of military life in general. Indeed, danger is at the center of military life. Even on base, the danger of being in high pressure, physically intense, training situations surrounded by, training on, and using a bunch of massive, deadly equipment. Unfortunately, accidental deaths at military bases are nothing new,

and that's part of what many service members have come to accept as part of their sacrifice for the good of the country. Perhaps this user's three-word comment was nothing more than an attempt at dark humor. Or maybe not in this case. It might have been a friendly heads up, actually. It may have been a genuine warning about what waited for that soldier, not just in military life, but at Fort Hood in particular. Since the mid-2010s, the sprawling Texas installation has become associated not just with training accidents or combat deployments, but with the persistent kind of darkness that feels almost unexplainable.

A string of deaths, disappearances, and high-profile criminal cases in recent years has drawn national attention time and time again and left many soldiers and their families wondering what the fuck is going on behind the gates. For example, there was the 2020 disappearance and murder of soldier Vanessa Gion, who vanished from base only to be found dismembered. Her body parts burned and buried under concrete. There was private Gregory Waddell Morales, whose remains were discovered almost a year after he disappeared in the summer of 2019. There was specialist Elder Fernandez, whose body was found hanging from a tree branch along some railroad tracks

after his own mysterious disappearance. And those were only some of the same. the cases that made national headlines. There were many, many others. In 2020 alone, nearly 40 soldiers assigned to Fort Hood had died under a variety of circumstances, some by suicide, some in accidents, maybe accidents, and some definitely were the victims of homicide. Many of the soldiers had been described by friends and commanders as motivated, successful, full of plans for the future. In other words, seemingly not the kind of people who would die by suicide or hang out with recklessly dangerous, violent people, but still suddenly they were gone. As case after case surfaced in a culture of

pervasive sexual harassment and sexual assault was exposed, more and more people both inside and outside of the military began asking, how had one of the Army's largest and most important installations become a sight of seemingly never-ending tragedy in violence? And why couldn't the Army? One of the most powerful institutions in the country, if not the world, seem to stop it. Fort Hood's mysterious disappearance, death, sexual assault, and the silence from the powers that be that has often surrounded all of that right now on another what in the actual fuck is going on here, edition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to Time Suck.

You're listening to Time Suck. Well, happy Monday. Welcome or welcome back to the cult of the curious. I'm Dan Cummins, a master sucker, one of the world's foremost experts in the study of Ghost cucks, zombie baby adoption social worker, and you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, praise be to good boy, Bojangles, and Glory B to Triple M, our songbird. No announcements today other than I'm a really big fan of a lot of you. Probably even most of you, you're a great group of people who really make me feel better about the world, truly.

I mean, I'm sure at least a few of you fucking suck, big time. There's enough of you, you know, statistically, for a few of you to almost certainly be terrible. I mean, probably at least two or three of you are murderers. But let's not think about that. Let's not think about listening to something. Also being listened to by some fucking monsters. I'll move along now. Enough of these shenanigans. No one wants shenanigans. So, um, as I asked earlier, what in the actual fuck has been going on if Fort Hood? Let's jump in and take a look under Fort Hood's proverbial, well, hood. Though typically at the top of these episodes, we outlined historical framing that might

try to reconcile conflicting opinions or perspectives, or try to debunk the claims around a central topic. Today's starting question is much more straightforward and simple. It's the one I just asked twice. And the almost inevitable follow-up question we asked that question here is, why has what's been happening been happening? Fort Hood, which was called Fort Covesos from 2023 to 2025 due to the base's namesake, controversial past, is one of the biggest military installations in the world. It's a massive 218,000-acre complex located in central Texas between Colleen and Coppressed Cove. As the largest active-duty armored post in the U.S. and home to the third armored core, Fort Hood currently houses nearly 40,000 soldiers.

And for most of us, that's probably about all we really know about Fort Hood. If we've even known that. Most of us will never step foot inside Fort Hood. The closest many of us will get is turning around at the standard green exit sign along the highway that connects the base to Austin. Most of us will never present our government-issued ID to gain entrance at the massive toll plaza-like main gate Where private security guards inspect documents and then beckon you through or I guess turn you around or detain you And start the process of trying to figure out what the fuck you were doing when you thought you could sneak on into a place where you were not welcome for a number of reasons Most of us will never drive right up to the open gate of a motor pool full of tanks or missile batteries or walk into the front door or the first cavalry or third core head

quarters buildings, and most of us will never see the regular traffic composed of families, civilian workers, contractors, and the soldiers themselves, flowing briskly into and back out of that complex. And why is that? After all, almost anyone with the government issued ID can get into these bases. Why don't more of us go check out? Not only Fort Hood, but any of these bases. Well, for some of us, it might just because we're not interested enough. On the other hand, there are almost, you know, or there are, excuse me, also a lot of practical considerations. Since military bases are absolutely huge, they have to be set up in the countryside, a lot of the time,

so you might have to drive for a while, sometimes hours, sometimes along rural roads. Those roads could lead you through some dangerous areas, places where there's not cell phone coverage, where the weather could be unpredictable, or even as it is rumored around Fort Hood, where organizations like drug cartels have a strong foothold. But there's another reason.

We don't tend to visit military bases unless we are happening to visit family. military bases are workplaces. And unless you have a particularly strange personality disorder or something, most of us just don't waltz on into, you know, some other person's office. I might have that kind of disorder. When I was 22, a friend of mine and I, we put on some business suits. We had just gotten for job interviews after recently graduating college.

And then we drove to downtown Spokane, Washington with little mirrors, Ziploc bags of flour, and rolled up $20 bills in our pockets. And we did walk into other people's random. offices. We walked into various office buildings anywhere we could get into without a keyfop. And then we would just make our way to the closest bathroom. And inside, we would pretend to snort Coke, just, you know, next to the sink and full view of anybody else who happened to walk in. Fake Coke. We would also smear all around our noses. And then we would animantly talk about business, sprinkling a lot of words like mergers, yeah, acquisitions, buy low, sell high, NASDAQ,

time is money, greed is good. long before the Menendez brothers suck. I was on that 1-800 business grind. But anyway, just wandered into somebody else's place of employment to just, I don't know, make sure they're doing their job correctly. That's not normal. Not necessary. And when it comes to the military, a lot of us do think they are doing their jobs correctly.

In 2024, 51% of Americans reported, quote, a great deal of confidence in the U.S. military, which was up six percentage points from the previous survey. Indeed, also, as of 2024, the military was still the most trusted public institution in the U.S. ahead of the police and law enforcement, the president, the Supreme Court, and Congress. And if they keep a safe, the logic follows, they should be able to keep themselves safe too.

In practice, though, that's a lot harder than it might seem. While Fort Hood is a military installation, it's also effectively a small city of primarily young adults, many of whom are experiencing their first taste of independence during their first extended period of time away from home. For many, it's their first full-time job, added to this mix might be their first marriage, first child, first deployment, and potentially their first exposure to serious trauma. A lot of firsts. A lot of people with very little life

experience. So in that way, it doesn't make sense that bases are a little more dangerous than life off base. Not sure about you, but looking back, I can't think of any dorm or house I lived in when I was away from home between the ages of 18 and 22 that would be defined primarily as being safe. I truly was young and dumb, just a virtually never-ending stream of questionable decisions fueled by a lot of hormones, passionately,

reckless enthusiasm for life, an underdeveloped brain, literally unable to assess danger or understand consequences in the way it does now, and I'm still an idiot, a fair amount of the time. Also, many soldiers arriving at Fort Hood

are young people from small towns, often leaving behind, close-knit family networks and community support systems for the very first time. Statistically, people from small towns and rural areas are significantly much more likely to join the U.S. military than those from large cities. While urban centers have large populations, their recruitment rates per capita

consistently are lower, with many recruits hailing from the south and the west. 2011 data revealed that while rural residents accounted for 17% of the total U.S. population, 44% of military recruits were coming from these rural areas. And when a lot of the young, rural, barely legal adults get to base, they are suddenly immersed in a world that is very different than the one they left behind. A world of intense work schedules, shift work, field exercises, financial stress, relationship strains, child care issues, mental health struggles, people from all over the nation instead of others who have only just grown up and they're a little relatively much quieter towns surround them. Now they're dealing with the pressure of being on at all times

for the first time, not to mention needing to follow a bunch of rules and be on the good side of the people who enforce those rules. It is hard to overstate just how much life on a military base is shaped by those last two things I mentioned. On the one hand, this is intuitively understandable to most of us, right? It's the military. Of course, there are rules. Rules are what keep people alive. Rules are what keep a military united and strong. But in practice, it's kind of crazy to see how this actually plays out. The most prominent example of how rules and leadership work is the concept of rank. Basically, where do you fall in the hierarchy? Like most militaries, the army has a two-tier rank system. The bulk of which is composed of enlisted soldiers and non-commissioned officers, aka NCOs,

the various grades of sergeant with a relatively small core of commissioned officers. Rank is indicated with a small Velcro patch worn in the center of the chest, a private wears a single Chevron and a private first class of Chevron with a rocker underneath it and Chevron in this case is not the gas station of course I found an old military history video

that originally aired on the American Forces Network and it explains the origin and meaning of this word very very well so let's hear it A rafter is an arrangement of beams used to support a roof the old French word for rafter was Chevron today Chevron is used to describe the stripes on a military uniform

signifying rank. How did we get from a French rafter to the military uniform? Well, here's the connection. When the practice began of decorating the shields of medieval knights, the familiar geometric patterns of the day were used. The saltier, the cross, the bend, and the chevron. Later in the 19th century, some British regiments wore chevrons on their sleeves to show rank. In 1817, a complex system of chevrons was designed to signify the the rank of West Point cadets. A few years later, the idea was passed on to the regular army,

and in today's armed forces, enlisted men and women carry on the tradition by wearing their chevrons with pride. That's how this symbol from medieval times became a part of our American military heritage. Well, thank you very calm, voiced, concise, unknown narrator.

He did a good job. He just wasn't mentioned in that video who he was. I do feel like if that video was any longer, his voice might have load me to sleep. And now I hope I get the rest of this right. Two chevrons indicate a corporal and a filled-in chevron and rocker-shaped notes as specialists, though the two ranks are equivalent. Officer Insignia begins with a single bar for the two grades of lieutenants, two bars for captain, and then on to the stylized oak leaf and eagle for the major and colonel ranks and stars for generals. All soldiers

are only directly accountable to superiors within their chain of command. Rank entails a host of formal and informal interpersonal protocols, not just terms of address such as sir for officers or the rank itself for NCOs, and gestures such as salutes,

but also posture, bodily disposition, eye contact. And if you don't follow all of these protocols correctly, if you slip up, you can find yourself in trouble with your boss.

And if your boss feels like being a hard ass, if you keep making mistakes, these mistakes could jeopardize your living situation, your family's living situation, your future. On top of all the random

day-to-day stresses, soldiers are perpetually engaged in reading and being read for the wealth of information offered by their uniforms, posture, and their way of speaking. That's a lot of pressure. It requires a lot of discipline and the mental fortitude to handle it. In the civilian world, most employees aren't going to get their asses chewed out in front of their co-workers, no less, for having, say, dirty shoes.

But in the military, you might get punished and aggressively mocked. Even if your clothes, your uniform is clean, you might still get yelled at or punished in some. way because your rank patch is on wrong or because you're still wearing something from a specific job that you weren't supposed to wear outside. Maybe you left your black wool beret in your quarters when you should have it on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's not just your uniform that you have to worry about, of course. Armory Regulation, 670-1, wear an appearance of armor uniforms and insignia, a 362-page manual devotes two full pages on dense 10-point type to male and female hairstyles.

hair cannot be dyed unnatural colors or cut in quote extreme eccentric or trendy styles it must be tapered so that it converges naturally around the back of the neck and short enough that it does not fall over the ears eyebrows or collar the regulations for women allow a bit more latitude but it's similar in spirit women's hair must be worn conservatively symmetrically close to the scalp not extending below the bottom of the collar little to no makeup is allowed as a document itself states however quote it is not possible to address every acceptable hairstyle or what constitutes eccentric or conservative grooming. Therefore, it is the responsibility of leaders at all levels to exercise good judgment in the enforcement of army policy. This is the flip side of the military's emphasis on rules. Rules by their nature can't capture every nuance of every individual situation and interaction. At some point, leaders have to step in and exercise judgment, and that judgment can help people in precarious situations or situations where the rules are unfairly or inaccurately

enforced. And again, sounds pretty obvious right. Well, the Army thinks so too. According to the Army's operational doctrine, field manual 3-0, operations draft edition, leadership is the most essential dynamic of combat power. Mentoring and coaching don't just improve individual officers and units. They help internalize Army values and strength and communication across the chain of command. Zooming out even further, strong leadership is often seen as a way to reinforce. force those values beyond the military itself, especially in times when shared standards about what it means to be a good person may feel less visible in the broader culture, politics, or public life. As one instructor in the U.S. Marine Corps puts it, or put it, the Marine Corps

taught me values, not just words, honor, courage, commitment, fidelity, integrity, not just using them, but actually practicing them. Out in the civilian world, those. words do not even get mentioned. I'll say integrity and they'll say, what kind of shit you talking? You don't got brainwashed in the Marine Corps. All of that sounds compelling and virtuous. And it is. I don't doubt that it exists if good leadership is actually present, of course, but that is a big if. I've known a fair amount of Marines, loosely, mostly, but a number have been, you know, in my periphery over the course of my life, and some of them have appeared to have been very, very virtuous. A lot of integrity. Others? No. No.

Fucking douchebacks, not so much. The reality is more complicated than that one Marines assessment. A government accountability office survey from back in 2000, covering five installations, found that 43% of Army officers were dissatisfied with military life, right, just over 4 and 10, and that 53% planned to leave after completing their current service obligation. Why is that? Well, at the same time, officers attending the command and general staff college shared the following blunt feedback,

ahead of a senior leadership visit that helps explain it. Senior leaders will throw subordinates under the bus in a heartbeat to protect or advance their careers. Counseling is not happening. The most important thing is to be a leader, yet the first thing that falls out when time is tight is mentoring and professional development. Mentoring is a catchphrase. Raiders and senior raiders are terrified of counseling. We have a checklist type of leadership, not true leadership. Senior leaders are simply checking the block.

It doesn't sound like honor, courage, commitment, fidelity, or integrity there. Reforms introduced in that era, including updates to evaluation systems and the publications of field manual 22-100 were intended to strengthen officer development. But survey data for more recent years, for more than 18,000 company and field-grade officers shows that the trend has continued downward, declining morale, reduced confidence in leadership. Yikes, right? in particular officers identified persistent weaknesses in regular meaningful counseling, constructive feedback, genuine mentorship. Quarterly counseling, supposed to be a cornerstone of leader development, was consistently rated as one of the weakest areas.

Not exactly looking out for one another camaraderie, right, they'd hope for. Those failures have real consequences for individual soldiers. A book called Making War at Fort Hood Life and Uncertainty in a Military Community, one of our main sources for this episode, describe multiple situations that depended on leaders who could have advocated for them but did not. You know, leaders when their subordinates could have advocated for them but didn't. They didn't advocate for soldiers and castes when they were denied entry to dining facilities because they weren't wearing shoes on their bandaged feet.

Did not advocate for a soldier using crutches when they had been abandoned on the third floor of a third floor building without an elevator. But nowhere does the lack of leadership have more serious consequences than in the area of sexual harassment and sexual assault, which has unfortunately long been and continues to remain to be a big problem for the military. For example, a 2011 report found that women in the U.S. military were more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than they were to be killed in combat. Excuse me. The following year, a Pentagon survey found that approximately 26,000 women and men were sexually assaulted that year of those only 3,374 cases were reported. In 2013, a new Pentagon report found that, that 5,061 troops reported cases of assault of the reported cases.

Only 484 of those went to trial, and 376 resulted in convictions. 376 out of over 5,000 reported cases. And the deeper you look into all this, the more troubling the stats become. A survey for the Department of Defense conducted in 2015 found that in the year before, 52% of active service members who reported sexual assault had then experienced retaliation. in the form of professional, social, and administrative actions or punishments. Where is the honor, courage, commitment, fidelity, and integrity there? In addition to retaliation against soldiers remaining in active service,

many former service members who reported sexual assaults were forced to leave after being discharged for made up things like having a personality disorder. Not some professionally diagnosed, specific personality disorder, just a phrase tossed out in all likelihood by somebody who just didn't like them, thought they were lying, or were retaliating against them for pointing the finger, you know, for them having pointed the finger, at one of their friends. Because of this in 2018, although 6.2% of women and 0.7% of men reported experiencing consistent or experiences consistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice's definition of sexual assault, only 17% of male victims and just 30% of female victims reported the incident

to the Department of the Defense. The most common reasons for not reporting the incident were that, quote, they wanted to forget about it and move on. They did not want more people to know or they felt ashamed or embarrassed. Damn. Finally, when comparing active duty service members

to the overall civilian population, military personnel faced a significantly higher risk of experiencing sexual assault. Women in the military faced a risk that is two to four times higher than the government estimates for civilian populations. Sounds like the military has a real fucking problem with some dirtbacks,

which sucks for all the officers and soldiers who do have excellent integrity. Even more concerning, strong evidence has been found that the military has been actively hiding how common sexual assault is. According to independent investigators working with the Watson Institute's Cost of War Project at Brown University in 2024, actual sexual assault rates in military were estimated to be two to four times higher than the official Department of Defense figures. That's a serious transparency and trust problem. Now, to be fair, the Army has taken some steps to combat this. Back in 2004, two decades before those findings, the Department of Defense created the

care for victims of sexual assault task force whose findings indicated the need for a more powerful and centralized organization to address the issue. This led to the formation of the Joint Task Force for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, which eventually transitioned into the sexual assault prevention and response office. Seven years later, the Army merged its sexual assault and sexual harassment programs into a single organization called Sharp, sexual harassment slash assault, response, and prevention. The idea was that harassment and assault existed on the same spectrum and should be addressed together. Yeah, I agree. For the Army, this was supposed to be more than a compliance program.

It was explicitly described as an effort to create a long-term cultural change across the force. Another major reform of the 2000s was allowing victims to seek help without immediately triggering a criminal investigation. Now a soldier could make a restricted report, receive medical care and advocacy services, and keep their allegation confidential. The Army hoped this would encourage reporting among people who feared retaliation or publicity. But did this work? Was it enough? Those recent 2024 findings would suggest not even close to enough that it didn't work. Why is that?

Why not? what is the true source of this problem? Why does there seem to be so much violent, sexual and otherwise on bases like Fort Hood? Why does the suicide rate at Fort Hood frequently hovered around quadruple, the national average? Why is the murder and sexual assault rate at Fort Hood specifically, oftentimes the highest in the entire military in recent years?

In 2020, at least 39 Fort Hood soldiers, though some sources say 38 died or went missing. And this wasn't the first indication that something was wrong at Fort Hood. The 2020 numbers would add to ongoing misdemeanor. such as a 2016 case where a corpse is hyoid, the U-shaped neck bone, typically examined to determine whether or not strangulation has occurred, just was missing. Just gone. I'm no doctor, but I do know that bones don't walk off on their own, so had someone removed it.

Well, obviously, it sure seems like it. Who? And perhaps most importantly, why? I mean, to cover up evidence of a crime would be my strong assumption. As the numbers of dead or missing soldiers increased, and as more and more families, friends and loved ones were left with ongoing questions about what exactly was going on at Fort Hood, many would formulate their own ideas. Terry Bowley, whose daughter Candace, became addicted to crack cocaine while serving at Fort Hood and was then murdered in a motel room in 2011, thought that something might be up with the actual water. Thomas Berg, whose son Private Brandon Rosecrans, his Jeep was found burning in May of 2020, believed that the violence in the area just spilled over

and the only solution was not to go out after dark. Linda Schweirs, whose specialist son Justin died in a car crash in June of 2021 while suffering from PTSD, thought it was the cartels that supposedly ran the area. Lupe Gien, who lost her sister, specialist Vanessa Gien, in a murder that would shock the country and make it clear just how deep Fort Hood's problems ran, thought that Fort Hood simply had an almost supernaturally bad vibe.

As she described it, one of the first time she stepped on to the base a rosary she'd been carrying in the palm of her hand tore apart its beads scattering over the concrete ground she took that as a pretty ominous sign still others point to the very real fact that fort hood was potentially built on a classic haunted trope native american burial ground uh so again what the fuck is going on has been going on at forthood it's got to have to do with something other than curse soil doesn't it yes it does i think the answer when you really look, when you really think about it, is actually pretty obvious.

It's my dad. My dad has to be behind all this shit. I mean, right? He fucking has to be. My sister and I were just talking about that shady motherfucker the other day. That literal motherfucker, how his stories, they don't add up.

How his aura, always negative, dark. How he has iffy energy. Sketch fucking vibes, man. So much ick. It's like that unc is made out of nothing but ick. Murders? Strange disappearances? A culture of sexual harassment and assault, cover-ups?

That shit has my dad's mysterious where the fuck was he grubby-ass fingerprints all over it. So yeah, I have called 1-800 Dad Watch. I've left several heated, pointed voicemails. I just missed answering the phone in time when they called a few hours ago. I wasn't able to get a hold of them when I called back in time for this recording. I thought about canceling this recording, but on the off chance, on the very small off chance, that all of this hasn't been my dirty dad's dark handiwork. Let's look into other possibilities, I guess.

Think about who or what else might be to blame in today's time suck timeline. Right after today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads ever again, please sign up to be a space lizard on Patreon. Help us make monthly charitable contributions, get the catalog ad-free, episodes three days early, and more. Thanks for listen to our sponsors, and now it's timeline time for real. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sunk timeline. Starting this at the very beginning, as we often do here,

the War Department announced the selection of this site for a base on January 15th, 1942. Some sources do say January 14th. The base was established as Camp Hood later that year on September 18th to serve as a World War II tank destroyer technical and firing center. It would later be designated as in permanent and. installation and officially renamed Fort Hood on April 15, 1950. Its location was selected for its varied terrain, where tank drivers could get valuable experience navigating the land's craggy swells and dips.

Before 1942, that varied terrain was used for grazing by some 3,000 farmers and ranchers. Most of them clustered around the town of Killeen, according to Gerald D. Skidmore, a clean historian. Mr. Skidmore, dangerously close to Skidmark. Ooh, he definitely got teased. Colleen was not exactly a wholesome place, according to Mr. Skidmark. The small Texas frontier town, Skidmark and others, the small Texas frontier town was a, quote, hotbed of clan activity. According to one of Skidmark's peers, Texas historian, Dr. Jean Pryce.

Pryce is nois, a man from the University of Houston. So much so that when train stopped in Killeen, black passengers relegated to colored cars in accordance with Jim Crow laws of the day, new to pull down their window shades to avoid getting pelted with fucking rocks being aggressively thrown by ignorant fearful locals a true just angry fucking medieval mob of people

they sound super evolved they sound like they would have been really fun to just you know share some gin fizzes with you know sit down and pontificate about the meaning of life with get existential no do they sound like they enjoy gin fizzes and pontificating no probably not

probably enjoyed i don't know fucking picking their butts with their fingers and not washing their hands. Colleen was a fucking shithole. Complete cultural void. Peckermwood Paradise, if you will. There wasn't a single black resident in town until the early 1950s. Also wasn't that many people

overall around. While the town has over 160,000 people living there now, as recently as 1940, it only had roughly 1,200. Colleen sits along what historically was an especially brutal stretch of central Texas, the Balcones fault, which separates the high plains

of the hill country to the west from the Grand Prairies and limestone plains of the east and along which now runs Interstate 35. The soil around Colleen, poor for farming, gardening in its natural state, dominated by shallow, silty clays, often called black gumbo, barely covering a layer of limestone bedrock commonly found in Texas Rangeland. The ground is very dense, alkaline, hard for most trees to take root in and prone to cracking when dry in addition to severe drainage issues. The area is historically prone to drought

And regularly experiences prolonged dry periods of severe heat It's also highly prone to flash flooding Sitting in an area of central Texas That has been referred to as flash flood alley Not an easy area to settle From 1849 to 1865 initial attempts At Colonial Settlement were made on Fort Hood's future lands Which included the use of slave labor by some settlers

And these attempts didn't fare well for most But then from 1866 to 1892 agricultural development finally took hold and gave birth to a town, a small town, small kind of a shithole town. The population in 1890 was just 290, generally stubborn, tough, mean as rattlesnakes people. The town was named after Frank Colleen, an assistant general manager to the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway. By the early 1880s, the town was comprised of only 40 people living across 360 acres, most of them working in one of the town's two cotton gins, or at the gristmill, or in a saloon.

Development and growth would be slow and spotty. The earliest services available to the population of the area, such as stage stops, post offices, church and schools, churches and schools, commonly were found in conjunction with domestic habitations. As one historical society report put it, meaning those services were probably offered out of people's homes. Excuse me, where might one find a post office? Go to Daryl's house. Is the post office next door to Daryl's house? Now, I'd be on his porch. Fascinating.

One more question. Where might one find a stage stop? Linda Shed? Out back next to a chicken coop. It's kind of that kind of town. Between 1914 and 1942, thanks to the double whammy of World War I and the Great Depression, most of the area's few businesses consolidated or were closed. And then the establishment of Camp Hood for World War II brought an end to almost every one of the remaining small businesses that was still around.

Landowners were required to vacate within just 15 days, and compensation sometimes did not arrive until months or even years afterwards. To add to the difficulty, landowners could not even bring along the materials from their houses or farms with them. The government required that fences, west walls, and casings, water tanks, and at least one dwelling be left on each track of land they had just forcibly purchased. Most of the area's farming facilities and hamlets had only just begun to recover from the Great Depression, and the move couldn't have come at a worse time for them. Still, many of them were patriotic. Most had sons or other relatives in the fight, and they generally left without raising too much of a fuss,

hoping their sacrifice would improve the U.S.'s chances of winning the war. Hazel Buck Blackwell, whose family lost their farm, homestead, barns, orchards, and adjoining land when the base took over said, quote, the closest thing to experiencing that might be the unexpected death of someone you loved very much. Even today, one can see the wells, rock walls, bridges and foundations that so many left behind. With that done, it was announced that General Andrew D. Bruce would be Camp Hood's first commander.

The fort was officially opened on September 18, 1942, though the first major unit, the 893 tank destroyer battalion had arrived from Fort Meade, Maryland back in April. So how did Fort Hood get its name? Well, I'm glad you asked. It was named after the human female clitoral hood, the fold of skin at the top of the human woman's vulva that covers a... protects the clitoral glands, the female equivalent of a penises foreskin. It's the skin that helps shield the highly

sensitive glands from stuff like clothing friction and typically retracts during sexual arousal to allow direct stimulation. Fuck yeah, bro. Did you know that clitoral hoods come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors? That there is no single normal appearance. They can be completely covered or partially exposed depending on genetics. No, the name has nothing to do with a woman's clit, sadly. That'd be a better story. It was named after John Bell Hood. As National Park Service website notes, John Bell Hood holds the distinction of being one of the

most rapidly promoted leaders in the Confederate military forces during the Civil War. And that is certainly true. But his legacy, actually a lot more complicated than that. It's also a legacy interesting enough to be worth sharing. So here we go. John Bell Hood was born in Owingsville, Kentucky, in 1831 to a wealthy slave-owning physician who routinely held medical classes. and the family orchard in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Rather than following his father's footsteps, which would have sent him to medical school, the hood pursued a military career early on

graduating from West Point at the age of 22. Not sure that John would have passed his medical school classes. As a student, he had less than stellar grades, earning an average or below average marks in many of his classes, also racked up a plethora of disciplinary demerits his senior year, 196, just four shy of expulsion. luckily for him the country was about to be in a place where military men were sorely needed. When the Civil War officially began in April of 1861, Hood resigned his position in the U.S. Army

and returned to Kentucky, excited for the prospect of defending the institution of slavery for his home state. But the majority of others living in his native Kentucky failed to embrace secession and would ultimately join the war on the side of the Union. Instead of staying in Kentucky and fighting for the Union, fighting for his state still, Hood adopted Texas as his new home, which eventually garnered him command of the fourth Texas infantry. Did I mention he was considered to be notoriously racist even for those times? Now, he was. His big military break would come at the Battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862, in which he led his brigade in a charge that broke the union line and helped carry the day.

Though he himself escaped injury, literally every other commissioned officer in the Texas Brigade was killed or wounded, which some would actually see as evidence of pretty poor leadership. Courage charge, yes. But also needlessly reckless. A lot of people said yes. Reckless courage would be the hallmark of Hood's military career. Dude had zero shortage of balls. Big, big balls.

I will 100% give him that. But did he have an equal amount of brains? Most historians, it seems, do not think so at all. They aggressively do not think so. Two months later, it's the second battle of bull run. again led the Texas Brigade in a spirited charge that assisted in securing another Confederate victory. And again, Hood lost a whole heap of men, about half, according to some sources. After another success at Antietam, in which he again lost almost all his men, he would be promoted to Major General, which was made official on October 10, 1862.

Then at the Battle of Gettysburg, on July 2nd, 1863, Hood's left arm was shattered by a shell fragment. was not amputated, but it might as well have been. The injury permanently paralyzed and incapacitated the limb for the rest of his life. Did that slow him down, though? Oh, fuck no. Dude kept fighting after that. Kept leading horseback charges as well. Then on September 20th, 1863, during the second day of fighting,

during the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia, he lost a whole fucking leg while leading another massive charge. He was struck in the upper right thigh by a lead miniball fired from a rifle, invented in France, These mini balls were an ounce in weight, half an inch across, and these bullets tended to do a lot of damage when they ripped through the bodies as Civil War soldiers fighting for both sides. Hood's personal surgeon amputated the shattered leg right there at the field infirmary, severing at just four inches below the hip. The wound was so severe that his doctor placed the severed limb into an ambulance

intending to bury Hood and his leg together if Hood didn't survive. But he did. And several weeks later, he was fitted with an artificial leg, and then several months after that, dude got back on the fucking horse and led more charges. He was like the Black Knight from Monty Python.

Now stand aside, worthy adversary. Tears but a scratch. A scratch? Your arms off. No, it isn't. But what's that then? I've heard worse. You liar.

Come on, you, pansy. If you've ever seen that, just keeps losing limbs, he's like, ah, I'm fine, I'm fine. Yeah, he was the real-life version of that. During the Franklin Nashville campaign, also known as Hood's Tennessee campaign, a series of battles,

conducted from September to December of 1864 in Alabama, Tennessee, and northwestern Georgia, this dude was physically lifted up and strapped to his horse, so, you know, tied to his horse by aides to, you know, so he could command and ride alongside his troops. And he would ride with aggression. Again, big, big balls.

but maybe not brains. Hood, according to many military historians, made some of the worst strategic decisions on either side of fighting made by anybody in a military leadership position of the entire Civil War. He lost battle after battle in this campaign. He was defeated in every key engagement,

took heavy losses in every key engagement as well. Then he made a hasty retreat south and was eventually forced to surrender not long after running up against the infamous Union General William DeCombeckompson. On November 30th, 1864, for example, frustrated by a missed opportunity at Spring Hill, Hood made what some historians have called several catastrophic errors made one of these when he ordered a frontal assault against heavily

entrenched union positions at the Battle of Franklin. The practically suicidal charge decimated his army, resulting in over 6,000 Confederate casualties, including the deaths of six generals. At the conclusion of the Civil War, Hood traveled about the South, ended up moving to New Orleans, selling cotton there. Interestingly enough, he made a career pivot to life insurance. becoming the president of Life Association of America. Over a decade later, when about a yellow fever struck the city of New Orleans in 1879, it killed Hood, killed his wife, and his eldest daughter in the last week of August of 1879, and Hood's youngest 10 kids were now orphaned and left destitute.

And this guy, big balls guy, but probably medium to medium to small-sized brain guy, is who Fort Hood was named after. And, you know, a lot of people, including myself, I've felt that that's a, that's an interesting choice. Again, Fort Hood started off as camp hood, and almost as soon as it was established, it would be expanded to include a replacement and basic training center

where as many as 100,000 soldiers would be prepped for the rigorous demands of World War II. Of course, that amount of business relied on the nation being at war, and during the post-war years, Camps Hoods, population would drop to about 15,000. By 1950, the camp was renamed Fort Hood, and basic facilities for a permanent army installation were underway.

Over time, Fort Hood would come to include 35 firing ranges, 18 chapels, three bowling alleys, and 1,384 barracks that would house at its peak 95,000 soldiers. But it took a while to get there. It would take the many wars of the second half of the 20th century to grow Fort Hood into its present form. Activity would increase with the onset of the Korean War, which led to the facility to spread out over an additional nearly 50,000 acres. several major army units passed through the 1950s and 1960s, the first, second, and fourth armored divisions, the Third Corps and more. By 1990, Fort Hood served as a home at the Third Corps and stood at the center of a changing military landscape. As the Cold War came to an end, defense reductions swept across the U.S., and plans were made to deactivate the second armored division.

During this transition, the 5th Infantry Division, mechanized, was assigned to Fort Hood. Those plans, however, were quickly overtaken by world events. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 led to operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm prompted a massive deployment from Fort Hood to the Middle East. More than 25,000 soldiers left Fort Hood, including around 17,000 from the 2nd Armored Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, and many of them were both lucky and well prepared. Three Fort Hood soldiers lost their lives during the conflict,

while nine will be wounded, very small numbers compared to a lot of other bases. In recognition of its critical role during the goal, 4. The Department of Defense designated Fort Hood a premier fighting installation on April of 1991 and assigned an additional 12,000 or so troops to the post. Fort Hood's mission continued to evolve throughout the 1990s. On December 15, 1995, the 2nd Armored Division was officially re-designated as the 4th Infantry Division mechanized with Fort Hood serving as its headquarters. The division also became the Army's designated Force 21 Test Division, charged with evaluating and integrating emerging battlefield technologies that would shape the future of warfare.

As the U.S. expanded its international peacekeeping commitments, Fort Hood units supported operations in Bosnia during 1998-1999. Meanwhile, the 1990s would also mark an important discovery. The 1992 bone fragments from one individual were collected from a shovel test pit during an archaeological investigation of a site on base property. Years later, during a curation project, the cultural resources staff identified the bone fragments as huge. human and later testing would reveal that they were at least 500 years old. More bone fragments will be found on the base of 1993, and in 2,000 bone fragments from two people, an adult and an infant, will be dated back to the late archaic period between

1,000 BCE and 300 BCE. A few years later, a police officer in the area stopped an individual for a traffic violation and was reportedly informed that human remains were in the vehicles. The person had been digging for arrowheads on private property in Bell County with landowner's permission, and in the course of excavation had uncovered some remains. Because the individual also had an outstanding warrant, both he and the remains were taken into custody, and the remains were then seized as evidence. And there could be even more old bones in the area on and around the base.

One source said that more than 2,200 grave sites have been discovered back in 1998 alone, though we could not verify that with other sources. So why the fuck were all these bones at Fort Hood? We do know that Bell County where the fort is located is home to tons of prehistoric Native American archaeological sites, including rock shelters. It's unclear if there was an actual burial ground or if people just happened to be buried near where they presumably lived and died. Is this why there's so much deaths at Fort Hood because it's cursed? Because the land is haunted? No.

I'm going to say that's probably now why. But some of the Internet has posited that as a possibility, so I've included it. zooming out now and returning to the timeline. September 11th, 2011, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center ushered in a new era of military operations and once again placed Fort Hood at the forefront of national defense. Soldiers from the installation would play key roles in both Afghanistan and Iraq, participating in combat operations as well as reconstruction and stabilization efforts. In January of 2003, the 4th Infantry Division deployed to Iraq and later played his central. role in the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on December 13th.

The first cavalry division followed up with its own deployment to Iraq in the spring of 2004. And beyond combat operations, Fort Hood personnel also contributed to humanitarian and disaster relief missions. Soldiers assisted in combating devastating wildfires here in Idaho in 2000, later helped New Orleans recover from the widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. By that year, the installation had grown into one of the Army's largest and most important military centers with nearly 65,000 personnel assigned to its various organizations, including the First Cavalry Division, Fourth Infantry Division, third core headquarters, the Trey Dock, Test and Experimentation Command, and Numerous Supporting Units.

Meanwhile, all of this turned Colleen into a proper military town. Its economy and its culture increasingly shaped by the rhythms of the post. Its population jumped during World War II from a little over 1,000 people to just over 7,000. thousand. Then by 1960, it was over 23,000. That doubled to over 46,000 by 1980, then nearly doubled again to almost 87,000 by 2000. Currently, by the way, it is estimated that over 160,000 people live there, as I think I mentioned earlier. Backing up to 2000, by that time, Colleen had become home to six strip clubs, 18 pawn shops, $35 stores, 38 tattoo parlors, and one nightclub. The only action-packed nightclub that any city ever needs.

Howdy, patriotic partners, thank you for your service. We'd like to celebrate all our boys and girls on and off base, draped in red, white, and blue by giving you a 20% military discount on a Texas-sized steak with a loaded baked potato smothered and cheddar cheese, real butter, and real bacon for just $14.99. And then when your belly is full, push yourself back from the table and head on over to our dance floor. Cut loose with a cold Texas beer like a lone star, Shinerbach, listen to some honky talk. And then head on out into the parking lot, hop into the back of a full-size chevier Ford and make some babies. Or at least get in some practice, a wink, wink.

That's right, this is Black Angus Steakhouse and Nightclub. Get on down here. Come on. Yeah, yeah, y'all! Get on down to the clean Black Angus Steakhouse. Steakhouse and Nightclub, where the crowd is always safe. And the only thing getting killed is the cows. Hopefully enough of you heard episode 506, the charmer serial killer George Russell for all that fucking nonsense to make at least a little bit of sense.

Colleen just feels like it was a town begging for a Black Angus Steakhouse a Nightclub couple decades ago. Doesn't it though? Anyway, many of the town's businesses of all kinds were owned and or operated by former soldiers and their families, including a bunch of immigrants who had met their spouses during overseas deployments, and then settled in Central Texas. It became a pretty culturally diverse place. And approximately two-thirds of all Colleen residents

of all cultures had some connection or another to the military. Because such a large share of local economic activity depends on the installation, Colleen functions almost like a company town. Its prosperity tied to the fortunes of a single institution, and that has had, as it often does, unintended consequences. Economists often describe community sustained by a single dominant source of revenue as vulnerable to a dysfunctional form of dependency, which makes sense. It's not generally good, not to have options.

It gives the one game in town way too much power. Power does tend to corrupt. Also, when one institution provides the majority of jobs, investment, and consumer spending, other sectors struggle to develop independently. Businesses orient themselves around the needs of that particular institution. Local politics become preoccupy with maintaining. its favor, economic diversification becomes difficult because there is little incentive or opportunity to build alternatives. Also motivates, you know, a lot of people to want to cover shit up if bad things happen. Because, you know, if the base were ever closed down because of a lot of navarious shit going down,

that doesn't just affect the military. That just fucking destroys Kaleen. In Kaleen's case, right, this institution is, of course, the military, the single institution. City's fortunes rise and fall with troop levels, deployments, federal defense spending, binding its future to decisions made far beyond central Texas. Every rotation of soldiers affects apartment occupancy rates, school enrollments, retail sales, restaurant revenue, new units bring customers in growth, forced reductions, threatened vacancies, and economic contraction. And when that happens, and of course it always happens because troop levels are always rising and falling based on

based on changing politics, national economic conditions, varying foreign wars and or threats, people start looking for alternative ways to make money, like maybe drugs, like maybe hits. For years, rumors of cartel involvement circulated widely around Fort Hood, fueled by the base's proximity to a few major trafficking routes. So is that true? It's not entirely clear. What we do know is that numerous large-scale organizations such as the Gulf cartel based in Matamaros,

directly across the U.S. border from Brownsville, Texas, almost exactly 400 miles due south of Fort Hood, smuggling narcotics like cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, right, up across the U.S. Mexico border. order. These organizations are known to use bulk cash smuggling and commercial trucking to move product towards Interstate 95 and Highway 190, which feed directly into the clean area. There, smaller gangs such as the gangster disciples, bloods, crips, Serenio, Aryan Brotherhood, Aryan Circle, and the banditos. They take these drugs, they distribute them, sometimes looking to target active service members who have steady paychecks. When a string of murdered bodies began to show up, You know, some started to think that the cartels were involved in some of these Fort Hood deaths.

Before looking further into that, though, let's get into the Iraq War. Unsurprising, the Iraq War once again made Fort Hood a bustling quasi-metropolis. In 2006, Fort Hood was home to two full combat divisions, the first cavalry and fourth infantry divisions, as well as the 13th Sustainment Command, third armored cavalry regiment, and numerous smaller expeditionary units. Most of these units followed some version of the Army's grueling rotational schedule, 12-month tours frequently extended to 15 months, separated by 12 months, a so-called dwell time back in Texas. With this schedule going off to war was often less of a one-time event than a repeated

shuttling between home and Iraq. Indeed, around this time, as many as half of the 55,000 soldiers based at Fort Hood were deployed at any given time. And that would lead to an unprecedented rate of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. once at home for the space Once at home, soldiers would be given any number of antidepressants, anti-convulsants, antipsychotics, sedatives

so they could sleep, pain meds, muscle relaxers. As far as medications go, man, they throw so many of them at you and then hope to God one of them sticks, said one soldier. And in the midst of all this, some people would start to slip through the cracks. On June 12, 2007,

the body of Lawrence George Sprader Jr. 25 was found on Fort Hood's training ground. He'd been missing for four days, after carrying out a solo exercise and basic map reading and navigation skills. During those four days, over 3,000 people looked for him, but they would not find him alive. According to autopsy records, he died from hypothermia and dehydration. And on his own, this may not have been that concerning. Between 2006 and 2018, 31.9% of active duty military deaths were the result of accidents

during training or non-combat times. By comparison, 16.3% of service members who died during that time were killed in action. In short, troops have died in training accidents at twice the rates that they have died in combat over the last decade and a half. Why? Well, in short, it's hard to safely train people without much experience on very dangerous equipment, especially when that equipment may malfunction. Training for the military is, after all, inherently risky. And yet, an investigation in the spraider's death would find that it was not only the inherent danger of operating dangerous equipment, it was also leadership's disregard of important safety measures that led to his death.

A subsequent army investigatory report found, quote, quote, a multitude of procedural violations, judgment errors, and alleged acts of misconduct by army trainers. Not only contributed to Sprader's death, but put some 300 other soldiers in danger that day, including about two dozen who required medical attention. Still, this lone incident was not a reason to put Fort Hood in the spotlight. Another incident two years later, however, would draw a lot of attention. Before I cover this tragedy, time for today's second to two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors.

Hope you heard some deals that you liked, and now let's head to November of 2009. November 5th, 2009 was an average day in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, or SRP at Fort Hood, with soldiers visiting various stations to fill out the paperwork necessary to deploy overseas. At around 1 p.m., 39-year-old major

Nadal Hassan calmly walked in, nobody was surprised to see him. He had been stationed at Fort Hood for months. Soon he was scheduled to leave for Fort Benning and Georgia, and from there to Afghanistan, a common trajectory for service members during the 2000s. Indeed, at first glance, Major Nadal, Hassan seemed just like, you know, any other career military guy. He'd been born on September 8th, 1970 in Arlington County, Virginia.

His parents had immigrated from the West Bank in Palestine before he was born. And according to Hassan's cousin, Nader Hassan, their first priority was blending into their new homeland. Indeed, although they were Muslim, the Hassan family, not particularly devout. out, much more culturally Muslim than anything else. In 1987, after a year of living abroad in the West Bank, the Hassan family moved back to the U.S. to Roan Oak, Virginia, where Hassan attended William Fleming High School. Directly after high school, Hassan enlisted in the Army for a three-year tour, eager for the opportunity of getting to help pay for college.

And military life seemed to work for him. Hassan was described as an average soldier, not distinguished service, but honorable. And after completing his service, he would go on to study at a community college before attending Virginia Tech on his Montgomery GI Bill. He graduated with the Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry in 1997 then applied to medical school at the Uniform Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, a military medical school. Part of its requirements for graduation were further service in the Army as an officer.

As it turned out, this was exactly what Hassan was looking for. In his application, he wrote that he, quote, loved the Army. But then something happened to change that sentiment. When Hassan's mother was diagnosed with cancer, he moved in with her to help her out, getting her food, driving her to appointments, etc. And after she passed away in 2001, something in Hassan shifted. Though he had not been religious before, he found himself now worrying about the state of his mother's soul in the afterlife. Why? Primarily it seems because she and Hassan's father had owned a liquor store, among several other stores that they owned. And since liquor is banned under Islamic tradition, Hassan worried that she would be damned to an eternity.

in hell for making money off his selling it. Maybe, though, he thought there was something he could do for her soul. He started to think that her sins, as he saw them, might be outweighed by good actions that he made on her behalf. Basically, he could shore up some good karma that he could then pass on to her and somehow transport her soul from fucking Lake of Fire up into, you know, cherub land. Grief does crazy shit to people's minds. It can make all kinds of nonsensical shit seem sensible.

His new period of religious exploration led him. him to Anwar Al-Alai. Today, Al-Aki, best known for having been a piece of shit, best known for having been one of the most influential Al-Qaeda recruiters inspiring multiple Islamic jihadists. In 2001, though, nobody knew that. At that time, Al-Aliqi was considered a moderate and well-known Muslim leader in the Washington, D.C. area, where he was the Imam or religious leader for the Dar al-Hidra mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. But he would quickly become more and more an extremist. Hassan had been introduced to him during his mother's funeral, which Al-Alaaki presided over. Hassan thought the Imam was an incredibly captivating speaker, so much so that he bought a series of tapes

that Al-Lakki had made about Islam and started playing them in his car while he'd drive around. These tapes made him feel like he was understanding Islam in a way he'd never had before as a non-Arabic speaker. His understanding of the Quran was pretty limited, or so he felt. He considered Al-Aliaki a thoughtful translator, always pointed out little details. It would stick in Hassan's mind. And one of these details or ideas was the concept of complete obedience to God and submission to Allah's will. And how mankind had continually failed to do this by compromising Islam in one way or

another. Oh, here we fucking go. How many times has this attitude of, wait a minute, the only laws I need to follow, the only laws anyone should ever follow are God's laws. How often has that really worked out well for people? in recent times, at least. And if you're thinking, but I follow God's laws, do you? Do you really?

In an extreme, I have to follow all of them, no matter what kind of way. I fucking doubt it. Whenever the laws of God conflict with the laws of man, I'm going to go ahead and say that almost all of the time, unless you're listening to this podcast from a prison cell, you push some of those religious convictions aside and you follow the law of the land.

Hassan was about to be done with that shit, compromising Islam, in this case, men for Alalaki, and therefore also to Hassan submitting to the West to an American-eye, secular lifestyle. All these fucking Western women and with their fucking show in their faces whenever they want.

That kind of bullshit. This kind of stuff castrated Islamic traditions. Do you see where this is going? Hassan was getting radicalized. He was getting convinced that he was in nothing more, or that he was, I guess, rather, nothing more than just another one of America's silly little bitches. And that for the sake of his soul,

it's about time he stood up for himself. stood for his mom, for Allah. Soon he was sharing his newfound, hardcore religious fervor. He started giving other people, friends and family members, copies of the tapes, whether they asked for them or not. That didn't go well. He carried around cases of these tapes in his trunk,

like a fucking lunatic, just waiting for someone to give them to. This behavior persists for a long, long time from 2003 to 2009 during Hassan's internship and residency period at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. That's a lot of years to get further radicalized, to grow more and more critical of America's relationship with Muslims while also becoming more and more of a devout extremist Muslim.

Over this time, Asan became so fiercely conservative that during a family get-together for Thanksgiving in 2007, Hassan harshly scolded his cousin in front of everybody for bringing a female date because he believed that it was religiously impermissible for women to ever leave the house without a male guardian. Fuck this guy. This is the kind of shit that,

has left me with zero respect, truly zero, just for fundamentalism, religious fundamentalism, in any of its theological forms. It's all just different shitty flavors of the same woman and more hating, just a very hateful patriarchal cake. A bunch of fucking weak, insecure, probably got picked on in high school, can't get over at beta male cucks, telling themselves, this kind of shit is what makes them strong men. So strong, I gotta submit these women.

Such an alpha male. Lucifina shakes her head. She would laugh at these little baby boy clowns because they didn't do so much damage. Incents like these slowly drove a wedge between Hassan and his family because he had a good family. Leaving him more vulnerable though

to further radicalization. He wasn't making many new friends in the military or keeping many old ones either because he was becoming more and more of a tool on a daily basis. He was doing weird douchebag shit at Walter Reed like refusing, adamantly refusing to pose with women and stuff like a holiday photo.

Right? They weren't his wife. They came to work without a male escort. What the fuck? These fucking godless hordes of Babylon, these Jezebel's of Kaleen or, I don't know. Then his behavior got more concerning. And later interview with Time Magazine, a former classmate stated, we asked him pointedly, Nadal,

do you consider Sharia law to transcend the Constitution in the U.S.? And he said, yes. We asked him if homicidal bombers were, in fact rewarded for their acts with 72 virgins in heaven. and he responded This is the fucking the quote of a maniac He responded quote

I've done the research Yes I've done the research Get the fuck out of here That perfectly sums up the spirit And general intellect Of the do your own research crowd By the way

Fucking kills me When people tell me They've done their own research Right But then they refer to Their sources Like an ancient religious text This is literally like saying

Yes Of course you can turn lead into gold I've done the research. You just need the proper spells. Now it's true. I've done the research. I read about it in this old book written 1,500 or 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.

And the people who wrote it, you know, or the dude or I don't know, I don't even know who wrote it. But they said it, the book says it's true. So it has to be true. Sometimes I swear, I feel like I'm a fucking alien. They got dropped off on an insane planet where the majority of the population are delusional lunatics. They just continually fucking rile me up with their fucking. nonsensical magical thinking. Come on, mothership, take me home. I've had enough for these fucking weirdos. Things would quickly get even more troubling for Hassan. In the final year of Hassan's

residency, he participated in something called Grand Rounds, a teaching tool in which a presenter would introduce a particular case or medical issue to an audience of colleagues and answer questions, you know, like a thesis presentation, and Hassan's topic was telling. He described the conflicts he believed existed for Muslim soldiers between their faith and their military duty. On the surface, this could have been a great topic to approach from a psychiatric angle. But Hassan did not actually cite much medical research. Instead, he based his arguments on quotes from the Quran and his own religious interpretations, some of which undoubtedly came directly from Alalaki's, his crazy Zed al-Az.

And then he started talking about Osama bin Laden. In his presentation, he wrote that it is arguable that the U.S. government is quite capable of doing ungodly things, and that Osama bin Laden had pointed this out too, and that he had a point. And actually, I do agree with them. on this point. All governments are capable of doing ungodly things and ours has certainly done so many ungodly things over and over again. Doing some right now, many in my opinion. We are not a white knight with unquestionable integrity and God ordained valor. But, and I think a lot of people forget this, it's not like any of our adversaries are white knights either. The world is fucking full

of flawed people to various degrees of every creed and every color. Now, do I think that observation justifies what we sometimes do? No, not at all. Not giving us a pass, but holding the opinion that it is arguable that the U.S. government is quite capable of doing ungodly things does not justify what Hassan will do, what he did do, what he did to people who were not personally doing any of these ungodly things. Hassan's take here was deeply disturbing to many of his classmates, at least one of whom complained to their superiors after his presentation, and yet no real alarm was raised. then between December of 2008 and June of 2009, Hassan sent over a dozen emails to Anwar Al-Alaucchi

through a messaging function on Al-Alauqi's website. By this point, Al-Aliqi was a known al-Qaeda associate. And although Hassan's communications would open an investigation, authorities would ultimately categorize Hassan as, quote, not a person of interest, despite the fact that Hassan now fully believed he had to do something to defend his religion, from the U.S. Who the fuck made the call that he was not a person of interest? that's a big fuck up.

He should have been a person of extreme interest. Meanwhile, Hassan received orders to report to the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood no later than July 15th, 2009. In Texas, Assam would settle into an inexpensive apartment. He mostly kept pretty bare, or he kept mostly pretty bare, preferring to have few possessions or furniture. In addition, he intentionally kept his bank account so low that it would not accrue interest because he now believed that to be un-Islamic. Never fails to astound me how much dumb self-sabotaging shit people,

seemingly intelligent people in so many other ways will do to themselves. Just needlessly fucked their lives up with this nonsense. On August 1st, 2009, Hassan purchased an FN-57 pistol. Magazines, ammunition from guns galore, this gun superstore in Killeen. According to Army specialist, William Gilbert,

a regular customer at the store, Hassan entered the store and asked for, quote, the most technologically advanced weapon on the market and the one with the highest standard magazine capacity. How is that question on a red flag? How does that not warn at least an anonymous call of concern to authorities? What if he's like, I would like the most technologically advanced weapon on the market

that will kill the most amount of people than the shortest amount of time, please, and I need it quick. Would that have prompted a mandatory call to the authorities? Actually, no. There are no specific federal or state laws explicitly requiring gun store employees to report general threats. Now, they are legally permitted to deny sales to anyone they suspect is a prohibited person

or poses a risk to themselves or others, but they don't have to report them. If a direct and credible threat of violence has made, employees are strongly encouraged and in many jurisdictions bound by general duty to contact 911 or local police immediately. Hassan proceeded to film store employees demonstrating how to disassemble, clean, and load the gun, and then he would come back several times to purchase a lot of ammo so much sometimes eight 10 box at a time bought over 3,000 rounds in total. When he wasn't studying religious texts now, this motherfucker was down at the shooting range, firing headshots into targets, getting good enough over the course of a few months to hit his targets with between 80 and 90% accuracy. And yet he still didn't know how he was going to commit his religiously inspired act of violence. He still considered his military oath of office sacred.

so how could he defend Islam while not attacking the U.S. military? While he was wrestling with that way, he was trying to figure that out, something got in the way of his plans, made him a rush his decision. Near the end of October, Hassan was informed that he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan with orders to report to Fort Benning, Georgia, for pre-deployment training no later than November 28, 2009. Hassan was shocked. He did not think he would be deployed so soon, not when he was still weighing the pros and cons of, you know, whether or not he was going to go full fucking death to infidels jihad.

He was still going back and forth, knowing that he would change his life permanently, that he would either wind up in prison or dead if he did what he was willing himself to do. Was this what God really wanted from him? Or would he be throwing his and others' lives away, he wondered? Well, again, there was very little time for him to keep away in these options, and he made his choice. And on November 5th, 2009, around 1 p.m., 39-year-old major, Nidal-Hassan calmly entered building 4203 carrying two weapons.

That FN-5-7 pistol fitted with a little. a green laser sight and a 357 revolver. On him, we're between 20 and 30 magazines carrying a total of about 420 rounds. Damn. He's also wearing earplugs. Don't want to fuck your ears up. Keep your eardrums intact. You know, make sure they're good and just not injured when you're just shooting the fuck out of a bunch of random people.

He pretended to talk on his phone so others would not try to talk to him as he made his way through the base. His first stop was the desk of the Toya Williams, a civilian contractor. He told her that the officer in charge, Major Parrish, had an emergency and needed her assistance immediately. Latoya hurried away, as was part of Hassan's plan. As soon as she left the area, Hassan shouted, Allaho Akbar, Allah is the greatest, and then he began shooting. Bullets sprayed at soldiers like they were coming out of a fan, mowing down people before they could fully realize what was even happening. Some witnesses would say due to the rapid and sustained rate of fire, they thought somebody had a machine gun, not a handgun. Immediately, excuse me, a bunch of brave soldiers and civilian.

alike sprang into action. 56-year-old Army Reserve Captain John Gaffney tried to stop Hassan by charging him but was shot and killed. 62-year-old civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill also tried to charge Hassan with a chair, but Hassan got him first, killing him as well.

Then Army Reserve Specialist Logan Burnett, just 24 years old, tried to stop Hassan by throwing a folding table at him, but he got shot in the left hip, fell down, was forced to crawl into a nearby cubicle to hide. He would at least survive his wounds there. after firing from behind the desk for between five and ten minutes

Hassan then moved on to find more soldiers but it wasn't really clear who he was looking for at one point Hassan approached a group of five civilians hiding under a desk he looked at him swept the dot of his pistol's laser sight over one of the men's faces then turned away without firing almost like he's fucking insane

while this was going on an army specialist broke a window in the back of the SRP building allowing two soldiers to escape at the sound of gunfire as the sound of gunfire filled a halls Hassan then also exited the SRP building and headed for an auditorium to find more targets but upon opening the auditorium door he found a graduation ceremony taken place inside

not wanting to harm any civilians he headed back towards the SRP building but his earplugs made it so that he couldn't hear the police officers behind him shouting for him to drop his weapon when he did not respond 34-year-old sergeant Kimberly Munley fired at Hassan twice after which he turned around and shot her. The first bullet hit her thigh

and she began to fall a second bullet struck her femur shattering it and knocking her to the ground. Hassan then walked up to Munley, kicked her pistol out of reach. How terrified was she in this moment? Fortunately, he would choose not to execute her and she would survive. Meanwhile, nurses and medics were rushing into the SRP building,

according to the responding nurses, there was so much blood covering the floor inside the building they were unable to maintain balance. Because he was like wounding lots of people as well. They literally struggled to reach people because it was so slippery. As they tried to help, Hassan continued to shoot at fleeing soldiers from outside the building.

50-year-old Herman Toro, director of the soldier readiness processing site, was on the scene and rushed to help 55-year-old lieutenant colonel Juanita Warman, who'd been shot in the stomach, on the grounds north of the medical building. Toro took her arms, tried to carry her to safety,

but then all of a sudden, there was a red laser on Toro's chest. Asan was pointing his gun on him. But for some reason, again, he did not fire. Tragically, Warman would die from her injuries, though. Toro took cover behind an electrical box, saw civilian police sergeant, 42-year-old Mark Todd arrive and shout at Hassan to surrender.

Hassan then turned, tried to fire a couple rounds, but he'd emptied his pistol. As he reached for a new magazine, Todd fired five shots into Hassan. Hail Nimrod. As Hassan fell unconscious, Todd ran over, kicked his pistol out of his hands, put handcuffs on him.

That's fucking badass. Hassan would live, but his carnage was over. Before being stopped, Hassan had managed to kill 13 people and wound 32. all but one a physician's assistant were soldiers. Eight hours after the shootings, Lieutenant General Robert W. Cohn, a base spokesman,

spokesperson, reported that Hassan was hospitalized off the base under around-the-clock guard and in stable condition. He was also paralyzed from the chest down. He deserved all that more. In the following months, he would be charged with 13 counts of pre-ventitated murder, 32 counts of attempted murder. Evidence pretty clear on all that. But a big legal question remained.

was this an act of terrorism? Could you be a terrorist if you weren't connected to a larger terrorist organization? In the days before lone wolf attacks like these were sadly more common, the Department of Defense did not exactly know what to do, so they designated Hassan's murders as an act of workplace violence,

and that decision, that wording, understandably, would piss a lot of people to fuck off. It would be very controversial. For many victims, military personnel, and members of Congress, calling it workplace violence, or calling it workplace violence, with a slap in the face,

an attempt to not appear anti-mobile Muslim on the DOD's part, even though they could have easily framed it as just being anti-Muslim extremists. I do think it's crazy that so many people are unwilling to denounce religious extremism in all its forms, right? Islamic extremists, Christian extremist, Jewish extremists, New Age extremists, like some of the cultists we've covered, et cetera. I mean, they can all suck the same big old bag of dicks and fuck off and die, especially when their radicalism turns violent. If I came across the headline about a bunch of violent extremists

Being a fucking burned alive That would fill me with joy Good, world just got better Phew, oh, awesome I would feel the same If a bunch of ideological extremists Like a bunch of Stalinist type of communist leaders Or their governmental enforcers were butchered

Killing irrational and violent hate mongers To me, that's no more tragic than basic pest control So I can get rid of a rat infestation And I'll stop with my rant before I end up on a list Or on another list Or higher up on one of the lists I'm probably already on. For many victims, military personnel and members of Congress, calling at workplace violence

was also an attempt to avoid questions about intelligence failures before the attack. You know, some people trying to cover their asses. This classification also meant that victims were initially denied military honors like the Purple Heart and certain combat-related benefits because they had not been part of a terrorist or enemy attack. The military argued that since Hassan was being prosecuted under military law, which did not contain a separate terrorism offense applicable to his, court-martial characterized the attack as terrorism could complicate the prosecution or create problematic legal issues during trial. Finally, six years after the attack in 2015, Congress would

expand eligibility rules so that victims of attacks inspired by foreign terrorist organizations could receive purple hearts and related benefits. Long overdue, but better late than ever, I guess. As a result, many Fort Hood victims would be eventually awarded these honors. In the meantime, Hassan would be in prison. Until his trial in 2013, he would be held at the bellwereld county jail in Belton, Texas. Only 30 minutes from where the attack took place. Despite attempts by his defense team to de-radicalize him, Assad maintained that his violence against U.S. military had been valid and Islam approved.

And not surprised by his take here, right? A lot easier for him to believe that than to believe that he was just a stupid fucking asshole who needlessly killed a bunch of innocent people to please a God. No one will ever be able to prove actually exist. Such a crazy thing to kill in the name of any supposedly powerful God, by the way, right? To me, it's literally as crazy as killing the name of a ghost, right, or the name of a goblin or Bigfoot. Also, like, if your God is so powerful, why can't he do his own killing? Why would God need to outsource that shit?

Right? Feels pretty lazy and selfish. Stop being some kind of creepy murder cuck. Get to smite and infidels yourself, motherfucker. Is God a murder cuck? Is God that darkly kinky? Weirdly enough, Hassan would start fasting in prison. According to him, since he couldn't be sure they killing people was the right thing.

to do. He had some doubts. He wanted to rack up some kind of other good karma to make sure that he wouldn't be punished in the afterlife, and he thought he could do that by fasting. Okay. Sounds like he's holding on to his delusions because his delusions are all he has left. Regarding the theme of today's episode, how did no one see some version of this coming at Fort Hood? A Senate hearing in February of 2011 explored the findings of a month's long investigation into the Fort Hood shootings, which revealed that Hassan rose almost mechanically, despite consistently poor performance, that years of disturbing statements were completely

ignored, or, you know, 99% of them completely ignored, that he had openly expressed very radical views to colleagues, again, for years. Indeed, this investigation found that superiors had viewed his scholarly work into Islamic radicalism as, quote, praiseworthy and useful to U.S. counterterrorism efforts, despite the fact that he expressed sympathy for terrorists and justified suicide bombings. Interesting take. Perverse. one evaluation talked about Hassan's, quote, keen interest in Islamic culture and faith and has shown capacities to contribute

to our psychological understanding of Islamic nationalism and how it may relate to events of national security and army interest in the Middle East and Asia. And that's quite the rationalization. There were also plenty of people who knew that something was not right with him for a long time before he snapped and were willing to admit that. The report noted that an

instructor and a colleague had each referred to Hassan as a ticking time bomb. And he had in fact been monitored but very loosely by the FBI. Somehow, though, that investigation had never reached his chain of command, due partially to flawed information sharing procedures and also to the FBI's worries about compromising a separate counterterrorism investigation.

Finally, on August 23rd, 2013, following a seven-hour deliberation, the jury convicted Hassan on all charges. Five days later, U.S. military court sentenced him to death for the shootings. He is still on death row today at Fort Levensworth, Kansas, at the age of 55, still paralyzed, too, which is weird since I mean God can perform miracles why hasn't God given this motherfucker's legs back despite his faithful devotion and sacrifice for Allah on March 31st 2025 the U.S. Supreme Court denied Hassan's final petition for a writ of certiorary thereby confirming his death sentence

on September 24th 2025 Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth announced that he was seeking formal approval for Hassan's execution for President Trump. Hope that happened soon. I don't know why we're still waiting. I guess it'll be nice for a lot of the families of his victims to have him gone, never have to have him pop back up in their news feeds for saying or doing any more stupid shit ever again. Send him to Allah, you know, he's one of Allah special people. His mass shooting at Fort Hood would not be the only one. On April 2nd, 2014, four and a half years after Hassan's senseless violence,

Yvonne Lopez, a 34-year-old Iraq war veteran have been suffering from a traumatic brain injury and possible PTSD. He opened fire at Fort Hood, killing three in three. wounding 14 others. And before further digging into him, technically his last name really is Lopez-hyphen Lopez. He's from Puerto Rico.

His surname follows a traditional Hispanic naming convention from some countries where both parents' family names are combined. But when both fucking families had the exact same surname, can we all agree? They're combining them. Sounds really stupid.

And if you're like, I don't know, I don't mind, let me ask you this. How would you feel about me if I introduce myself as Dan Cummins Cummins. Happy Monday, everybody. This is Dan Cummins' Comins. Please welcome to the stage. Dan Cummins.

You would for sure find that fucking weird and annoying. I hate it. I refuse to refer to him as Ivan Lopez Lopez going forward. One Lopez, motherfucker. That's all you get. Ivan I. One Lopez

had been transferred to Fort Hood only two months before. And shortly after transferred, both his mother and grandfather passed away. And then he experienced a five-day delay and getting leave approved to attend his mom's funeral. Following that, he encountered additional delays in leave approval

for moving his family into a new apartment. So he was right to be angry, to be pissed off about that nonsense. Then on April 2, 2014, Uno Lopez went to the 49th Transportation Battalion Administrative Office at Fort Hood to obtain a 10-day leave form so he could attend to family matters. He was told he would have to return later to retrieve it, which sparked a verbal altercation between him and several other soldiers. Later that day, no dose.

Lopez, re-entered the administrative office, opened fire with a pistol of 45-caliber Smith & Wesson, shooting all three soldiers involved in that previous argument. Private First Class, Wilfred Sanchez, Sergeant Jonathan Westbrook, and Sergeant First Class Warren Hardnet. Fortunately, all three men would survive. Unfortunately, now that he'd gotten started, he was not done. He'd fucking snapped. He next proceeded to shoot and kill a 39-year-old Sergeant First class Daniel Ferguson, who was barricading a conference door to prevent Lopez squared from gaining entry. He then moved on to the vehicle Bay Area where he shot and killed 37-year-old Sergeant Timothy Owens and then wounded another soldier before his gun misfired. Still wasn't done. Now he made

his way to the first medical brigade building, and on his way he fired around into a car, wounding a passenger, fired off two more shots at some soldiers, those would miss, luckily. Reached the medical building, he wounded another soldier, was walking through the parking lot before he entered the building and killed another soldier, 39-year-old Carlos Alberto Lazzine Rodriguez, at the main entrance desk. He would win three others before leaving for the parking lot of another building.

There, a military officer, military police officer in front of him, and redundant Lopez said something surprising. He said, you better kill me now. I was a shooter. Kill me. When the officer did not, soon to be zero Lopez, put his pistol to his temple, fired, and died. Leaving a wife and two kids and another two kids from a previous marriage behind.

Four kids. Coincidentally, Loco Lopez had purchased the weapon he used in the killing from the same store the previous Fort Hood shooter had bought his gun at, guns galore and a clean. It was another devastating incident for Fort Hood, but altogether not unexplainable. Taking the two shootings together, it seemed like both had just been a perfect storm. For Major Hassan, a storm of radicalization and thoughts of religious violence, and for one, then none, Lopez, recent family issues that worsened his already suffering mental health. Seemed like the solution

was more monitoring, more intervention in earlier stages, more collaboration and communication to figure out who's in dangerous snapping. Overall, though the two incidents were at least in part due to some leadership failures, it wasn't like Fort Hood officials had done anything wrong. More like they just hadn't gotten everything quite right, which

you know, it's hard to do for anybody in any job. But then more incidents would start to occur that pointed to the possibility that leadership was maybe more than a little to blame for some bad shit going on. at Fort Hood. Maybe based leadership was shady as fuck. On January 3rd, 2016,

35-year-old Fort Hood staff sergeant Devin Shuit was found dead in his pickup truck, fitted with a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin. His death was ruled a suicide. And based only on the details I just gave you, that ruling would make sense, right? However, there were other details I left out that would make this ruling not make sense in the slightest.

A blanket stuffed around the window to hold the pipe in place had been doused in Shuit's own blood and Shooat was found with nine stab wounds across his body including on his forearm and in his left hand. Remember that time you heard about the guy who stabbed himself nine times, included in his forearm and hand, then took a blanket he bled all over with,

used that blanket to hold a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin in place. I mean either. It doesn't make much sense. That's like finding the dead body of somebody who shot themselves in the head and then hang themselves. Shewitt's body was returned to his family quote, wrapped like a mummy.

Then five months later, on June 2, 2016, a light, medium tactical vehicle overturned in a flash flood at Fort Hood's Al Creek, resulted in eight soldiers and one West Point cadet's deaths. Despite nine young people dying, there's not a lot of information about this incident, but one comment on Reddit would claim, the vehicle commander told the driver to go through a known flood crossing, a flood beyond the fording abilities of even a track vehicle. The investigation pinned the failings on the vehicle commander. one year later a Bradley from the same unit attempted to cross the same crossing under similar flood conditions the Bradley rolled over and was destroyed no deaths but several injuries a few months later that same year in October private Dakota lease stump left his barracks to report for work less than a mile away but never arrived for formation his body was found nearly a month later two miles

from the barracks forthood announced that stump had crashed his car while driving under the influence though a toxicology report would not confirm that assessment and would be inconclusive. According to the report, Stump was going 82 miles per hour and a 30 mile per hour zone when he had hit a tree. But when investigators looked at the road, no skid marks were apparent, nor had anyone heard any sounds of a crash.

Seems a little suss. Then making his death ruling way more suspicious, while his body was found mostly intact, the hyoid. That little bone in his throat was never found. That bone I alluded to early in his throat was never found. that bone I alluded to earlier this episode. A hyoid bone fracture is a crucial clinical and forensic indicator of neck compression occurring in roughly one-third to half of all strangulation fatalities.

Where had that bone gone? Or more aptly, who took that fucking bone? Sure looks like he was strangled to death. And then somebody staged a car crash or outright just made up claims of a car crash took one of his bones to cover his murder up. It makes you wonder how many people were involved in. his murder. Why they had murdered him, what did he know? The following year, there would be another suspicious death. Twenty-two-year-old specialist Justin Ogden's death in July of 2017 was ruled a suicide, but again, many doubted that it was. For one thing, Ogden was a star or soldier. He'd been

awarded the Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Korea Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and Oversee Service Ribbon. This doesn't definitively point to anything, though it does seem like he was not struggling with his career. and another thing, the suicide note Fort Hood produced as evidence did not match his handwriting like definitely did not according to his mother, Tony. Maybe that's just her grief talking, or maybe this is another murder presented as a suicide that they covered up. Now let's move on to 2019. In summer that year, 23-year-old private Gregory Waddell Morales had big plans.

That September, Wadell Morales, who was from rural Oklahoma, was due to be honorably discharged from the military. his plan was to use the GI Bill to attend technical school in Houston and then work on wind turbines or oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. On the night of August 19th, Widel Morales went out to Club Huago, located in a desolate strip mall, about 10 miles east of Fort Hood. He was no stranger to strip clubs, much like many other young, horny soldiers stationed at Fort Hood and elsewhere. In fact, since being stationed at Fort Hood in November of 2016,

Wadell Morales had frequent in the dollhouse, one of his favorite strip clubs, and at the dollhouse, he got to know Penny Morales. a dancer and mother or two. And he fell in love with her. It was very own Lucifina. The two would get married in May of 2017, and then he would take her name, you know, with the hyphenation. Soon Penny was pregnant with her child,

and with Del Morales, was thrilled to have become a father. To become a father. The new family, like more than 70% of all Fort Hood service members, lived off of post. But after two dead bodies were found on their street, possibly due to gang violence, possibly, if not almost certainly, they moved on to base housing.

reluctantly. At this point, military life did not hold much appeal for Waddell Morales anymore. He was counting down the days until he could be done with the army. He was much more interested in cars and motorcycle clubs, life beyond base. Soon, some of his new buddies were part of what the Department of Justice calls outlaw motorcycle gangs, not just riding clubs, and he grew closer and closer with these members. Meanwhile, Wadell Morales' work at the base continued, and the night of August 19th, 2019, he had no reason to think that the night would hold anything other than a few hours of fun at Club Fuego before he headed back to base. At least we don't think he had a reason to think anything else. He never made it back.

The next day, with Del Morales failed to show up for duty, and the day after that, he was classified as absent without leave or AWOL, making him one of the thousand or so soldiers who go AWOL in any given year. Fort Hood told his mom, Kim, that there was nothing they could do since he'd gone missing off base. his missing person's case belonged to the Killeen Police Department. But when Kim called the police, they dismissed her, telling Kim that her son probably just took off.

And we'll come back to this case. When his body is found, first, we have other deaths to explore. On March 5th, 2020, Christopher Sawyer's five-year-old daughter, Elsa, found her 29-year-old father after he had shot himself in the bedroom of their Fort Hood housing.

Ugh, that is fucking terrible. At first, it looked like a straightforward, though tragic suicide. But then, like with so many others, his family would start questioning why had Christopher killed himself? He'd seemed like a happy guy, family guy, finally had the opportunity to provide for his wife and child.

He'd been excited for life at Fort Hood, so why did he do it? Destiny, his wife, thought she knew. In later interviews, she would say that Christopher was left appalled by the culture he saw on base, particularly when it came to sexual assaults. According to her, Christopher had encouraged numerous women

and men to report various incidents, but then, when they did, those incidents were often swept under the rug or these, you know, their allegations. Christopher himself wrote reports about assaults. He had personally witnessed assaults he had literally been in the room for, I guess, on a few occasions, not sure the exact circumstances there, but nothing happened. Destiny said Christopher had been involved with getting between 15 and 20 different people to try to get justice, and that led to him receiving significant backlash. Was this true? Or was this a case of a grieving widow trying to find a reason?

for a sudden and perhaps unexplainable tragedy. Now on to one of the most infamous recent stories to come out of Fort Hood. In the spring of 2020, 20-year-old specialist Vanessa Gion told her family something troubling. Back in Houston for a weekend off base, the small-armed specialist, then a private first class, did not look like her normal, healthy self. Her mom, Gloria pressed her asking her why she looks so skinny, so troubled. Finally, Vanessa told her, somebody, another soldier, have been sexually harassing her. give me the name and I will report the bastard.

Gloria told her daughter, but Vanessa would not say who. On Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020, Vanessa Gian reported for duty. After getting called in, Gian left her third floor barracks, headed downstairs to her workstation at the motor pool, a vast garage for military vehicles. She was supposed to be off that day, so she showed up in civilian clothes, a black t-shirt, purple leggings, and a fanny pack.

She filled out some paperwork before heading toward the arms room a few paces away. Just before noon, Gian left her keys, Army ID, and bank cards in one arm's room and entered another adjacent arms room separated by a hallway. There, she encountered specialist Aaron Robinson, also 20 years old, but a rank above her. Robinson gave Gian the serial number for a 50-caliber machine gun that needed some servicing. Later, Robinson would tell investigators that Gian completed her task and then exited the building. Robinson himself left soon thereafter, or so he claimed, to spend the night off post with his girlfriend. Nearly 200 miles away in Houston,

Roelio Guyan, Vanessa's father, was at work at a nickel-plating factory when he felt a sharp spasm in his chest. The pain subsided but then returned sharper and sharper still went on like that for a while, disappearing, coming back, getting worse. Could it have been something he'd eaten, he wondered. The pain was not debilitating enough to leave work. And when he got home around 2 p.m., he told his wife, Gloria, about this weird sensation. He kept feeling in his chest, like, you know, his heart is hurting. Gloria, she was already getting troubled. Not only was her husband having weird chest pains, but Vanessa was not answering her text.

She had also heard that she had missed her daily 12 p.m. call with her fiancé, Juan Cruz. Sometime after 8 p.m. that night, Ginn's sister, Myra, called the base. Vanessa Superior confirmed she was missing. At 9.30 p.m., Myra Cruz, and Ginn's other sister, Yovanna, and Yovanna's boyfriend all set out for Fort Hood. As they drove, Myra wept. Her sense of unease increased as rain started to beat down on the road, making the trip slow going. should have taken just three hours normal conditions, putting them at the base after midnight.

They didn't get there until after 3 a.m. Then, of course, they wouldn't just be allowed to poke around a military base, however they wished. Gian's staff sergeant told the group to come back the next morning, and they headed to a nearby hotel. Return at 8 a.m. sharp the next day, a group of soldiers, including specialist Aaron Robinson, that guy who had given Vanessa a gun to look at, greeted them.

And they had news. The soldiers said that some of Gian's belongings have been found in the arms room, but otherwise she had left no trace behind. And now Gloria remembered the conversation she had had with Vanessa earlier that spring, the one of which Vanessa said that another soldier had been sexually harassing her. Could that have something to do with her disappearance? Unable to get any kind of investigation launched at the base, the family soon began to post online about Gians' disappearance,

and they started to distribute missing flyers. And then Gloria took things a step further, poking around for the name of the person who had been harassing her daughter. And soon, she got that name, Aaron Robinson. the guy who had given Vanessa a gun to look at, right, the day she went missing, the last person to have seen Vanessa, super suspicious. And we'll take a break from this disappearance as well before returning to it after looking into still more deaths. Vanessa's disappearance would not be the only mystery or tragedy to hit Fort Hood in April of 2020. The day after again disappeared, private Gavin Chambers, 21 died on base.

April 23rd. Six days later, April 29th, it was private Joshua Barnwell, only 19. Less than three weeks later, Sergeant Brad Reynolds, 37, killed himself. On May 16th, two days after that, May 18th, 27-year-old, Brandon Rosecrans, burning Jeep was discovered on a hilly suburb east of Fort Hood. Rosecrans had been shot four times. His dead body found three miles from his vehicle. What the fuck is going on?

Perhaps these additional deaths were what got officials of Fort Hood to look more closely into what had happened to Vanessa. On May 19th, military investigators went through Robinson's phone and learned that he had called his girlfriend, Cessaly Aguilar multiple times in the night of April 22nd as late as 3.30 a.m. from a town 20 miles east of Fort Hood

despite his previous claim that he had been with Aguilar that night. What's more two witnesses had seen Robinson roll out a black cargo box out of the arms room and through the parking lot where he then loaded it into his car and drove away the day Gien disappeared. That doesn't sound good.

Meanwhile, Fort Hood offered a $15,000 reward for information about Gian, then raised it to $25,000. thousand dollars in June. And that made its way back to Kim, private Gregory Waddell Morales's mom. And now she would call to demand the same reward money for information about her son. Then four days later, an anonymous tip directed investigators to an urban prairie at the end of a residential street where Penny Morales, Wadell Morales's new bride used to live. There Wadell Morales' remains will be found long ago decomposed in the Texas heat. Still investigators would be able to determine that he'd been killed by a gunshot wound to the head.

perhaps shot execution style. And then on June 21st, 2020, a search party found the charred lid of a cargo box. That one that went missing. Along the Leon River, 20 miles east of Fort Hood, the cargo box that had been spotted

leaving the building where Gien was last seen. So where was she? Nine days later, construction crew found shallow graves containing human remains that belonged to Gien, cut up, scattered, burned, covered in concrete. Later that day at 8.30 p.m., Aaron Robinson's girlfriend,

Cessaly Aguilar, Clearly trying to save her own ass now, she cut a deal and changed her story. Now she told Army investigators that Robinson had confessed to her that he had killed Gien in the arms room, that he had beat her to death with a fucking hammer. He had then driven the body to the Leon River, had come back to pick up Aguilar from the gas station, where she worked on Veterans Memorial Boulevard, five miles east of Fort Hood. Aguilar told investigators that then the two of them, they drove back out there, they cut up her body, used a machete, and then tried to burn it. finally they buried the pieces. Several days later, they returned to pour some concrete over the remains. Despite this confession, instead of immediately being taken into custody, Robinson was placed in a conference room on base.

Initially, it was said, for committing adultery, which is against a uniform code of military justice. And then a few hours later, Robinson, who had spent those hours mostly playing video games, escaped for a hood by car. Finally, after a chase along Rancier Avenue, he shot himself and died. The actions of a guilty-as-fucked man. And how had he just walked out so easily? Why hadn't he been handcuffed, held there more securely? Now, even though Cessaly had confessed, there were still so many unanswered questions.

Who were the soldiers who had testified to seeing Gien leave the arms room alive the day she disappeared? Had one of them stood in for Gian during roll call? If not, what explained the false accounting? Right, again, this like reeks of a cover-up. Had anyone helped Robinson clean up Gian's murder in these 40 minutes? Why had it taken forensic 72 days to conduct a search of the arms room? how many different people had been involved. Why hadn't the arms room been treated like a crime scene?

The crime scene it was. Why was Robinson not put under watch? How he had managed to escape from the conference room so easily? Where did he get his gun? As these questions are being asked, another death. On July 3rd, 2020, specialist Miguel Yazi, 33, died a septic shock, which followed an infection of his large intestines at Fort Hood

after he had repeatedly requested to see a doctor after complaining of stomach pains, and those requests were denied. A little under two weeks later, on July 14, 2020, a federal grand jury indicted Cecily Aguilar on one count of conspiracy

and two counts of tampering with evidence. She would plead not guilty. Three days later, the body of 26-year-old private Mejor Morte, found after a fisherman called 911's report seen what he believed to be a body at the base of a dam. An autopsy would later show that his cause of death was drowning.

But why did he drowned? How'd he drowned? Who was he with? Why'd he gone to the lake? Don't know. Those questions would never be answered. The investigation would be closed later that summer. The following month, on August 13th, 2020, 36-year-old staff sergeant Bradley Moore, died during a land navigation exercise on the base.

His wife, Crystal, was denied her husband's mobile phone, the final investigation report, and even his corpse until Texas Congressman Ron White, Ron Wright, very similar to comic Ron White, stepped in to intervene. What the fuck? He just, keeps happening, right? Suspicious deaths, or at the very least, suspicious behavior following

what would normally appear to be an accidental death. You know, just keeps looking like, you know, things are being covered up. The deaths and disappearances would not stop on August 17, Sergeant Elder Fernandez. 23 would disappear. Fernandez had just recently been stationed at Fort Hood in January. It seemed to like it there. Indeed, he reenlisted for another four years in February. But a few months after this reenlistment, his situation to their turn sour. On May 11th, Fernandez reported to Fort Hood, abusive sexual contact from a staff sergeant who allegedly groped him in a supply room, according to the redacted military investigation report. Fernandez then transferred to another unit, but his new unwanted

reputation would follow him and others in his unit would label him a snitch. Then on August 11th, the higher-up called Fernandez's mother, Ilina, to tell her that her son had not shown up for work for two days, frantic she called around. She wouldn't hear from him, not until Fernandez called her from the Army Hospital. He wouldn't share much. In fact, he would not share anything about what had caused him to be hospitalized, but he did say that he was using an insecure-based hospital line. Said that as in, I can't say much, people might be listening right now.

A few days later, they spoke again for the last time. He told her, as soon as I get out of the hospital, I will call you. I will tell you everything. Fernandez was dropped off at his friend's house the next day, August 17th, and it would never be seen alive again. Beyond suspicious. when Ilina contacted the military police at Fort Hood, they told her that Fernandez was an adult

and that if he was missing, it was likely because he didn't want to be found. If she wanted to pursue things further, they advised, she would have to file a missing person's report with the local police. But then the police gave her the same message. Fernandez was an adult, and he could do what he wanted. They would finally grudgingly open an investigation August 19th, but when Ileena offered the Fort Hood authorities

the contents of her son's car, including a laptop, iPad, had an external hard drive, they declined to investigate any further or to report it to the local police. A few days later, August 25th, a rail worker in Temple, Texas, 26 miles east of Fort Hood, saw a body hanging from a tree, across from a burnout warehouse near the tracks, and it was, of course, Elder Fernandez's body. Soon after the Temple Police, who led the investigation, ruled his death a suicide. The very next day, a Fort Hood investigation concluded that his charges of sexual assault were unsubstantiated. Army also said he'd been hospitalized for suicidal ideation,

but is that true or just a convenient backstory created after his death to make it less likely for the real nature of his death to be uncovered through an investigation? Fort Hood authorities said they had completed an exhaustive search for Fernandez and that they had interviewed all relevant parties including the family.

But how suspicious is this? According to Fernandez's family, they were definitely never interested. interviewed and the authorities lied about that. So why would they fucking lie? Only to cover up the truth, right? Could there be another reason to cover up a murder, another murder? Is the obvious answer to me unless the family's lying, but why would they fucking lie about that?

And why would he be murdered, right? What did he know? In a press conference, the morning after Fernandez's body was found, Lupe Guillaen, the younger sister of Vanessa Guillen, said Fernandez was an example of why her sister did not report the harassment she'd experienced. How many more must die at Fort Hurst's? hood for them to be held accountable, Lupe said.

How many more have to be sexually harassed? Barely a week later, Private Corleton, Chi, 25 went to attend a training session. Like Fernandez, Chi was new to the base. His early experiences had been overwhelmingly negative. Within days of arriving at Fort Hood, Chi's clothes had been stolen.

He told his sister that there were three white soldiers who did not like him. She was Navajo. She was determined not to let the prejudiced soldiers win. He had joined the men. military to support the young family he was starting with his high school sweetheart he also wanted an education something the GI Bill would help him with all of those things had motivated him to stay to work hard not to give his plans or not to have his plans thwarted by anyone who gave him shit

still he was nervous things on the base felt off on august 28th she was called into a training run he messaged his sister beforehand just beforehand to tell her that something felt off something felt weird about this specific run but it wasn't like he couldn't go there aren't Army was his job after all, and then during that run he collapsed. Or at least that's the official story. When his family rushed to the hospital, they saw Chi lying unconscious with a bunch of bruises, scrapes on his chin and face. There was also a deep cut over his left eye and a bunch of cuts on his legs. How the fuck a training run?

Even collapsing during a training run caused all of that. It looked less like he fell down on a run and looked a lot more like he got the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of people. as his family dug further into this they found that basic details about the incident kept changing. First they heard there was a five mile run. Then it was a two mile run. A little bit different. One version of the story said that there were five people with him. Another version said there were definitely 11.

Chi died in the hospital the evening of September 2nd without ever regaining consciousness and sharing his side of the story. Fort Hood concluded that Chi had died in training like so many others before him. But a growing number of people aren't buying that shit. and now collectively years of murder supposed to suicide, supposed at accidental deaths, suspicious disappearances are collectively looking very, very, very bad.

Chi was the 28th death at Fort Hood in 2020 alone, and before that year was up, the number would soar to 39. Public outcry became immense. On September 8th, 2020, Congress launched an investigation to Fort Hood, citing the deaths and other felonies that occurred on the fort between 2014 and 2019.

A bunch of smaller crimes that I, you know, just too much to mention here, just be like a big list. As part of this investment, investigation, then U.S. Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, admitted to the public that Fort Hood had one of the highest rates of murder, sexual assault, and sexual harassment of any base in the Army. We are getting an outside look to help us to get to those root causes and understand them so we can make those changes, McCarthy said. We are going to put every resource and all of the energy we can in this entire institution behind fixing these problems.

As a part of his visit, McCarthy had conducted nine listing sessions with Fort Hood soldiers of every ranking to understand the culture. on and off the base. Shortly following the launch of this investigation in December of 2020, the Army announced that 14 senior leaders and enlisted personnel at Fort Hood were being fired or suspended following an independent panel's review of the command climate and culture at the base. Those relieved of duty included the base's active commander, Major General Scott Eflint.

He was leading the base when Geyann was killed. The entire command team for Gien's unit, the third armored cavalry regiment, also relieved of duty. And there was also a broader look into what was going on. One of the panel's nine findings was that the Army's sexual harassment slash assault response and prevention program at Fort Hood was, quote, structurally flawed and said, quote, it was ineffective to the extent that there was a permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment. That's dark as fuck.

A new policy regarding missing soldiers would also be introduced rather than immediately declare them AWOL. This new mechanism would report a soldier is missing. Still, all of this may not have helped as much as it, you know, seemed like it was going to. Indeed, the heightened scrutiny from senior army leaders, members of Congress, and the media brought new demands for a lot of soldiers of Fort Hood who were already feeling burnout. Barraks had to be clean more than usual. The grounds had to be maintained to a higher standard than normal. Units were expected to present an exceptionally polished image for official visits and inquiries, and that created a difficult paradox. The reforms

were intended to improve the lives of soldiers, but the process of implementing them often added work to people who already felt overworked. For some troops, The changes became associated not with greater safety or accountability, but with more inspections, more preparation, and more redundant tasks competing for their time. In that environment, even well-intentioned reforms could generate resistance. One soldier from Gien's unit would later describe some of the post-scandal training and activities sarcastically as, quote, mandatory fun days. Though that comment may seem flipping, it points to a real struggle.

Soldiers were being asked to embrace a new culture while simultaneously absorbing the administrative burden of creating it. all on top of their existing high-pressure work. And that seems to have had real consequences. In October of 2021, 21-year-old specialist Trey Ring disappeared. Ring was a troubled kid. Since he had returned from a deployment in Iraq in February of 2019, he'd become withdrawn, developed quite the drinking problem,

had been arrested for drunk driving. He'd also got married without telling his family, been evicted from his apartment, and had stopped showing up to work. He was spiraling. His life was full of all kinds of problems. All together, he seemed incredibly, disillusioned with the life that the military had offered him. From the age of 18, the only thing I knew how to do was kill people.

Ring wrote on the website of his father's veterans' rights organization. And how well will that look on your resume? I'm 21 now, and let me tell you, I've lost so much since I've been in. I've lost brothers and sisters in arms, a marriage, I've lost family, I've lost friendships that were supposed to be forever. I even lost myself. Thankfully, though, Ring would later reappear on base alive and well. That would not be the case for 26-year-old specialist Maxwell Hawken, who was found

behind his barracks October 9th, October 9th, yeah. His official cause of death, nearly five years later, still has not been released. Why not? In April of 2021, it was announced that the Army had taken disciplinary action against 21 officers and non-commissioned officers in connection with Vanessa Geyen's death. The investigation led by General John Murray, head of the Army Futures Command, concluded that Gien was in fact sexually harassed by another soldier. A charge of the commanders on the base had consistently denied for months.

And one of the 21 soldiers' discipline was the one that it sexually harassed her, the army reported, but they said that Aaron Robinson had not sexually harassed her and that they couldn't find any motive for him killing her. Hmm. This was immediately extremely suspicious to Gin's family, but what can they do about it other than continue to publicly state that there is something fishy about all this shit?

Meanwhile, in 2023, Fort Hood was renamed Fort Cavasos for General Richard E. Coveos. Native Texan, U.S. Army's first Hispanic four-star general. He passed away in 2017 at the age 88, and this Richard was definitely not a dick. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star for his heroic actions fighting with the 65th Infantry Regiment in the Korean War. Heroic actions on multiple occasions. His Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded on January 3rd of last year to the Medal of Honor.

Fighting to Vietnam in 1967, as Lieutenant Colonel, he was given another DSC for valiant leadership. And part of his citation for that second DSC reads, constantly exposed to savage hostile fire and shrapnel from exploding grenades, he moved among his troops directing a counterattack. As the Viet Cong broke contact and fled to their fortified positions on the hillside, Colonel Kovasos called for airstrikes and artillery fire on the crest and forward slopes of the hill in order to cut off the insurgents' line of retreat. When the fighting reached such close quarters that supporting fire could no longer be used,

he completely disregarded his own safety and personally led a determined assault on the enemy positions. The assault was carried out with such force and aggressiveness that the Viet Cong were overrun and fled their trenches. Colonel Kovassos then directed artillery fire on the hilltop and the insurgents were destroyed as they ran. His brilliant leadership in the face of grave danger resulted in maximum enemy casualties and the capture of many hostile weapons. Lieutenant Colonel Kovasso's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army. In 1976, Cabezos became the first Hispanic to reach the rank of Brigadier General and the U.S. Army.

In 1980, he became commander of Third Corps. In 1982, he assumed command of the U.S. Army Forces Command and on and on, and on. Truly a lifetime of distinguished service. Despite that, two years later, July of 2025, his name would be removed. Not a controversial name, but name would be removed, and the base would be renamed Fort hood. Why? Well, some would say, uh, because Trump likes whites more than non-whites. And that is what, uh, some of my sources say. Now, to be fair, some of my sources are myself in this case. But come on, what other fucking reason is there? It's pretty obvious. Uh, the base is currently

named after Colonel Robert Benjamin Hood, who was for sure a decorated World War hero, a dude who did fight with Valor, did get one DSC. But not too. Also did not rise to nearly the same ranks, did not serve as long, did not have nearly as distinguished as a career as Cavesos, not even close. Make that make sense to me if the reason isn't what I said it was.

Back in up to 2023 now, that year would see another mysterious death, one that reminded a lot of people of Vanessa Gehens. On Monday, March 13, 2023, 21-year-old combat engineer, Anna Basal-Duo Ruiz, was found dead in a maintenance bay.

Preliminary investigations indicated that her death was a suicide, but her family was like, No, the fuck it wasn't. Only weeks before, Basol Duel Ruiz had complained to her family about, you'd probably guess,

being sexually harassed by superiors and her peers. Still, after another investigation, in September of 2023, the army would conclude that her death was a suicide, and they were most likely right. Before her death,

she was worried about a pending separation from the army for failing a drug test and for getting caught shoplifting from the main post exchange at the base. Her final internet search was, what happens when you get a drug test? dishonorable discharge. Earlier in the night, she had even texted her father that she wanted to die, although he had seen that as an exaggeration. The investigation also found that she had been sexually harassed

and almost certainly sexually assaulted. A report would cite diary entries, texts and conversations with friends and family in which she, quote, made allegations of a physical assault from a fellow soldier and harassment within her unit. Back in June of 2022, she'd made a sexual harassment complaint about her team leader, who had been her sponsor, this motherfucker assigned to act as a mentor and counselor. That's predatory.

At least four other military personnel would remember Basal Duel Ruiz approaching them about this team leader, how she had said that he would flirt with her, make comments about her appearance all the time, come unannounced to her barracks to hang out. Before the sexual harassment complaint was complete, Basal Duel Ruiz was transferred to another platoon,

and the leader who had allegedly harassed her, oh, he was promoted in rank. While many called for the base to be investigated, some to be, you know, called for it to be shut down, there were still hopes that the culture around sexual assault and harassment had changed, and that what had happened to Anna was an unfortunate blip. But was it? In October of 2025, an incident took place at Fort Hood

during what should have been a routine doctor's appointment. At that doctor's appointment, a pregnant woman was being examined by Dr. Blaine McGraw, an Army OB-GYN, station at Fort Hood, while her husband stood by. when he'd walked in, the husband had no reason to worry. Dr. McGraw was supposed to be a great doctor. He was first commissioned in the Navy in 2004,

attended the Uniform Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, though he didn't seem to have finished his schooling there. He then joined the Army in 2006, served initially as an infantry officer. Eventually McGraw became a physician assistant, serving at Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 101st Airborne and Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, before going to medical school at East Tennessee State University, while still in the Army according to his service record.

He then made his way to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii before being stationed at Fort Hood. And it seemed like everything was above board as he started to give this pregnant woman her exam, like he had done so many other exams. Still, the combat veteran had been an infantryman in Afghanistan, a job where you had to keep your head in a swivel, and he was watching McGraw like a hawk while this dude examined his wife. I fucking like this guy, right? Trust no one in these situations, not implicitly.

When the doctor leaned over, shifted the wand for a vaginal old. ultrasound, the soldier saw something very concerning. The doctor's phone was in his shirt pocket and the camera lens was pointing out. And then the soldier saw a glimpse of the screen and it definitely was recording. The veteran was stunned. He quickly found two female medical staffers, told him what was going on. They seemed to ride him off. What the fuck? As they talked, he got so frustrated. He screamed, I just caught a doctor recording my wife's vagina. Yeah, fucking wake up, idiots. That doctor is lucky he didn't get his fucking ass beat that day. What transpired over the course the next several hours as he and his wife tried to sound the alarm, both at the hospital and with broader army leadership at

Fort Hood was an emotional and bureaucratic nightmare. When the couple went to the third armored corps headquarters building at Fort Hood, the combat veteran told a staff sergeant at the front desk that he needed to exercise the commander's open door policy. A protocol circulated in a base memo earlier in 2025, guaranteeing service members could bring concerns directly to the commander. But the couple were told two commanders were out of state and could not see him. So then they turn to the hospital command team who suggested a female officer fill out a form, but they also said senior officials were either busy or out of office. Next, they then tried to turn to the Inspector General's office, only to be told it was located in the first place they tried. Finally,

the husband left a voicemail on the commanding general's hotline, didn't hear back from anybody, as far as base leadership for days, but was told the Army would look into it, and thankfully they actually did. Within a month, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, would find out that Dr. Blaine McGraw had thousands of photographs and videos taken over the course of multiple years depicting scores of female patients. He had also assaulted some patients directly, not just fucking, you know, made creepy videos and got creepy picks. While he was a resident at Tripler in Hawaii in November of 2022, quote, at least one female patient filed a complaint alleging that McGraw had improperly recorded her pelvic examination on his cell phone. According to this lawsuit against him, at the time, McGrath's chain of command did not report the incident to law enforcement. and instead conducted an internal review

leading to him being, quote, militarily corrected, whatever that means. Then in 2024 at Fort Hood, Army officials again investigated McGraw for allegedly touching a patient's anus unnecessarily during a medical procedure. No action was ultimately taken after investigators deemed the allegation unsubstantiated.

McGraw was free to keep abusing patients, whether there were soldiers or wives of soldiers. As one victim, a woman whose husband was stationed at Fort Hood would say, almost every visit I had to have a breast or pelvic exam, and I was always under the guys and it was always under the guys of the treatment I was receiving.

My mom was just going through cancer at the time so it was just precautionary. Everything was always kind of explained away. I always had a breast exam every time, no gown, no chaperone ever. So it was just take your top off, get in the table, take your pants off, get on the table, like nothing. And the chaperones were,

someone was always busy. No one was available. Ken, why the fuck are all these people just going along with this shit? Later this victim would find out that McGraw had recorded her breast and pelvic exams. another woman named Angela in Sources would report another disturbing story

In March of 2023, 19-year-old Angela was sexually assaulted by a fellow soldier while she was sleeping the next day she went to McGraw to get a rape kit and then he examined her very carefully all over recorded her, never completed the rape kit Angela was shocked at first

she thought she couldn't have possibly been assaulted twice by two different men in 24 hours later she'd come to realize what happened but when she reached out to Fort Hood officials during the course of McGraw's investigation she said she did not hear back, and they refused to release her medical records to her. Yet another woman going by Nicole would say that she was 24 weeks pregnant when she went to see McGraw for a sinus infection. Like the others, he insisted on a pelvic exam for a sinus infection

when she told him she didn't want that. He lifted her shirt up over her breast, pulled her pants down, and just straight up started groping her. Finally, she threatened to punch him if he didn't stop, and then she got out. As Nicole would put it, quote, I left. I went to the front and started talking to the lady and tried to report it. She gave me a number and told me to call the hospital and file a report, but then nobody picked up. The fuck is going on. Nicole left over the course of the next few weeks, tried to file a formal complaint about

what happened four times, only to be constantly transferred between departments at Fort Hood and disconnected each time. None of them ever took her report. All this would lead to these women rightfully saying that the culture around sexual assault, the culture more broadly, had not changed within the army or at Fort Hood. After interviewing dozens McGraw's victim, Shannon Huff, the founder and director of Shield of Sisters, a nonprofit that provides support to survivors of military sexual trauma would say that, quote, every single one said they'd made an effort to report him to army officials. In Angela's words, we as soldiers, it is so incredibly uncomfortable to report. It is not something that is promoted.

We will have to, we will have QR codes. You can scan to report or fill out a survey. The second that somebody sees you scan in that, they have something to say. your own command when you go back to your unit after having some kind of an uncomfortable report will be like, oh, you're just complaining that your knees hurt because you don't want to run. I had a soldier that had a torn meniscus

that she was running on for several months because reporting is frowned upon. I myself was harassed for a year and a half by my unit after reported my assault. It's that needs to be fixed across the board for every single soldier and spouse. Yes. Yeah, people should just learn how to do their fucking jobs.

Stop just being lazy, passing the buck, you know, stop victim blaming. Fort Hood, in addition to having a lot of active duty, military personnel, who I'm sure are awesome people, seems to be infested with douchebecks. People who no one should think for their service, because their service fucking sucks. In November, the commander of the medical center,

where Dr. McGraw worked, sent a letter to more than 1,400 patients informing them in the investigation into McGraw. According to news sources, at least 85 patients to the Army CID about the investigation, and Army investigators have identified at least 30 women who are photographed or videotaped by the doctor. just recently in April of this year, the U.S. Army would announce the McGrath faces six charges and 146

specifications for alleged offenses. A month later, the Army raised that total, or the total number of counts against him to 273. And that includes over 90 counts of assault consummated by battery and over 60 counts of indecent recording. If convicted,

he will obviously be locked up for good. I shouldn't say obviously, without these crimes is reading. If convicted, he'll serve at least one year. Meanwhile, Backing up a little to February of this year, the Colleen Police Department announced that two men had been arrested for the murder of private Gregory Waddell Morales. Right, that soldier who had gone missing, the soldier who's decomposed remains, were found 10 months later, not far from where his wife used to live,

and then it was determined he'd been shot in the head. Darius Demarchus Nobles, 28, and Darian Lequan Brown, 27, arrested and charged with murder. Police had linked the two men to the soldier using cell phone records. one of the last numbers to dial Waddell Morales's phone belonged to a minor whose mother told police the phone had been stolen by Brown who she knew as cash. Police then interviewed Brown March 5th, 2024, said he knew Wadell Morales. After changing his story a couple times,

Brown finally broke down, told police he served as a lookout while Noble shot and killed Wadell Morales. Apparently both Brown and nobles were in a gang selling drugs in the area and they had been instructed to kill him as a way to, quote, put in work. And this should have been at least some, somewhat comforting for Wadell Morales's family, but it wasn't. The atmosphere around Fort Hood had simply bred so much suspicion, so much they still wonder right now if military personnel are somehow responsible or involved. Kim Waddell has said, I personally think there's still more people involved.

Is she right? Who knows? Who knows if we'll ever know. Time to get out of the timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Fort Hood has clearly been very troubled as of late.

Dozens of deaths, murders and disappearances, a woman dismembered by someone who had sworn to protect the country, accidents with machinery, almost monthly suicides of people who seem to have bright futures ahead of them, supposed suicides. While suicide is a problem for the military as a whole, veterans sit at about one and a half to two times higher regarding rates of suicide than the general population. these numbers with a peak of almost 40 deaths in 2020 seem to point at something truly strange happening specifically at Fort Hood, something beyond even the routine dangers are working with deadly equipment. The more deaths that have come out of the fort,

the more people have speculated, what the fuck is the base cursed? Is there something wrong with the water? Is it the fault of the gangs who have used the area as a distribution point for drugs? Well, on the first two things there, probably not. Never been conclusively established. It was built on a burial ground.

In fact, you're likely to find human remains pretty much everywhere on Earth. humans have lived. There's also nothing unsurprisingly about the quality of spookiness of the water and Fort Hood and sources, and while criminal activities certainly existed and continues to exist around the installation,

as it does around so many of their large military communities, there's little evidence that gangs or drug cartels have accounted for the full scope of what's been happening, not even close. These conspiracy theories point to a wider truth, though. It doesn't seem like anyone has been looking too deeply into the troubling pattern of violence at Fort Hood. Or if they have, they haven't done much

to try it and stop. it, which reads as so suspicious. Again, it reeks of like some sort of cover-up of a lot of people being involved in a lot of bad shit. When Army investigators conduct a sweeping review of the installation in 2020, they found leadership failures, poor accountability, a climate in which reports of harassment and misconduct are often mishandled, an organization that had become desensitized to warning signs and that pushed off the burden of creating a new culture onto an already burnout,

already overworked group of soldiers. In this environment, dangerous people can, uh, and do slip to the cracks. So can vulnerable people. And of course, there have been accidents as well, things that just randomly happen like they do in the rest of the world, although at a higher rate on a military base like Fort Hood, where people are regularly dealing with dangerous equipment and training designed to push them to their limits. Unfortunately, in the wake of all this investigations by the military didn't do too much to reassure a growing group of family, friends, and loved ones that the military was trustworthy. In recent cases like that of Dr. Blaine-McRaw,

were still seeing that dynamic play out. In many cases, his families are still trying to get justice and transparency, and soldiers are still trying to do the things that are the most important to their jobs, training to serve their country, while they deal with continual shake-ups. Will things get better at Fort Hood? Only time will tell.

Those deaths that have been ruled as accidentally were suicides when it's pretty clear that they have been murders are, again, extremely troubling. Who covered them up and why? Also, the ongoing culture of sexual harassment and assault is very, very troubling. That one, I at least know how to make better in theory,

but the fix isn't easy. Well, actually, it is easy in a way, but it requires millions and millions of people to collectively pull their heads out of their asses and stop being douchebacks. It requires a whole bunch of people to do something that I think is very easy. Fixing Fort Hood's culture of sexual harassment and abuse requires change, I think, not at the base level or even at the military level, but at the cultural level overall.

And the best way to change the pervasive, ongoing historical problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault is through education. We need to stop, you know, listening to irrational moralists who think that kids should never be taught about sex in school. Oh, they should be taught so much more than they're being taught. Those voices, in my opinion, strongly need to be overwhelmed by a larger number of more educated rational voices. The people who think a quick reference to absence is all that should be taught at school. Literally, that is the definition of ignorance. Now, a lack of knowledge or information.

Not talking about it does not fucking help. knowledge is power, not the lack of it. And that includes sexual knowledge. I'm sick of pretending that the argument of only parents should teach their kids about sex, not schools, is even remotely valid or intelligent. It's fucking, it's not. Too many parents are ignorant.

Too many parents always will be. In any culture, a robust sexual curriculum, more robust, much more than current sex ed education needs to be developed by experts, and instruction needs to be enforced in schools. At the grade school, junior high, in high school levels, and I'm not kidding about grade school. You don't have to be fucking graphic with grade schoolers,

but they should know, for example, what a bad touch is. I hate how many stories I've heard about little kids who are molested for years, in part because they did not realize they were being molested, because they had no fucking idea what a sexual touch even was, thanks to their moralist sex-negative upbringing. If kids don't learn what acceptable behavior around sex, like consent looks like, if they don't learn what sexual harassment even means, what punishments can occur if you get caught for it,

they will obviously, I think, be much more likely to become sexual harassers and sexual assaulters or victims. Now, some of them still will be, regardless. That's an unfortunate state of the world, but that doesn't mean you should just, you know, try and not reach the kids who can be helped. I mean, I think that number is big.

You know, kids should learn about harassers, groomers, pedophiles, all of that. Know your enemy. It's the best way to defend yourself. You change a culture primarily not through punishment. I mean, you got to do that too, but through education. And it's important, I think, to focus the bulk of the education on the young.

Still trying to educate everybody else, but put the focus on the young. Cultural changes do not generally start with older people. They start with the young, with people who have the most moldable brains are still being shaped. Young brains need to learn about sex from places that are not porn hub, not from their dipshit friends, not from adults with dogmatic, shame-based, sex-negative, medieval fucking hang-ups. Also, we need collectively to be better and more evolved when it comes to condemning sexual assault, and harassment in all forms, right? What if, uh, what if I worked on getting better?

What if we all worked on getting better at condemning, even passing references to think in a lot of the shit that Manisfir, influencers and pieces of shit like Andrew Tate's pew, a man who is quite literally promoted the idea that rape victims need to, quote, bear responsibility for their attacks? We need to not, not even fucking pretend that's remotely okay. If more of us denounced absolute fucking trash like that piece of shit, then he would not be an influencer, which he should not be. millions of his fans would not be hearing that.

I don't know why the fuck he has fans, because this shit is pervasive. But millions of his fans would not be hearing that on some level it is okay to rape and harass. If we did that, if we consistently shunned more of the people, who deserve to be shunned, that eventually most of us, most of our kids, kids who grow up and sometimes join the military, some of whom will end up in Fort Hood or at Fort Hood, would know how to spot sexual harassment. They would have a different mentality around it. They would know what sexual assault looks like in all of its various forms. they would not think any of that shit

was even remotely fucking cool on any level and you know they'd be very likely to do something about it if that were to happen societal wide right in a society

in a culture wow what a better place to live less people would harass less people would assault report should be taken much more seriously everywhere in that society when they happened

including in that society's military just my two cents short of that happening I hope families and friends of victims continue to raise hell when bad shit happens to not stay silent because that noise, protesting, refusing to be silence, often does lead to investigations, even if it takes too long.

And investigations do often lead to change, which oftentimes is positive. You know, keep trying to push shit forward. Keep trying to make the world a bit better overall. That should be the responsibility of each and every one of us, right? And that's not virtue signaling, just recognizing that there is a major problem and wanting to be some part of the solution. Lucifina demands it, motherfuckers. She demands more accountability.

Time for today's takeaways. Time suck, top five takeaways. Number one, Fort Hood has been marked by violence and turmoil, in some way, since the beginning. Far, far in the past, approximately 500,000 of years ago, the area may have been a Native American burial ground, although it's also possible that the bones may have simply wound it up there, as, you know, ancient people lived and died in the area. In the 1940s, families had to flee from the area that would become Fort Hood, as U.S. military overtook the fields and pastures. excuse me, in order to train tanks that would be used in World War II.

In the 2000s, the violence would spike when Major Nadal Hassan opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 people, wounding 32 others. In 2014, another spree shooting claimed the lives of four people, including the gunmen, specialist won too many Lopez's. Number two,

those two mass shooting incidents were relatively isolated, however. By the late 2010, the problem was not soldiers opening fire on other soldiers in mass, but a persistent pattern of suicides, disappearances, and accidental deaths that all looked a lot

like murder. That did not seem accidental or suicidal to the loved ones left behind. In 2020, somewhere around 39 Fort Hood soldiers,

again, different sources, cite different figures, died or went missing. Though the numbers seem to have gone down in recent years, there have still been unexplained deaths on the base

or at least deaths in which there are lingering questions around who was with them, what they've been experiencing in the months leading up to their deaths and how the army

came to their conclusions. Number three, the most shocking incident to come out of Fort Hood in 2020 was the murder of 20-year-old specialist Vanessa Gion. After reporting to her family that she'd been struggling with being sexually harassed, Vanessa went into work on April 22, 2020, for what should have been another normal day, or a normal day. A few hours later, though, military personnel saw fellow specialist Aaron Robinson driving away with a mysterious box, and Vanessa nowhere to be found.

Vanessa was missing for more than two months before some of her dismembered burnt remains were found buried along the Leon River, June 30th. Robinson, meanwhile, fled Fort Hood and then killed himself when law enforcement and Colleen tried to apprehend him. Vanessa's case served as a flashpoint for issues that the base had been dealing with for years, ineffective reporting, a culture of bullying and harassment, and persistent failures of leadership. Ultimately, it triggered an investigation and many reforms, though then Dr. Blaine McGraw, an Army OBJN at Fort Hood, was found to have been sexually assaulting recording his patients for years at the base, many would wonder if these reforms had actually been effective.

Number four, many of the cases, especially the suicides, are hard to untangle from the surrounding atmosphere of Fort Hood. In the case of Basal-Duel Ruiz, for example, the 21-year-old likely did commit suicide after failing a drug test in shoplifting, but she was also being sexually harassed. How much of her sexual harassment, for instance, played into her decision to use drugs? How much of it played into her decision to die by suicide? Would she have curbed her bad behavior if she had been given good leadership or made to feel like others were behaving as well? Well, then there were cases like Christopher Sawyer, 29-year-old soldier who killed himself, due as his wife would claim,

to the trauma of seeing how fellow service members were being harassed and assaulted. Was that the full story? Did other factors lead to this decision? Or his decision? We will likely never know, and that's what makes figuring out what's going on at Fort Hood so hard to figure out.

And number five, new info, did you know that Elvis Presley, the man widely referred to as the King of Rock and Roll, served at Fort Hood? I think we talked about that in his episode, but, you know, it was a passing reference. Originally scheduled to arrive on base in January of 1958, Elvis was deferred until March of 1958, due to production obligations for the movie King Creole.

He reported to Fort Hood on March 28th to Company D, 1st Battalion, 32nd Armored Regiment, second armored division for basic training as a tanker. The next day on March 29th, he raped two dozen of his fellow soldiers, all men, also raped three women he encountered that day. And he made his pet chimpanzee scatter, watch every single assault, literally turned scatter into a chimp cuck so many fucking cucks of various forms in this dark world in an article that ran in the Temple Daily telegram

on September of 1960 the scene of Elvis's arrival was described as disorganized pandemonium things somewhat stabilized over the coming weeks aside from three to four bags of mail each day and a few international phone calls and Elvis got on with his training like many new recruits Elvis had a hard time being away from his family within a few months his parents and grandmother moved to Colleen

and Elvis was given permission to live off post with him. And at the end of a training, an official letter sent ahead of Elvis's transfer to his duty station, said that Elvis, quote, showed outstanding leadership from the start and a fine attitude toward his service obligation. He became an acting assistant squad leader early in his basic training and still wears the Bessard, aka the Chevrons. Elvis would leave Fort Hood for Germany, September 19th, 1958, when he would make scatter, watch him rape another two dozen men. He thought we're probably Nazis at some point, but we're definitely sexy now. Chimp cuck!

Maybe he didn't do that. Maybe he just served out the remainder of his enlistment and then met a 14-year-old girl named Priscilla when he was 24. They would kiss not long after meeting. Many saw that back then as romantic. Many now, I hope, see it as grooming and sexual assault. We got to change the culture. We got to teach the kids what the fuck is going on. Let's get out of here.

Time suck. Top five takeaways. Fort Hood murders, mysteries, and silence has been sucked. Thank you to all the bad magic productions team for the help and making time suck. Thanks to say, I feel like I'm making more pronunciation mistakes at normal. There's a lot of info, very dense episode. And it's happened to be a little tired while recorded. But hopefully it's not as bad as it seems as it is in my mind in moments.

Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks to Logan Keith, helping to publish this episode, designing merch for the story. store at bad magic productions.com. Thank you to Sophie Evans for excellent research. Thanks to the all seen eyes moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page. Mod Squad, make it your discord, keeps running smooth, and everybody over

on the TimeSucks suburbida and Bad Magic Starbreddit. And now, time for this week's Time Sucker Updates. Get your Time Sucker updates. First up, from a Super Sack named Cody, who's inspired by another Super Sack, Cody, he heard about here. He sent in a message to Bo Jengles

the time suckpodcast.com with the subject line of the family suck updates and fate. Dear exalted suckmaster, I don't have a funny subject line or a witty start, but I have been a fan of your stand-up. I got to see Milwaukee a few years ago. Glad I did before you shifted your focus since I first heard you on Pandora 10 plus years ago. Loyal Spacers since 2018, Creeper and Robert. Oh man, thank you. From the start of scared of death, I do owe you Time Suck in the Bad Magic community for possibly saving my life through odd fate. At the end of episode 385, the family, Australia's most notorious cult. You read an update from a meat sack named Cody regarding his struggles with his teeth and needing help. I listened to the whole update and I was in

tears through most of it. Here's why. Dan, my name is also Cody. I'm getting real close to 40, 39 currently, have struggled with addiction and mental health for a good chunk of my teenage and adult years, and part of that struggle was me letting my teeth go uncared for for approximately 15 years. Funny enough, the last time I was at a dentist was to have the four teeth extracted that were in of where my wisdom teeth had been because the wisdom teeth had grown in at an angle and destroyed those teeth before I got them removed, but it took about five years to get it addressed. I don't have a reason or excuse, and I understand how bad they screwed up, and I'm now trying to fix it. I've developed paradontal disease and had an infection working its way through my system

and into my blood. If I hadn't begun treatment soon, it could have killed me in time or made its way to my brain and messed me up even more. I began treatment for anxiety last October, and that, along with Cody's message in December, gave me the push I needed to get to a dentist and start getting it taken care of. I have an appointment to have the majority of my teeth extracted and replaced with implants slash bridges in August. I'm still terrified, but luckily I found a dentist that specializes in patients with high anxiety, and they have been wonderful. And my wife has been so unbelievably supportive and reassuring, bag me a good hot one, hail Lucifina. Now for the extra weird part

in fate. I wasn't going to send this in. I thought about it over and over again, but I couldn't remember the episode with Cody's update to reference it. Well, it just so happens that I have a habit of picking random episodes to listen to sometimes, I'm trying to fall asleep. And at some point recently, I picked the family, hit play, set a sleep timer for the end of the episode, and close my eyes. Last night, I was struggling to sleep again and went to the same well, with the family episode being the first to pop up and said, finished. So I hit play, thinking it would start over, instead I was greeted by the sounds of you reading Cody's update, and I knew it immediately. So here I am. I'm not asking for anything from you or the community.

I'm lucky and fortunate enough to currently have the resources and support to take care of this, and I shoulder the blame and responsibility. I'm not even looking to hear this in an update. I just wanted to say thank you, Lula Marie, the entire Mad Magic community, or say thank you to you, Lulu Marie, yeah, the entire bad magic team in this entire community, especially Cody Allen. Thank you. I'm pretty sure you all saved my life.

I'm not out of the woods, and there's still a lot of work to do, but I am doing it. As always, Hail Nimrod, Nimrod, stay a while, Lucifina, a good boy Bojangus, and glory be to Michael, motherfucker, McDonald. I find myself singing I Keep Forgetting and other Triple M songs When they come on at work Your loyal time sucker Cody Oh wow Cody

Yeah I know you didn't need me to read this But I was happy to Glad that the other Cody Gave you the push you needed Right how amazing So funny sometimes what it takes You know after years and years And you're like I know

And I do this too with stuff in life I'm like yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Okay no later later No I'm not worried about it Later later And then there's just like a song coming on that reminds me of something that somebody said before and I just have that, okay, fuck it.

I'm going to do this now. I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago. When you're on the other side of this, I predicted things. The only thing that you will regret is not having done this sooner. I truly never get tired of hearing about people getting motivated to improve their lives

and take action. Very proud of you, Cody. Keep going and thanks for sharing that. Who knows who it'll inspire, you know, when they hear it. And now let's hear from a fucking idiot, a stupid sucker. No, he's great. William Brunei Jr., who sent in a message with the subclin of,

You got me, fucker. Dan, your lord suckedus, you fucker. You finally got me. I'm a long time of space there. I fan of the show. I wanted to let you know that I've shared the goodness of the suck with many a friend, and even my girlfriend has heard you enough to specifically request listing to you on trips from just outside of Detroit to my hometown of Pittsburgh. That's quite the accomplishment. I re-listen the shows off, and I recently wrapped up the Bill Cosby episode, and loved it. now for the drug slipping piece of human garbage

that is not for the drug slipping piece of human garbage it is Bill Cosby, but for your endless amount of humor and organization of information. I was at the drive-thew at McDonald's picking up dinner for the fam because some days you just have to say fuck it to cooking. I had the window rolled down.

I was parked in one of those drive-thru wait for your order spots and he started yelling, What the fuck, your honor? I barely forced myself on some of these women. I just had them jerk me off. I didn't fuck him after I drugged him. What? This is unfair. Hey, hey, hey!

I don't know how much of this young man that was bringing me my order heard, but he didn't even approach my car fully. He held the bag out, arm fully extended, like he was approaching some kind of deadly wild animal. There was only seconds after you said that, but far, far too late to be able to pretend like it didn't happen. He had a half grin, half shocked look that said to me, what the hell are you listened to?

After I grabbed the back, he quickly walked away, then looked back over his shoulder again before he got back in the building. Thankfully, I was able to drive away before he got inside and pointed me out to his coworkers. Thanks, Dan, and crew, for all the endless hours of entertainment, you've helped me through some rough patches in life that sucked at the time, but are rapidly shrinking in the rearview mirror. I'll be a spacer for as long as you can offer it. I haven't made it to summer camp or seen you in person, but a guy I can dream. Hopefully one day I will.

Keep on sucking. Hail bow jangles. Hail Lusufina. Keep on giving those three out of five-star vibes that you always do, your newest victim of Cumminslaw, Bill. Oh, man, Bill, love that you got that classic walking away over the shoulder look. that's me you know that somebody thinks you're a real creep or concerning in some way, right? When they need to get another look at you

but they're also scared of you so they have to like keep moving away as they look You have to be, you have some distance That's a look often given to monsters More importantly, I'm glad that You know, these really shitty days you've had seem to be in the rear view mirror for now What a good feeling

Hope I run into you as well And man, thanks for the support for so long And next up MeatSack magician I love this, Stephen Noel send in the following message with the subject line of, I'm a psychic surgeon. Intriguing. Dan.

Thought that subject line might catch your attention. Well, it is true that I have quote unquote performed psychic surgery, or while it is, I'm not actually a psychic surgeon because no one is. But in high school, I was an amateur magician. Yes, I was that annoying kid who walked around with a deck of cards and was, as a consequence, very popular. One day a friend mentioned that his mother who was sick with cancer

had gone to see a psychic surgeon and had been cured. knowing even then that these guys are complete bullshit. I told him that his mother needed to see a real doctor. He passionately defended the psychic surgeon, telling me that the guy had pulled the tumor straight out of her unharmed flesh. The bell was about to ring for lunch, and so I told my friend that after lunch, I would pull a tumor out of his body.

After a few minutes of preparation in the lunchroom, I returned to class, had my friend lie down on the table. He pulled up his shirt. I reached into his belly and pulled out a tumor, leaving behind a bloody mess that probably smelled a lot like ketchup. I wiped the mess up with some napkins, leaving behind his, of course, unharmed flesh. He demanded to know how I did it.

I told him I could not reveal my secret. Told you, I was one of those popular magic kids. But I told him that it was definitely a trick. And then I'd use the very same method the Charlotteson had used on his mom. Don't know if his mom ever got the help she needed because he never talked about it again and we were not that close to friends.

But I was satisfied knowing I'd use my Illuminati powers for good. Thank you for all that you do. Three out of five stars. wouldn't change the thing and is this your card Stephen Stephen that was a great that was a great little ending line there yes that's my card sorcerer man I hope that kid's mom got proper treatment

and you know and if she did it was largely because of you also what a badass life moment for you to do that at school that's fucking cool close up magic like that including card tricks freaks me out because I cannot figure out for the life of me how you guys are fucking doing it and I feel like I should be able to

yeah great job even as a kid trying to expose those grifters. And now one more from an awesome sack, Mason Wobb, friend of another awesome sack, who has moved on to the next realm. Send it with the subject line of shout-out for a great meat sack. Hi, Master Sucker, or Queen of the Suck,

or any other great person who reads this. I am trying to get a shout-out for an amazing meat sack who was taken too soon from this world that I showed time suck to, and she loved it. Her name is Casey Zimmer. She passed March 10, 2026 at the very young age of 25. She was the brightest light I knew and saw only the good in people,

including me, even when it was not deserved, even when you can't even see it yourself. We used to chat about which episode we were on, all the weird shit that comes with every episode. It was something that brought us closer together, and it is strange now that I don't have that partner. If a shout out is possible,

she was a boss bitch in every sense of the words. The word, yeah, I know that she would love hearing her name from the king of the suck. Appreciate everything you all you all do as a whole. I've been a sucker for at least seven, eight years now. Casey was a sucker for almost two years. years the time we were together love every episode and agree probably too much l-o-l three out of five stars wouldn't change the thing me'd sack out oh man mason thank you for sharing a little bit about

kacey i found and read her obituary as well and yeah what an awesome person truly so glad you got to spend the time you got to spend with her i hope wherever she is now that she is at peace and you know what no more than that i hope she's doing some exciting shit i mean since none of us know with certainty what might be waiting for us beyond the veil. I hope it's exciting. I hope she's doing so much of whatever her favorite thing to do is. Thanks for spending the time with us that you spent Casey Zimmer. Thanks for chatting about weird shit with Mason.

Thanks for being good to so many people. Thanks for being a bright light in a world that is too often dark. Rest in peace and rest in excitement and wonder. Thanks for the messages, everybody. I'm suckers. I needed that. We all did. Well, thank you for listen to another bad. Mad Magic Productions podcast.

Be sure in rate and review time suck if you haven't already. Don't kill anybody on base this week or help cover it up. Or sexually harassed or sexually assault anybody. Just fucking just be somebody instead who we can all genuinely thank for their service and military listeners. All the good ones, which is the overwhelming majority, truly thank you for your service. And it sucks that you have to put up with that kind of bullshit on top of a very hard, very dangerous job.

and I hope you all keep on sucking. And Magic Productions. If you have any information about my dad being responsible for any or all of the Fort Hood tragedies in any way, please do not hesitate to call 1-800 Dad Watch. Also call them if your dad has had anything to do with it. I mean, do you know where your dad was when all of today's horrible, tragic events happened? No? Well, then maybe your dad and my dad work together.

It's possible. It's certainly fucking possible. not knowing where your dad was when someone was harmed or murdered is a dead giveaway that he was involved every day every day we eat ribs we just do it have a clue