By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent
KILLEEN, Texas – On a bright sunny morning, the day after the mournful memorial service for the shooting victims at Fort Hood, the mood here seemed to lift a bit, especially in downtown Killeen.
Along a parade route that ran past stores, homes and churches, cheering residents waved American flags in celebration of Veterans Day. High school marching bands, children's groups, veterans organizations, motorcycle clubs and active Army units basked in the adoration from the crowd and stepped lively to the music and rhythms of the national holiday, which is always a major event here in the city that supports Fort Hood.
But even in this crowd, it was clear that emotions are still raw just below the surface and that the sorrowful events at the base have hit home and hit hard. Most everyone we interviewed struggled with their feelings as they explained why they wanted to attend the parade to show their support. Tears flowed and voices quavered almost every time someone was nice enough to talk with us.
CONTINUED >>
By Lulu Chiang, CNBC Senior Producer
ON BOARD THE USS HARRY S.TRUMAN – Nuclear-powered and carrying up to 4,500 sailors and airmen, the USS Harry S. Truman is one of the U.S. Navy’s largest aircraft carriers.
Recently, I get a rare tour with a few others of the inner workings of this floating city from its Commanding Officer Capt. Clarkson, Executive Officer Capt. John Meier and Reactor Officer Capt. Kevin Hill.
On a typical day, there are at least 3,000 sailors who keep the ship humming, according to Clarkson. They operate the reactor plant, run the hotel, cook the meals, run the airport and do maintenance on all the critical equipment that allows planes to take off and land on the ship. In addition, there are about 1,500 airmen who do the maintenance on the planes and, of course, the flying.
 |
| Donald R. White Jr. / U.S. Navy |
| An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter prepares to land on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman on Nov.8. |
"The ship is a neat machine. It has a lot of cool stuff, like the propulsion plant and all the stuff on the flight deck," said Clarkson. "But really, what makes this ship really special is the people."
CONTINUED >>
By Janet Shamlian, NBC News Correspondent
KILLEEN, Texas – Having arrived in Fort Hood from another assignment with little more than the clothes on my back, I was in Wal-Mart Saturday night looking for some basics.
Watching families walking together through the store, I was – I admit – feeling a little sorry for myself that I was away from my own family … until I had a chance to meet the young woman ahead of me in line.
She couldn't have been much older than 20 years old and was tiny all over except for her bulging tummy. It's an overused phrase, but she was glowing.
It was her first child, she explained with a smile of pure joy. The clerk asked her if her husband was as excited as she was. "He's not here," I heard her say. "Oh, is he deployed?" the clerk asked. "No, he was killed in Iraq."
It's a side of the war we don't often see. The names of the fallen get a mention – maybe – on the news, but the stories of those left behind are largely untold.
I had a chance to talk to my new Wal-Mart friend for a few minutes after we both checked out and found her remarkably reconciled with her situation. She had some family in town, she explained, and they would help her raise her son. I thought back to when my own son was born and remembered that as emotional and exhausting as those first weeks were, at least I had someone to laugh and cry about it with at the end of the day.
She didn't want any attention, and she didn't want to be on television – because, she explained, her situation wasn’t special or unusual. At least not here in Killeen. She knew a number of women who had gone through the same thing.
I’m here in Fort Hood covering a heartbreaking story, but stumbled upon this other one by chance. The death of a soldier – wherever it happens – is just the beginning of a military family’s sacrifice.
As the U.S. Army continues to search for answers about the Fort Hood shooting, NBC News' Mark Potter reports on how the tragedy has sparked a widespread security review of military bases.
By Janet Shamlian, NBC News Correspondent
FORT HOOD, Texas – The city of Killeen and Fort Hood, the military base, are almost interchangeable. Everyone who lives in the community of Killeen has something to do with the military. So shooting rampage that left at 13 dead and 30 wounded has impacted not just the military installation, but an entire Texas community.
Flags are flying at half staff here today. There is a very somber mood in town. And people are on heightened alert. Even at the hotel where we are all staying, they were taking extra security precautions. There is a heightened sense of fear in the community now.
The irony of what’s going on here is that these people who live here prepare themselves to hear about casualties that might happen to friends and loved ones overseas. But no one ever expected anything like this – deaths and bloodshed in their own community, in their own neighborhood.
"You just don’t think that these things are even possible. You know we walk around with a blanket of security knowing that our soldiers are out there fighting for our country and then something like this happens. It’s ridiculous," said Adrianna Peebles, a Killeen resident and wife of a soldier.
Everyone seems to know someone connected to the base here. In the pharmacy yesterday, the checkout person knew a soldier and knew he was about to be deployed and worried about whether or not he was OK.
"You are supposed to worry about them when they are deployed, not when they are here at home," one woman said to me.
Now it’s the soldiers who are in Iraq and Afghanistan who are calling Texas to check on someone’s safety. It’s a complete reversal of what people here are used to.
By Lee Cowan, NBC News correspondent
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – I believed.
Even though it was a head-scratcher, I somehow thought a 6-year-old boy really had stowed himself away on a flying saucer. I was as fascinated by it all, as I was embarrassed that I couldn’t turn away.
And then, there was that landing, straight out of a sci-fi movie. It was "War of the Worlds" meets "Close Encounters." A muffled cheer even went up in our newsroom. It looked like it was all going to be OK.
But of course, it wasn’t. And maybe that’s why the so-called "balloon boy" saga drew such a visceral reaction.
While the world was worried about the fate of Falcon Heene floating across the Colorado plains, he was hiding in his family’s garage.
If what investigators say is true, the Heene family had barged into our living rooms, and then stole from us the happy ending we thought we all deserved. Accusations were quickly made that Falcon was just a pawn in his parents attempt to get publicity for a reality TV show.
But that wasn’t the end of the deception. The man with the white hat was the Larimer County sheriff. Surely he’d make it all right.
But from day one, Sheriff Jim Alderdan told most of the media (the ones he didn’t know) that he actually believed the family. He said their story was credible, and even hinted that the case was closed.
So I started to believe again. Maybe we were rushing to judgment. Maybe this family that took pride in being different was just that: different, but not criminal.
Problem is, the sheriff never really believed a word he was saying. He spent two days fibbing in front of the cameras (ours included) just as convincingly as Falcon’s father, Richard Heene, had done. A hoax used to out a hoax.
The difference of course is the end. Richard Heene is accused of lying to become famous. The sheriff admitted to misleading the public to get justice.
But lost in it all was trust. The "balloon boy" story will be remembered for all its lunacy and its hype. It was a good yarn, trivial by almost every measure that started with those fantastic pictures, and ended with a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
I believed. My bad.
By Charles Hadlock, NBC News Producer
NEW ORLEANS – President Barack Obama will be in New Orleans for less than 3 hours and 45 minutes. In this town known for its spicy gourmet food, some dinners last longer than that.
Many New Orleans residents – still weary from the effects of Katrina four years on – are grateful that the presidential spotlight will shine in the city, however briefly.
During his short time here, Obama will visit the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School. It’s the only school to reopen in New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward, an area inundated with water and black mud when the Industrial Canal failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
 |
| Judi Bottoni / AP |
|
Two neighboring homes in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward are shown in a photo taken on Wednesday, a day before Obama's visit. |
The school is a gleaming example of some of the recovery under way, but if the president were to walk a few blocks from the school, he might meet Antonio Green, who was one of the first residents to rebuild in the Ninth Ward.
Green would tell the president that not much has changed on his street since he took office.
"They’re not helping people around here. As you can see, the neighborhood is still bad," Green said, pointing to an empty, rotting house across the street.
He said his neighborhood is devoid of everyday life. "We just have abandoned houses and vacant lots. It’s like we’re stuck at the bottom with no help."
And if the president was there just a little longer, he might pass some time sitting on the front porch of Yvonne Johnson’s home, just down the street from the MLK school. "The Lower Ninth Ward seems to be like another country," said Johnson, a 73-year-old retiree. "[Obama] would have to stay here a month or so to really see enough. He can’t possibly stay down here long enough to see everything that we would want him to see."
After a short town-hall style meeting with a pre-selected audience at the University of New Orleans, the president will step aboard Air Force One to head out to San Francisco for a fundraising trip. He won’t even have time to stop for a relaxing meal in New Orleans.
By Leo Juarez, NBC News Producer
CHICAGO – You might think with all the star power surrounding Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics – with President Barack Obama expected to join first lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey in Copenhagen – that there would be a groundswell of support for the effort here in the Windy City.
There just might be, but that depends on which poll you believe.
This week, the Chicago 2016 bid committee trumpeted a Zogby poll showing that 72 percent of Chicagoans "back the bid" (to use the committee's slogan).
But that is a far cry from a Chicago Tribune poll released earlier this month that had locals split down the middle, with just 47 percent for the bid versus 45 percent against it.
I did my own highly unscientific poll this week and heard arguments on both sides. Everyone agreed the president's in-person pitch could not hurt Chicago's chances, and that the games could show the world the best the city has to offer. But that publicity is not free, and concern lingers about a projected budget that already exceeds $2 billion and cost overruns that have been a staple of recent Olympic history.
CONTINUED >>
By John Baiata, NBC News’ Senior Editor
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Political activism from rock stars has a long lineage. You can trace it all the way back to George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" in 1972, the "No Nukes" concert in New York in 1979, "LIVE AID" and "We Are the World" in the 1980's, and many more. Today such activism is ubiquitous. Concert-goers are urged to support a wide range of causes, and artists' web sites act as grass-roots organizations for a multitude of high-minded projects.
But no band – and no band leader – embodies this ideal more today than U2 and Bono. The band supports the efforts of Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Chernobyl Children’s Project. Bono has used his fame to put considerable pressure on countries to reduce the burden of debt on developing countries and to draw attention to the fight against AIDS in Africa with his RED project.
 |
| Evan Agostini / AP |
| Lead singer Bono of the rock band U2 performs with the band during their 360 world tour stop at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on Thursday. |
U2 was the first big band to play in Sarajevo after the Bosnian war, launched an effort to put thousands of musical instruments back in the hands of New Orleans artists after Katrina, and have been very vocal in their support of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Many of their songs over the years have drawn on socio-political events for inspiration – from the fighting in Northern Ireland to the civil war in El Salvador.
The band’s latest world tour, in support of their most recent album, "No Line on the Horizon," has drawn praise from critics. The tour’s latest stop, at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, sold out for its two nights. With 84,000 attendees per night, that’s more over 160,000 to rally to the cause(s) in just two nights. (According to U2's Web site, they broke every record for attendence in the stadium - breaking the record previously set by Pope John Paul II in 1995.) Do the math for the rest of the tour, and you begin to understand the extent of the band’s reach, and that of others with similar followings.
But what’s the real draw, the music or the message?
CONTINUED >>
By John Yang, NBC News Correspondent
PITTSBURGH – There are many groups protesting many things outside the G-20 summit: Iraq War veterans against the war, Tibetans against China's policies on Tibet, anarchists against just about everything. But students promoting hula-hoops?
A small band of young people marched through the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Oakland, home of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University, gyrating their hips and carrying signs with anti-war messages: "Out of Uniform and into Hoops," "Put Down Your Arms and Pick Up Your Hoops."
A message with a grin.
With riot police
turning back hundreds of protesters trying to march on the first day of the international summit, we’ll see how the rest of the day develops. Stay tuned.
Related link: What is the G-20?
CONTINUED >>
