War College

Fort Hood. One of America’s largest military bases is off the long stretch of highway between Dallas and Austin. Its Commander was set to transfer out and take over command of a division at Fort Bliss, but the Army announced on Sept. 1 that wouldn’t be happening.To anyone who’s been following the news, the reasons are pretty clear. At last count, 26 soldiers have died at Fort Hood in 2020. That’s more than have died fighting in Afghanistan this year. Some have been accidents, others suicides. Five were murdered. For Fort Hood, 2020 isn’t an outlier but part of a broader trend that’s tied up in the base’s history and culture as well as its relationship to the neighboring city of Killeen.The story is so complicated and terrible that we needed to speak with two reporters to make sense of it. First we get the big picture from Task & Purpose’s Haley Britzky. Britzky is a journalist working for Task & Purpose whose recent article there This all could have been prevented’ — Inside the disappearance and death