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Mason woman heard Fort Hood gunfire as husband hid

No Ohio Guard members injured at Fort Hood

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Melissa Berry of Mason holds a picture of her husband, Sgt. Joshua Berry, who is stationed in Fort Hood, TX. Sgt. Berry was on the phone with his wife on during the Nov. 5 shooting which killed 13 and injured more than 30 people. Berry hurt his shoulder as he took cover from the gunfire.

Eric Schwartzberg Melissa Berry of Mason holds a picture of her husband, Sgt. Joshua Berry, who is stationed in Fort Hood, TX. Sgt. Berry was on the phone with his wife on during the Nov. 5 shooting which killed 13 and injured more than 30 people. Berry hurt his shoulder as he took cover from the gunfire.

By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer Updated 5:59 PM Friday, November 6, 2009

Melissa Berry listened in horror Thursday, Nov. 5, as her husband hid from a gunman during a massacre at Fort Hood, Texas

The Mason woman said Sgt. Joshua Berry exclaimed into his cell phone, ‘Honey, they’re shooting in the room I’m in. I love you.”

Thirteen people died and 30 others were injured when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire inside the base’s Soldier Readiness Center.

That’s where Berry’s husband called from to deliver what he thought might be his final message. With the cell phone still on but her husband not speaking, Berry heard the terrifying sounds of running, breathing, screaming and gunfire.

“I heard a woman saying ‘We’re being fired on! We need assistance!” Berry said. “(Josh) was speaking to me but he was saying ‘Oh my God! My arm! My arm!’ and that was it.”

After what Berry said seemed like forever, she heard a man telling her husband he had probably dislocated his arm while diving to the ground to avoid being shot, but did not see blood.

“Then I heard him scream,” she said. “I’m assuming they attempted to move his arm.”

The same man then told her husband emergency squads had arrived and Berry heard nothing else after that until the line went dead. She said she kept quiet the entire time to protect her husband from further harm.

“What if I said something on the phone and this person was standing above where he was hiding? I didn’t want to draw any attention to him,” she said.

It wasn’t until more than two hours later that Berry received word from a doctor that Joshua was out of harm’s way. Hospital staffers had fixed his shoulder and Fort Hood remained on lockdown.

Berry said Joshua returned from a one-year tour of duty in Afghanistan on June 26 after being injured and the two married on July 19 during a three-week furlough.

She planned to see him this Monday, when he returned from Fort Hood. He was at the Soldier Readiness Center to receive a checkup before being transferred to Fort Dix and was scheduled to return to his Mason home on Monday, Nov. 9, a day after his birthday, for six days leave.

Instead, she’ll be on a flight there tonight, Nov. 6 to visit him in a hospital bed.

Berry spent much of today, Nov. 6, making phone calls and faxing documents to make a Red Cross-funded trip to Texas possible

She is more upset a day later then she was when the shooting occurred.

“Sometimes when you go through something, you go through it because you have to,” Berry said, her voice breaking. “Now, looking back, it just makes me upset because I just think about the fact that he was going to die...and that’s why he called. He just wanted to tell me that he loved me because he didn’t think he wasn’t going to make it out.”

Berry said the horrific events also have her feeling mad.

“These were people who were coming home and their families felt some sort of relief because they were supposed to be out of harm’s way, you know, they survived being over there for war,” she said. “People that were just getting ready to go and they had no way to defend themselves at all. At least in war they have their guns and they have people supporting them.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4542 or mrossiter@coxohio.com.

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