by Alison Buckholtz

With a husband on the ground in Iraq, I’m all too aware of the way the news media, over the six years since the U.S. military shocked and awed Iraq, transmits the idea that Americans on U.S. installations there are as safe as they would be at any base on the home front. But that formerly comforting thought feels sinister today, after an Army psychiatrist at Ft. Hood killed 13 and wounded more than 30 people in a deployment readiness center. (A day with a death toll that high would be considered an unusually tragic day in Iraq or Afghanistan.) I’m very familiar with these centers, though not the one at Ft. Hood; my husband Scott, a Navy pilot, has spent many hours in their lines, thick medical file in one hand and Kindle in the other, waiting for shots to be given, teeth to be examined, boxes to be checked.

This is usually one of the last stages before his actual deployment, and at home, we’re often caught in the eye of an emotional tornado. There’s a moment of calm for us in the midst of the panic over his leaving. On my part, I’ve passed through the phases of resisting, ranting, and sobbing—the advance grieving—and I’m exhausted, ready for him to depart so that we can start the countdown to his homecoming. At that point, I’m a butterfly pinned to a mat, unable to beat my wings anymore. Complete surrender. I watch him gather his medical records and walk out the door, knowing that he’s almost gone for good.

For 12 soldiers and one civilian at Ft. Hood’s readiness center Thursday afternoon, it really was the last time they would walk out the door. That’s what I thought when I saw the CNN breaking news reports as I hurried through an airport terminal. In more cynical moods, I’ll admit that no one is safe anywhere, but the truth is I’ve always felt safe on a military base. You can leave your purse on your chair as you run to get a packet of ketchup at the food court. You can ask another military mom to watch your kid. You can stand in line at the ATM, or the convenience store, or the deployment readiness center, and not get shot. Military bases are like friendly neighborhoods straight out of Leave It to Beaver, where strangers look you in the eye when they smile and say hello.

Yesterday’s shooting won’t change that. The military is an enormous and diverse organization, reflecting American society itself, and the murderous Maj. Hasan was exceptional in the most literal sense of the word. I don’t feel any less safe on bases, though I do feel tremendously sad for the families who have lost loved ones—lost them forever, rather than for the length of the deployment they surely dreaded.

My dread took another detour yesterday. From the airport, I called my parents, who were baby-sitting my 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter. “Don’t turn on the news,” I implored them. “I don’t want the kids to know what happened.” My fear was that they would think Ft. Hood was their father’s base, or the base near our former home, or that this would happen to us the next time we drove through the gates of another installation. My mother, well-versed in my worst fears, quickly agreed.

I’m not sure how much longer I can shield my children from knowledge of the dangers that exist around unlikely corners. I suspect that my son already believes that staying close to loved ones at all times is his only salvation. Last week, he wrote a letter to Scott’s boss in Baghdad. It reads, in its entirety, “Ples let my dad stay home.”