Field Trip to Fort Hood One to Remember

As the shootings at Fort Hood unfolded a group of high school students from Marble Falls were at the post for a school trip. It was a trip that they will never forget as they were locked down from the inside for hours.

A group of junior high school students were supposed to visit Fort Hood for a day of activities to give them an idea of what it's like to be in the military.  The students were locked down for more than 5 hours after gunfire erupted on the post.
 

The group of students are happy to have made to be back to the daily routine of a high schooler.

"I just think that we were lucky for it not to be where we were at. It would have been a lot worse if he was in the mess hall when we were in there," said Krystofer Farber.

Krystofer, a future Marine, and for of his classmates were there as part of a job shadowing program. They had just finished getting a feel for the place and had begun eating in the mess hall surrounded by other soldiers when the gunfire began outside a soldier processing station. 

"That guy was right down the street from where we started off," said Hannah Walker.

Walker is an aspiring Airforce fighter pilot who says the student tour was abruptly cut short. 
 

"As soon as we saw somebody laying down on the ground. We weren't sure if they'd fainted or what had gone wrong, but we knew something was going on," said Walker.

The students were swept into a locked down room guarded by armed soldiers and ordered away from any windows.  The students began calling their parents, then started watching coverage of the shooting on 3 tvs in the room while their rotary club. Chaperons called the school principal to inform him about situation.

"It puts a few gray hairs on a principal when their students are involved in the middle of something so tragic," said School Principal Allen Roberts.

"As soon as we got to school we've had people come up to us and ask us how it's been," said Roger Crowder.

Austin Sellers says that despite what he's been through it has only fueled his desire to be a fighter pilot in the Airforce. 

"It makes me want to join the military more, being there and seeing how they all worked together. And wanting to be a part of it and trying to stop things like that from happening again," said Austin Sellers.