Kiel graduate killed at Fort Hood

KIEL - One of the 13 victims in the Fort Hood shooting was from our area, Manitowoc County.

Staff Sergeant and Mental health specialist Amy Krueger, 29, died yesterday. She graduated from Kiel High School in 1998. She joined the Army in 2001.

Thousands of miles away, the gunshots at Fort Hood, Texas are being felt in Kiel.

“She was compassionate she was loving she was a best friend that I will truly miss,” said friend Denise Morley. “I am completely numb, completely numb.”

“The last thing she said to me was I love you,” said friend Kristin Thaler.

Krueger had just arrived at the Texas military base on Tuesday.

Best friends Kristin Thaler and Denise Morley said when they heard the news of the massacre, panic took over.

“The more time that passed the worse it got. I wanted to be positive in the beginning but I just started to lose faith,” said Thaler.

“We knew something wasn't right 'cause that's not Amy. Amy would've called,” said Morley.

“When the shootings happened, they waited for a phone call from her saying I wasn't there and they never got that phone call,” said family pastor Judine Duerwaechter.

Family and friends got news of her death Friday morning. St. Peters United Church of Christ Pastors David Mercer and Duerwaechter are helping console the family.

“The family's in a state of shock as anyone of us would be,” said Mercer.

Courageous, vivacious and beautiful. That's how friends describe the brave soldier. They said she was a woman, who had her whole life ahead of her.

“She had yet to be a mother, somebody's wife,” said Duerwaechter.

“She was a best friend and anyone who wasn't in her life is missing out on an amazing person,” said Thaler.

“She was one of sweetest people in the whole wide world. She would walk into a room and instantly people would be drawn to her,” said Morley.

And now friends and family are forced to cope – with a loss of a friend, of a daughter, of soldier.