00:08I am Dan Bristol, Secretary of the United States Army.
00:12We had two main goals today.
00:14It was to come out and, first off, to support the victims and their families and
00:18the community that experienced the shooting tragedy yesterday.
00:22And the second one was to recognize the heroism, the courage, and
00:27the selfless service of six soldiers who put themselves in harm's way yesterday
00:32to take care of their fellow soldiers.
00:35I want to start off by saying we're standing at the brigade headquarters of
00:39the unit that had the shooting yesterday.
00:41And this morning, if you were here, what you would have seen is you would have
00:44seen a lot of soldiers out doing physical training in PT.
00:50That is incredibly important to us because we are highlighting the resilience of
00:54the American soldier.
00:55We are showing their strength and their courage under fire.
00:59They're going to spend the remainder of the day with counselors, but
01:03also getting back to their jobs, serving the American people.
01:08We spent this morning, General Lucas and I, visiting some of our soldiers who are in
01:12the hospital and being with their families.
01:14We talked to doctors.
01:15And one of the things that I can say unequivocally is that the fast action of
01:20these soldiers under stress and under trauma and under fire absolutely saved lives from
01:27being lost.
01:28On behalf of President Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary Headstaff, they wanted me
01:35to tell these soldiers, their family, and this community that the entire federal
01:38government stands by stands by and stands ready to care for the soldiers and their family.
01:45One of the more important things we were able to do this morning, though, is to recognize the
01:48heroism of these six soldiers.
01:51One of the soldiers tackled the person.
01:54So just think about this.
01:56They were unarmed and ran at and tackled an armed person who they knew was actively
02:02shooting their buddies, their colleagues and fellow soldiers.
02:05Another soldier jumped on top of the person to subdue them until a federal law enforcement
02:11was able to arrive.
02:12The other soldiers immediately, using their training that they had developed over years
02:16and years, started to take care of mass casualties.
02:20The hospital they took them to in March had just run a mass casualty exercise for a moment
02:25just like this.
02:27The Army does not want these moments to happen, but it stands ready when necessary to act and
02:32care for those when it does.
02:34The Army this year is 250 years old.
02:36That is one year older than this nation itself.
02:39These American soldiers highlight exactly what the Army has meant to this country.
02:45It has been there in some of the most traumatic moments of this nation's history.
02:49And it has been resilient, stood strong, and acted on behalf of American citizens.
02:55I just want to thank this community.
02:56It is absolutely unbelievable to me, the speed with which law enforcement officers showed up,
03:02paramedics showed up.
03:03We had so many people showing up within the first hour that we actually had to stake some
03:07of them away.
03:08We are so grateful for this community and all that it does for our soldiers and their families.
03:13The investigation is ongoing.
03:15I imagine a lot of the questions we'll take related to that.
03:18We will not be able to answer some of those questions, but we are going to do a deep,
03:22hard investigation.
03:24It will be – the findings will be transparent.
03:26They will be released to the American public.
03:28We commit to you that anything we discover during the investigation that can make this
03:33base and other bases life and safer, we will act on as quickly as possible.
03:37Now, I'm happy to take questions.
03:39Standing beside me, I have General Lubis, the Division Commander and Special Agent O'Connor
03:44from the Criminal Investigation Division.
03:46So, let's kick off with some questions.
03:48Mr. Secretary, Robin Kim from The Current.
03:50Hi.
03:51Will there be any efforts by the DOD to harden the entrances to installations, to look for
03:57things like personal weapons coming in and out of base?
04:01We are constantly looking at our security protocols on all of our bases, both in CONUS and around
04:06the world.
04:07We absolutely will want to learn from this investigation.
04:11We do not want something like this to ever happen again on an Army base.
04:15And so, if there are things we can do to improve safety, we will take those steps.
04:20But right now, we're really early in investigation.
04:23Mr. Secretary?
04:24Yeah.
04:26I'm here with BBC News.
04:27Thanks for being here.
04:28How did the suspect get a gun, his personal gun, pass security onto the base and to its workplace?
04:34As I just remarked to your colleague, we are still early in the investigation.
04:39The shooting happened yesterday.
04:41CID, I can actually come up and tell you what we've learned so far.
04:45Our commitment is what we learned will be disclosed and will be transparent.
04:49Justice will be brought on behalf of these victims and the community that was armed.
04:55Good morning.
04:56As the Secretary mentioned, this is still an active investigation.
04:59We are still processing the scene with all the resources and capabilities that the Army's
05:04Criminal Investigation Division has to offer, which is a mess to exert people in this entire region.
05:11In light of the fact that we're still processing, I'm going to have to defer that question for now.
05:17Is it normal to have a personal gun that makes you?
05:20No.
05:21That would be a violation.
05:24Next question.
05:25Mr. Secretary, Brian Young from CNN.
05:27Hey Ryan.
05:28How you doing?
05:29You got a chance to meet with the families and obviously we won't have that chance.
05:32You got a chance to meet with them, talk to them.
05:35You seem very proud of how everyone reacted.
05:37Can you tell us what that was like meeting with the families?
05:40What state are they in right now?
05:42Share what the public was concerned about these folks who obviously didn't serve the charge.
05:47Ryan is heartbreaking sitting in there and seeing their soldier, their daughter, sitting behind them struggling.
05:57Our hearts broke with them.
05:59We tried to hug them.
06:00We tried to convey from the President and the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense that our entire nation warms with them.
06:07We stand behind them.
06:08It has been only a couple of hours for them.
06:11I think they are still processing through it.
06:13But what we wanted to convey is we will be here with them every single step of the way.
06:18The United States Army is committing every resource we need to to get these soldiers back into their formations as quickly as we possibly can.
06:27And then one of the things that we had said with the meeting earlier with the soldiers from this unit is that General Lucas and I were reflecting on this in the car ride.
06:36These kind of moments, especially if you've deployed, we've gotten to see them more frequently.
06:41The trauma from them often doesn't hit for weeks or months on it.
06:46It doesn't come as quickly as you might think.
06:49And so what we try to encourage for all of our soldiers is to speak up, lean on each other, lean on your leadership, and we will provide the resources we care and the love that they need to recover.
07:00General, can you take that on the globe, too, real quick, just about what it was like to meet with those families as well?
07:04Yes, sir.
07:05Thank you for this question.
07:06It's heartbreaking.
07:07It's painful to see them struggling with a wounded family member.
07:13They expressed that they were incredibly proud of their soldier, as we are.
07:18And then they asked for prayers, so we appreciate all the prayers that have been sent our way, and we would ask them to keep them coming.
07:24General Lucas, Chris Rieger with NBC News.
07:27Yeah, Skyler with CBS News here.
07:29Quick question for you.
07:30Can you describe the condition of those who are injured?
07:34I know, General, you say they're expecting to be okay with just the nature of the injuries in life.
07:41Yes, sir.
07:42Of the five wounded soldiers, three were released yesterday, which is amazing, considering the circumstances and the ranges in which they were engaged.
07:51One soldier remains as an inpatient here at Wynn Army, Brett Buren and Troy Stewart.
07:55She's doing very well in high spirits.
07:57Of course, she's got a little bit of the road to recovery.
08:00We're hopeful she may be released as early as this weekend, but that will just depend on how things he will over the next couple days.
08:06And we have one soldier that remains at Savannah Memorial Community Hospital, who has been with the Secretary this morning.
08:11She's got a little bit longer road to recovery.
08:14The doctors are very positive that I think it's going to take her a bit longer to recover, but they're very hopeful she's going to make a complete recovery.
08:20General Lewis, this is Priya Schrieger with NBC News.
08:29I think it's going to be a little bit longer when you go to war zones or on combat deployments.
08:32But have you gotten an opportunity to speak to some of the soldiers in this unit about how they're processing that this attack occurred from one of their own, and how are you processing that as a leader?
08:44Yeah, I think we trained for this on the battlefield, and it's a different situation when it happens on installation with one of their own.
08:51So I think over the upcoming days and weeks, as the Secretary said, people are going to process this and work through this at different rates.
08:58And we know we've got to keep a very close eye on them.
09:02We've got a great community here, a great response.
09:04As you saw from all the folks the Secretary recognized this morning, the support from the local community, just amazing.
09:12So we feel that this demonstrates that we trained internally for the worst-case scenario, and our doctors and our medics and our soldiers responded to exactly as we trained them to do.
09:22And now our job is to train and care for them to work through this thing.
09:27And I just want to recognize, behind me to the right, these are the six soldiers we were able to recognize today.
09:34And they, I mean, this is sincerely seen as possible.
09:38I and the administration of President Trump did not be more proud of them.
09:43They are everything that is good about this nation.
09:46They are the best among us in our country.
09:48They are the best among us in Germany.
09:50They acted in a way that I think all of us hoped we would under fire, but they did.
09:55And so we are just so incredibly proud of them.
09:59We are so grateful for them.
10:00And one of the things we told them, and their colleagues, is that we will stand with them as long as we need to, to get them back where they need to be.
10:09You responded to the VAT.
10:11Can you all give us a sense going forward, what's going to happen next where the criminal justice process goes?
10:17Has the suspect been actually charged yet?
10:20And if so, what charges are you facing?
10:23The military system works a little too.
10:25It does.
10:26The suspect is currently in custody.
10:31And we are working through the military uniform code of military justice process at this time.
10:38Is it going to be transferred to a military detention facility?
10:41That is likely.
10:42Do you know when or which one?
10:45You also talked about processing the scene.
10:47Can you tell us what's going on today with processing the scene?
10:50I imagine you're showcasing the pictures.
10:52Can you just describe that for a long time?
10:53Certainly a tragic scene where our soldiers trained.
10:58But the process of the scene would normally encompass physical evidence, forensic evidence, trace evidence, all of those things which our team is currently doing.
11:09And was this captured on video since it was inside the facility?
11:12I can't comment on that.
11:13Okay.
11:14Just a quick clarification from yesterday.
11:16You were told that the team of command is not aware of the arrest for the DUI office.
11:24Can you explain if you had been aware of what the procedure would have been?
11:29Would he have been disciplined?
11:30Would he have been doing now?
11:32And because we are one day in the investigation, we can't reveal those types of things.
11:38I think what we try not to do is speculate or do hypotheticals.
11:42So each soldier, each instance, we take very seriously something like a DUI or another issue that's occurring in the community.
11:51That impacts how we treat that soldier in our formations.
11:54We want holistically powerful and controlled and competent soldiers.
12:01And so we are constantly reflecting on our mechanisms, procedures as an army, so that we're able to capture that information and hold soldiers accountable.
12:11Are they usually disciplined after an arrest?
12:14It varies based on their case.
12:16Any other questions?
12:18We got time maybe for one more question.
12:21Yeah.
12:22Jill Kovac from the Atlanta General Constitution.
12:25General, could you speak at all, just to give some insight at all on the acts of bravery that you've heard about in this episode?
12:33Yeah, sure.
12:34I think, as the Secretary mentioned, we have six historical soldiers behind us, but this is just representative of the larger formation.
12:42Once, once the shooter was identified and the threat was identified to that soldier, then immediately erased and tackled that soldier, wrestled the gun away.
12:51So doing a second non-commissioned officer, John Tom Cox, before he was sharing him until the police had arrived.
12:57And then simultaneously no one hesitated.
13:00Most of these soldiers behind me and others of the crowd immediately started flying first stage and most importantly stopped the bleeding.
13:06And when we spoke to the surgeons in the hospital, it was clear that the actions they took primarily stopped in that meeting before they were loaded up into ambulances and quickly evacuated in our medical service.
13:18Are they back to work today?
13:20I'm sorry.
13:21Are they back to work or are they taking some time off?
13:23Well, today is a day that we focused on bringing the brigade and the unit together so they can support one another so we can, of course, get right back at it.
13:31But it's also a day where we're going to focus on ensuring that we're getting the support from the unit.
13:36General Lucas, can you give us a general sense of how long this all happened from that first shot fired to when your brave soldiers were able to tackle the gunman?
13:45I can.
13:46It was an incredibly fast response and I do attribute this to the training that this installation has done and the teams here have done.
13:53So approximately 1056, the incident was reported and that went out over sort of an off calls in it.
13:59That triggered a lot of responses.
14:01That triggered our installation of emergency medical services, our police, our fire, our emergency medical services to respond.
14:07But it's also monitored by the local community and then we requested assistance.
14:12At 1114, we locked down initial lockdowns and installations.
14:17So that was pretty quick.
14:18That wasn't me.
14:19That was the director of DDS and the garrison commanders that immediately made that break ball and that decision.
14:25At about 1109, emergency personnel were dispatched to treat the wounded.
14:30At 1135, the shooter was out behind it by the soldiers in the arms.
14:35Several behind us and several in the crowd that we recognized earlier.
14:40So really what that means, we had about 13 minutes after that first report,
14:45we already had people, ambulances, fire, fish and game, military police responded and were on the scene.
14:53And then we had local support from the amazing community here.
14:57We had the first SWAT team arrive from off post within 20 minutes on site, which is truly incredible.
15:02So we're incredibly grateful for the support from the community and I'm incredible for our leadership that trained our soldiers to react this way.
15:10And as the Secretary Secretary said, we're incredibly proud of the soldiers themselves.
15:14Unfortunately, that is all the time that we have.
15:16Thank you guys for coming.
15:18We're going to stand by.
15:20I think we have some time that we can talk to the soldiers.
15:24But unfortunately, that's the time that we'll have with the Secretary back with their own.
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