Wounded GI's first words to mom: 'I'm sorry'
U.S. Army Pvt. Najee Hull's first words to his mother after he was shot Thursday at Fort Hood were, "I'm sorry."
"He thought he had disappointed me. He knew I worried about him [being in the Army]," Yvonne Hull said Sunday in a phone interview.
As paramedics rushed the Homewood soldier to a hospital, his mother sought to reassure him.
"I said, 'I love you. You can never disappoint me; I'll be right there,' " she said.
Hull said her son is looking better than he did Friday, when she arrived at his hospital room with his brother Nate.
"He looked awful," she said. "He had tubes coming out of every orifice in his body."
Najee Hull has told his family he was the first one shot Thursday when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire at the Texas Army base, killing 13 people and wounding many others. Hull, 20, was hit twice in the back and once in the knee.
One of the bullets went into Hull's spleen, which had to be removed, his mother said. Najee still is having trouble breathing and his lungs are bleeding, which might require another operation, she said.
The solder is still heavily sedated and is using an oxygen machine, Yvonne Hull said, making it difficult for him to speak for more than a few moments at a time.
He knew several of the soldiers who died in Thursday's massacre, and he's still processing the whole experience, his mother said. "He said it was surreal, like it was some kind of movie."
He is expected to be moved to a veterans hospital in Illinois to be closer to his family. A 2007 graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School, he enrolled in Kentucky State University. He enlisted in the Army eight months ago to help pay for his classes, his family said. He was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in early 2010.
"He still wants to go to Afghanistan and fight for our country," Yvonne Hull said. "He's very patriotic."
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