Francheska Velez, Pregnant Chicago Woman, Among Fort Hood Shooting Victims
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A pregnant woman from Chicago is among the 13 people killed in the Fort Hood shootings Thursday.
Kelvyn Park High School graduate Francheska Velez, 21, had just returned from Iraq, and was pregnant, her uncle told CBS 2. She had been in the Army since February 2007, according to her Facebook page.
The military has not confirmed the names of the 13 people killed.
Unnamed sources told Fox Chicago that Velez had only been back on base for three days and was in the building where the gunman opened fire to fill out paperwork related to her pregnancy.
Velez is the second Chicago-area casualty of the rampage. Army private first class Michael Pearson of Bolingbrook was also killed in the shooting spree, the worst on an army base in U.S. history.
UPDATE The AP's report on Velez:
Francheska VelezVelez, 21, of Chicago, was pregnant and preparing to return home. A friend of Velez's, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing.
"She was like my sister," Ramos, 21, said. "She was the most fun and happy person you could know. She never did anything wrong to anybody."
Family members said Velez had recently returned from deployment in Iraq and had sought a lifelong career in the Army.
"She was a very happy girl and sweet," said her father, Juan Guillermo Velez, his eyes red from crying. "She had the spirit of a child."
Ramos, who also served briefly in the military, couldn't reconcile that her friend was killed in this country -- just after leaving a war zone.
"It makes it a lot harder," she said. "This is not something a soldier expects -- to have someone in our uniform go start shooting at us."
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Huffington Post First Posted: 03/18/10 06:12 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 03:35 PM ET