"Thirteen people have been killed and thirty-one wounded. …The major was Nidal Malik Hassan. …he’d become increasingly hostile about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. …BBC World News." 

At 2:32 a.m. on Friday morning the Google’s top news caption read "12 killed in shooting at Ft. Hood Army base in Texas." The story had held headline since the afternoon. 

At early evening, it had seemed just another shooting. Some point along the way, maybe after Columbine or 9/11, tragedy had become a routine development. 

But as this narrative unfurled on the airwaves early Friday morning, it had found peak form. 

Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, "who had treated soldiers wounded in foreign wars preparing for foreign deployment at the post," as told by the New York Times, "had opened fire with two handguns at the Fort Hood Army post." He ended the lives of thirteen human beings.

Hasan is alive. He is an Army psychiatrist. "It was one of the worst killing sprees ever reported on a U.S. military base," the Times continued. 

Everyone wants answers. "More details are emerging," but the shooter, in critical condition, remains silent. Poised in real-time, Hasan’s mortalities speak for themselves.

5,270 American troops have died at war since 2001 and October has been the deadliest month in Afghanistan yet.

At least 93,000 Iraqis have died; the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan is unknown.