A South Dakota soldier's duties often take her to Fort Hood.  Any time South Dakota Army guard soldiers are sent to Fort Hood, Sergeant Major Kris Tvinnereim accompanies them with all the paperwork as they prepare for deployment overseas. Twinnereim, who's based in Webster, has been to Fort Hood around four or five times. And despite the tragedy, she has no concerns about returning to Fort Hood for her next scheduled trip.

Sergeant Major Kris Tvinnereim is very familiar with the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, the location of the deadly shootings. That's where she oversees the processing of South Dakota guard members when they arrive at Fort Hood.

"It's a long way from here from South Dakota obviously, but our soldiers go to all mobilizations including Ft. Hood, so our hearts go out to those people because the guard and the army is one big family, Twinnereim said.

Tvinnereim spends between a week to ten days each time she's at Fort Hood, which is the largest U.S. military base in the world.

"And they have gate security, they have a lot of measures in place to protect people, but I don't know how you could have prevented this," Tvinnereim said.

Tvinnereim calls the shootings "a terrible tragedy;" an unexpected act of violence that turned soldier against soldier. She returns to Fort Hood in December to prepare the way for another South Dakota guard group's deployment next spring. Tvinnereim says she's not worried about her safety, despite the costly loss of lives.

"Since we're going so soon, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of things that might be a little different, but I'm sure they'll get back to business and do the job they've been hired to do," Tvinnereim said.

There were no soldiers from South Dakota guard units at Fort Hood at the time of the shooting. But Tvinnereim says that's little consolation, because every soldier matters.