They heard sirens, but not the gunshots.

The five Marble Falls High School students, who were at Fort Hood on Thursday for a job-shadowing day, were less than two blocks from one of the worse shooting sprees in U.S. history, but were never in danger, said all those involved.

“(The shooting) was in the vicinity,” said Herb Lewis, member of the Rotary Club of Marble Falls who chaperoned the visit along with his wife, Doris. “But we were always safe up there.”

MFHS juniors Hannah Walker, Krystofer Harber, Austin Sellers, Roger Crowder and Lindsey Walters were at Fort Hood for the annual Job Shadowing/Career Day, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Marble Falls for area high school juniors.

“We all want to go into the military,” Sellers said. “So we’re all kind of expecting (the possibility) of combat.” During the lockdown “we spent a lot of time watching the news,” Sellers said.

On the shooting affecting the perception of Muslims, Walker said: “You shouldn’t criticize all of them just because of one or two people.”

Reflecting on their day, Walker said: “We just want to say thanks to everyone on the base. They were all very enthusiastic. They kept us occupied.”

It also took the students some time to exit the base. “It took us about an hour to go less than a mile,” Harber said.

Lewis, who retired as commanding officer of the naval construction battalion center in Gulf Port, Miss., after a 30-year military career, has taken students interested in a military career to Fort Hood for the last four years.

The group cancelled their visit halfway through their day. They were under lockdown for about five hours during the shooting and aftermath.

“Our visit was really cut short,” Lewis said.

The five met at Marble Falls High School and left in the Lewis’ two cars. They arrived late morning, a few hours before 13 people were killed and 30 others injured in the shooting, starting around 1:30 p.m.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was the arrested gunman, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist and loner who authorities said used two handguns to shoot more than 100 rounds in seven minutes. All but one of the dead inside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Fort Hood were soldiers.

“But they always felt secure.”

For the full story, see The Highlander.