U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Leroy Walker Jr. sheds a tear during a candlelight vigil held at Hood Stadium Friday November 6, 2009 on Fort Hood Army Base in Fort Hood, Texas. (EDWARD A. ORNELAS/AP)

FORT HOOD, Texas, November 7, 2009 (AFP) - Soldiers and medical personnel at Fort Hood, Texas, one of the nation's busiest posts, recounted a tale of horror following the terrifying rampage here when a lone gunman fired on scores of soldiers.

The troops, all war veterans, told reporters Frida that they saw carnage and confusion rivaling their worst days in Iraq.

But they singled out a petite, tenacious Fort Hood civilian police officer for preventing the toll from being far higher than Thursday's 13 dead and 30 injured.

Kimberly Munley, 34, was directing traffic when the first shots rang out in the early afternoon. She rushed to the scene and challenged the alleged shooter, psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, by pumping two rounds into him from her handgun.

Hasan charged at the woman, firing back, and both fell in a hail of gunfire that sparked what one witness called "controlled chaos."

Soldiers were ripping off shirts to use them as pressure bandages to stop the bleeding of the wounded.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey told reporters that one soldier dragged four wounded comrades to his pickup truck and drove them to Darnall Army Community Hospital, the post's medical center.

Neither Casey nor Army Secretary John McHugh revealed details about the 39-year-old psychiatrist thought to have been the lone assailant.

Hasan, a Virginia native, was shot multiple times by Munley, a weapons expert and member of the post's SWAT team.

He was in stable condition late Friday at Brooke Army Medical Center, spokesman Dewey Mitchell said, declining to reveal other details of his condition or injuries.

Witnesses at the shooting scene and at the Fort Hood hospital described the attack as a virtual replay of their own experiences in Iraq.

Veterans call the mass casualty events "mas cals," but this one was different in a significant way -- most victims in Iraq suffer burns and trauma as a result of powerful bombs, but the Fort Hood victims all suffered bullet wounds.

One witness, private Marquest Smith, said he saw Hasan walk between hundreds of soldiers standing in rows at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Center, firing at them with two handguns.

Soldiers returning from the war zone and preparing to deploy receive medical and mental assessments here, among other things.

"I feel very betrayed," said Smith, 21, from Fort Worth, Texas.

"He was in uniform. He was supposed to be in the fight with us, not against us."

Andrew Hagerman, a 27-year-old military police officer from Lewisville, Texas, was patrolling a residential area on the post when he heard a report of gunshots.

A few moments later he saw Hasan, shirtless and in combat pants, on the ground. Hasan was wounded and unconscious.

"You don't ever expect to see this when you're at home," said Hagerman, a two-tour veteran of Iraq.

Howard Appleby, a 31-year-old Jamaican on his way to see a psychiatrist treating him for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, said he had flashbacks of his two Iraq deployments while taking wounded troops out of ambulances.

When asked to describe the flashbacks, he replied, "I don't even want to talk about it."