WONEWOC - As more than 400 people here remembered Capt. Russell Seager, his bloodied Madison-based Army unit is awaiting replacement members before it ships out to Afghanistan.

Seager, 51, of Mount Pleasant, was one of three members of the 467th Medical Detachment killed Nov. 5 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed 13 people. Surviving members of the unit have been receiving the same kind of combat stress counseling that they will give soldiers returning from battle, said Capt. Robert LaFountain, who commands the half-dozen members of 467th who are not going overseas.

"I think they are doing fair to middling," LaFountain said following Seager's funeral. "Like everyone else we have a mixed bag of emotions but more of them saying let's continue on. Let's move forward."

Even the soldiers who stayed back in Wisconsin have undergone "critical incident debriefings," the first step the Army uses to determine if soldiers need help with their grief and anger after being wounded or losing comrades.

"We're holding on to one another," LaFountain said.

Seager's funeral service follows Friday's funeral in Kiel of Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29. The funeral for a third member, Maj. L. Eduardo Caraveo, 52, of Woodbridge, Va., is scheduled for later this week at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The gymnasium in Wonewoc, where the first boy's basketball practice of the season was to be held instead hosted Seager's flag-draped casket, picture boards of his life including his wedding, the birth of his now adult son Joe, and his graduation from Cardinal Stritch College.

"I think that Russell would encourage us to help others," said Chaplin Major Melinda Riley, during her eulogy. "Not because it's the right thing to do or because we should do it, but because he discovered that we are most alive when we are sharing our lives with others."

More than 120 members of Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts from Wonewoc, LaValle, Ontario, Elroy and other communities near this southern Juneau County community of more than 800 people, saluted Seager prior to the service and lined the short route from the gym to the cemetery across the street. A brief service was held next to his mother's grave but Seager was not buried in the cemetery and will instead be cremated.

Mental health professionals

Fifteen members of Seager's unit, based in an armory on Park Street, were in predeployment processing at Fort Hood when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire.

The unit is made up mostly of mental health professionals - psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, mental health technicians - and occupational therapists who can help soldiers adapt to disabling wounds.

In addition to the three killed, three other unit members are still recovering from serious wounds, LaFountain said.

The three are Capt. Dorothy Carskadon, 47, who had an apartment in Monona and was originally from the state of Oregon; Sgt. Shawn Manning, 33, of Lacey, Wash., and Sgt. John Pagel, 28, of North Freedom.

At some point they will be declared battle-ready or sent home, LaFountain said.

There isn't a date set for the unit to ship out, but before it does, it will need replacements for the dead and for any wounded who haven't fully recovered.

One replacement will be Sgt. Kara Hurtig, the wife of a unit member who witnessed the shooting but wasn't among the dozens killed and wounded, LaFountain said.

Hurtig, a Janesville member of the 467th Medical Detachment, had planned to stay home, but last week joined the unit, and her husband Sgt. Richard Hurtig, who is also a member.

Fifteen from the Madison unit were joined by other combat-stress specialists to bring the 467th up to a strength of more than 40.

"I think we're a pretty close unit so we have the support of one another and the commanders," said Capt. Stan Chaffin, a nurse from the village if Oregon who has been in the 467th for 13 years. "I think in some ways were a little better equipped (to deal with the shooting) because we do have medical people. I mean that's what are unit is, a combat support hospital."

Staff Sergeant Sarah Elmer is among those who stayed in Madison so she could finish her pre-med studies at UW-Madison and graduate in the spring. She said members of the 467th remaining in the state have been helping the Army Reserves in providing services to the families of the dead.

"I'm doing OK," Elmer said Monday before the Seager funeral. "It's just all very surreal and upsetting, and there's just so many questions unanswered, so there's no closure."

Like the families of the dead, the soldiers want to know why the shooting happened, what could have been done to prevent it and why nobody picked up on warning signs that the shooter might have been becoming unstable, she said.

"It's been hard on everybody," Elmer said. "It's been hard on the families and on the soldiers down there.

"If they had been killed in Afghanistan the families would have been able to handle it better, but to be killed down there, it's senseless," she said. "I haven't been able to watch the news. I get sick to my stomach."