U.S. Navy photo by Doug Davant Sgt. Mark Todd talks to Dahlgren School.

At Fort Hood, Texas, the crazed shout of ‘‘Allahu Akbar” pierced the din of a noisy pre-deployment center. It was followed by more than 100 louder blasts from an ‘‘FN Five-Seven,” a 9-mm, semi-automatic pistol nicknamed ‘‘cop killer” that is popular with urban gangs because it can fire armor-piercing bullets. A total of 13 people died in the bloody fusillade of fire at the military base and 38 were wounded. A 39-year-old Islamic extremist loner who was an Army doctor at the center was alleged behind the shootings.

Responding to the 9-1-1 distress calls that immediately went out from the center was the DoD police team of Sgt. Kim Munley and Sgt. Mark Todd. They recognized the gunman as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. Both were forced to open fire to stop the terror-dealing madman when he turned his weapon to face them. Munley was the first to get some shots off at Hasan and was originally credited by the news media as the one who took him down. But she was wounded in the encounter and a later probe found that she probably didn’t hit him. Todd wasn’t wounded and his shots were the ones that stopped the mad assassin.

Todd later told newsmen of the account. “He fired at me and I fired back. I was about 15 yards away. I could see into his eyes and he was calm. We did what we had to do, I wish we could have got there sooner,“ Todd said.

Todd was at the Dahlgren School recently and related also a little bit of his life and a bit about the terrible tragedy that day to the middle grade students (Grades 5-8) here.

He reported that he and Munley ‘‘just happened” to be teamed together that day and were nearest to the incident when the call came in.

‘‘She’s a SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactical) officer and I’m a K-9 handler,” he said. ‘‘We had never been partners before and haven’t been since we just happened to be filling in together on the road that day,” he said.

He also recalled the blur of activity after they got the call.

‘‘Really, everything happened so fast when we got there,” he said. ‘‘Then our attention was on those who were hurt.”

But Todd said he wasn’t at liberty to go much further into detail about the shooting.

‘‘It hasn’t come to trial yet,” he explained, ‘‘and I can’t say much more about it or the alleged shooter.” Instead he focused on his job as a police officer and took questions from the students about his chosen career. Most of the questions were about the dogs he usually teams with and trains.

‘‘What is your favorite thing about a dog?” one of the students asked.

‘‘His ability to smell things a person cannot detect,” Todd answered. ‘‘When you go into a pizza parlor you smell pizza and probably are hungry. When a dog goes into a pizza parlor they can smell everything in that pizza...the tomatoes, the cheese, the different toppings, the flour used even the hands that made the pizza,” he explained.

Todd said he didn’t have a dog with him on that fateful day at Fort Hood but indicated that when he did have a K-9 partner he always had a real good friend he could always count on.

‘‘The best thing a dog has ever done for me was when I was investigating this building a long time ago. It was real dark and I couldn’t see much. We went up to a door and my dog immediately sat down, indicating that there was something bad behind the door. We called in extra people and discovered that a bomb had been placed there,” he said.

The police sergeant also admitted to being real scared in situations such as probing dark buildings and facing down crazed gunmen but pointed out to the children ‘‘you still have to do what you gotta do and what you’re trained to do!”

He also admitted to ‘‘being nervous” when being barraged by television appearances and famous dignitaries afterward. He’s been on several news segments all over the country plus the Larry King and the Oprah show; he’s also met the governor of Texas, congressmen, senators, and the president of the United States.

‘‘President Obama was when I was most relaxed though,” he told the Dahlgren School. ‘‘He acted just like another person who puts his pants on just like me, one leg at a time.”