The War on Terror, which has been going on since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, hit home again in Harford County last week with the murder of an Army officer from Havre de Grace in the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings.

Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, was one of the 13 people killed in the mass shooting attack Nov. 5 at Fort Hood, the huge Army post north of Austin.

Barbara Porcelli, also of Havre de Grace, was one of Lt. Col. Warman’s closest friends.

“She was beautiful,” Porcelli said Tuesday about her friend. “She was always smiling, always dancing, always looked beautiful. She was always wrapped in a shawl or scarf. She was very feminine, very classy. She was a beautiful blonde.”

Porcelli, who owns an antique store in Havre de Grace, was on her way to pick up her business partner from the airport when she received the news. A friend had called her to say Lt. Col. Warman had been killed.

“Oh my God, it was just not true,” Porcelli said. “I said, ‘I don’t understand.’ I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Forty-two people were wounded in the incident at Fort Hood, where a memorial service for the victims was held Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Warman moved to Havre de Grace in 2005 with her husband, Philip Warman, who is a lawyer. The couple shared a condo in Seneca Pointe. In addition to her husband, survivors include five children and eight grandchildren.

The Warmans, and their group of friends, often visited MacGregor’s, a restaurant less than two blocks from their Havre de Grace waterfront home.

The friends would often take vacations together.

“Really, my most favorite memories of Juanita are dancing. We did go on vacation to North Carolina together, all the girls,” Porcelli said. “It was very fun... She never said ‘no’ to dancing.”

“We have a very close-knit group of friends in Havre de Grace, it’s more like a family... one big family,” Porcelli said. “She’s an integral part of that family. She’s our sister. She used to pretend we were sisters.”

Funeral arrangements have not been announced, but Porcelli said Lt. Col. Warman will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia within the next couple of weeks.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, has been identified as the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood massacre. He was shot four times during the attack and remains hospitalized in Texas.

Lt. Col. Warman served the Army as a certified psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Her distinguished military career spanned more than 20 years in active duty and the Army Reserves, serving in the United States and in Europe.

Lt. Col. Warman had arrived at Fort Hood less than a day before the shootings in preparation for deployment to Iraq. She took “great pride” in her work with soldiers returning from duty and had volunteered for deployment to Iraq to better treat those armed personnel serving overseas, according to a statement issued by the family.

“She was looking forward to going,” Porcelli said. “She wanted to go to Iraq. She wanted to go there and be there and get them early and she was really excited about going.”

Recently, Lt. Col. Warman worked in the mental health division of the Perry Point Veterans Affairs Medical Center as a nurse practitioner.

“Juanita Warman was really interested in working with returning veterans and programs,” Christina Watlington, a clinical psychologist and coordinator for the post traumatic stress disorder clinical team at Perry Point, said. “She instantly got involved with us in with program development, finding appropriate groups and outreach for veterans.”

Watlington described Lt. Col. Warman as “dedicated, hardworking and committed.”

“I never felt like this was a job for her. It was a natural extension of who she was,” Watlington said. “She was very passionate about working with vets. She loved the military and felt the Army was her family.”

Lt. Col. Warman also volunteered for the Maryland National Guard’s Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, a program to help soldiers readjust after returning from overseas deployments. She provided mental health counseling and helped develop a program about the myths and realities of post traumatic stress disorder, according to a press release from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

A native of Pennsylvania, Lt. Col. Warman attended high school and college in the Pittsburgh area. She received her master of science in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh.

Among Lt. Col. Warman’s numerous citations, she received the Army Commendation Medal in 2006 for meritorious service as a psychiatric nurse deployed to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Porcelli also said she would like her friend to be remembered as “the pretty one.”

“She was a good soldier,” Porcelli said. “She was also beautiful, feminine and classy. A wonderful friend.”

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