KILLEEN, Texas – Collin Gaddy ignored the ham on his plate and crawled into his mother's lap. His older brother looked up from a half-eaten slider. "They haven't slept well, and they aren't eating," said their mother, Sarah Gaddy, as she tried to maintain a Saturday breakfast routine at the Hallmark Restaurant.

Her ex-husband's co-worker was killed in the Fort Hood shooting. A classmate's father was injured.

"It doesn't matter where you are from," she said, stroking 5-year-old Collin's hair. "If you wear a uniform, you're family."

And in a town defined by its military base, everyone knows someone who wears a uniform. Army fatigues and out-of-state license plates are as common in Killeen as the fast food restaurants that line the town's two main highways.

Thursday's shooting rampage made the emotional intersection between town and base even more palpable as residents – from civilians in coffee shops to soldiers in hair salons – found themselves connected in grief and coping through daily rituals.

At the Hallmark, an institution known for its steak and eggs and early morning crowd, Mike Perez and Bill Turner nursed a final cup of coffee. Pumpkins lined the back counter, and Thanksgiving turkeys decorated the walls.

"People who don't live around the base don't realize how impossible it is not to be tied to it," said Perez, 50, a retired highway patrolman whose father was in the military. Turner, 71, said the usual din of the coffee shop was muted. Perez noted the lack of soldiers.

They grew silent.

Lynda Ellis walked over. She offered the men an embrace. "They call me the Hallmark Hugger," said the tiny 68-year-old, who grew up in Killeen and married a Fort Hood soldier. "That's what people need now."

Across Killeen, residents struggled for normalcy. The evening before, Starlite Station, a neon-lighted nightclub and popular spot for soldiers, had only five couples on the dance floor. The country music went dead at 10 p.m. for a moment of silence.

Patrick Chasse, 25, the nightclub's manager and a former Fort Hood soldier, summoned the music back – "American Soldier" by Toby Keith. "I'm praying to God [the victims] aren't someone I know," he said.

Upstairs, Brandi Bortle ordered another round of beers for her boyfriend and his friends. "We're not celebrating," said the 23-year-old nurse. She'd driven four hours from Houston to be with her boyfriend, who had been caught in Thursday's lockdown on the base. "We need to be with people. We need to do something."

He looked at her and smiled.

The women at Denise's Hair Design and Beauty Supply on Saturday afternoon felt a similar soothing in the rhythm of routine. But the smalltalk always drifted back to the horror.

Getarn Green, 42, replayed her Thursday scenario for a client as she unwove the woman's braids. Their conversation circled around her memories of that day: the sirens that alerted the neighborhood, her home's proximity to the gunman's, and the many calls she received from out-of town friends.

"We all thought it was another young soldier coming home to find his wife cheating," she said. "But it wasn't. This is our 9/11, all over again."

Even a soccer game at Lions Club Park lacked the same celebratory feel. Several women sat at a picnic table surrounded by pizza boxes and discussed the shooter's movement on the base.

After the game, Montoya Warren watched her 2-year-old son stumble after a soccer ball. Warren, who grew up in an Army family, pointed to the town's candlelight vigils, blood donations and front porch crosses – involving both civilians and soldiers.

"It keeps us living in the same world," she said.