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PLAINVILLE - A local couple is counting their blessings today while joining the grief of those who lost loved ones in the carnage at a Texas Army post.

Army helicopter pilot Keith Eastman, the son of Celeste and Cooper Eastman, was at Fort Hood, Texas, Thursday during the shooting rampage that left 13 people dead and more than 30 injured.

Eastman, 26, who grew up in Franklin, was not injured and managed to get word to his wife and mother, texting with a cellphone to let them know he was all right, but not until after some very tense few hours.

"The whole area is in mourning," Celeste Eastman, his mother, said of the post. She had visited the fort herself last week. "They are all very close. Keith doesn't know if he knew anybody" injured or killed.

Keith Eastman, a chief warrant officer, was in a meeting when the shootings occurred and the base was placed on lockdown. "He was locked up in a building most of last night," his father, said. "We apparently knew more than him" of what happened, via news reports.

His mother said she was unaware of what transpired until she left work Thursday afternoon. "I immediately tried to call him," Celeste Eastman said.

She later comforted her son's wife, Stephanie, by phone. "My daughter-in-law was upset for quite a while," she said. "Everyone was speculating. We didn't know if there were more gunmen."

"In our case we have a happy ending. Unfortunately, there are families that have lost loved ones," Celeste Eastman said.

Eastman is an Apache helicopter pilot with the 4th Infantry Division. He has been stationed at the fort since Aug. 1, and is being trained to head overseas next year.

"It is terrible to die overseas but it is horrible to die here," Celeste Eastman said. "It is very shocking."

The Plainville couple's answering machine has been filled with messages from friends and family inquiring about their son. "We've received phone calls from everyone," Celeste Eastman said.

She visited her son and his wife and their two children at the fort last week.

"It is the largest Army base in the U.S. It supports quite a number of people," Celeste Eastman said. "It is enormous. I only saw a small part of it."

The base is so big she said it takes her son up to an hour to go from where he lives on the base to where he works there. Keith Eastman has been in the Army for four years, having received advanced training in Germany. He was then stationed in Alabama for two years before graduating and heading to Texas.

A 2001 graduate of Franklin High School, Eastman was actually in an airplane taking flying lessons in New Hampshire when the planes struck the World Trade Center towers. At the time he was just starting at Daniel Webster College, where he earned a degree in flight operations. He obtained a commercial pilot's license.

"He just loves being up there in a plane flying around," Cooper Eastman said of his son.

Eastman started flying when he was only 14. "He was hooked," his mother chipped in.

"Even when he was 11 years old, I used to take him to Norwood Airport" to observe the planes landing and taking off, Cooper Eastman said.