BOSTON -- Before she was praised as a national hero, the police officer who faced down a gunman at the Ford Hood army base was employed at a pub in Massachusetts, according to former co-workers.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley was shot multiple times in Thursday’s attack at the Texas army facility when she exchanged fire with the gunman, risking her life to end the mass shooting. Munley is in stable condition at a Texas hospital.

Patrons raised their glasses at Dunn-Gaherins pub in Newton Upper Falls on Saturday to toast Munley, who owners recognized as a friend and former employee when they saw her picture in national news reports.

Megan Cullinane, who led the toast from behind the bar counter, said Munley moved to Massachusetts to be with her boyfriend and became fast friends with her co-workers.

“We became her new family,” said Cullinane. “We’d spend holidays with her and she moved into the neighborhood and we were her family for at least two years.”

Cullinane told NewsCenter 5’s Cheryl Fiandaca that she wasn’t surprised that her friend risked her life to end the massacre because she had aspired to become a police officer while she worked at the bar.

“It just seemed natural,” said friend Megan Cullinane. “It all made sense, actually, to find out that she stormed in there and took charge and saved lives.”

Munley was the first of two civilian police officers to confront the suspect, identified as 39-year-old army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, during a violent attack that left 13 people dead and another 31 wounded.

There has been confusion since Thursday's rampage about whose bullets actually brought Hasan down. At first, Munley's supervisor said it was her shot to Hasan's torso that leveled him, but army officials would only say that an investigation was under way.

Munley was wounded on the ground when the second police officer reached the scene of the shooting.

Calling her friend a “new American hero,” Cullinane said the patrons and staff at Dunn-Gaherins will throw a party for Munley if she returns to Newton after recovering from her wounds.

“We want her to know that Massachusetts is thinking of her, and that Newton, Massachusetts, specifically, is thinking of her, and we’re very proud of her,” said Cullinane.