The Virginia Tech Massacre

I already know what it’s like to wake up to the news of your best friend being killed. Now I also know what it’s like to wake up to the news of several students at a university being killed. While this affects me on a far less personal level, the quantity and scale of the massacre is alarmingly disturbing at best.

Imagine the scenario for the some of the students; the simple act of mis-setting your alarm clock, or sleeping through class with a hangover could have changed and saved your life. The best thing some of those poor kids could have done was to skip class on the ill-fated day of Monday, April 16, 2007 that many friends and families will never forget.

What about the people who did show up to class? The instructors planning to execute their lectures. The students looking to pick up where they left off taking notes. They were on campus merely attempting to carry out the process of educating and being educated.

What about the mass-murderer? I don’t care how bad of a day, week, month, year, or life you’re having, how can you possibly do that? How cowardly. How horrific. How thoughtless. And most of all, how can you so selfishly act?

Terminating the lives of 33 individuals, ruining the lives of thousands more family and friends, disturbing the peace of an entire university, and not having to face the consequences of your actions. How can one be so goddamn selfish? How disgustingly irresponsible.

Perhaps fellow MLB FanHouser and Virginia Tech student Nick Dallamora, who experienced the whole incident first hand on-campus said it best:

The sorrow I’m feeling right now is indescribable. The initial report said one person had been killed and my eyebrows stood straight up. When the number then increased to 22 and then 33 I felt physically ill. Both my arms became numb and I needed to go outside for air. Walking to my car, which normally takes 10 minutes, took me 45 minutes after I walked to the wrong parking lot and then couldn’t keep focus long enough to even comb through the second lot. As I randomly stumbled between cars I started to think about the kids who were actually in that classroom. How helpless they must have felt in their final moments. It’s the most unfair situation you can possibly be put in and now their families are left with nothing. He was killing himself anyway and decided to go out with a bang and take as many people as he could along with him.

My heart aches for all those directly affected today. You live through Tech.

Latest reports suggest the shooter was an Asian male student at Virginia Tech. In addition, a list of victims has been compiled.

I know things on that campus will not be the same for the next several years to come, same going for all the people who were personally affected. I can only wish you the best in a situation like this, and hope you can somehow take this negative, and do your best to turn it into a positive.