Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Heroes in the Virginia Tech Massacre

What a week this has been! There are so many unanswered questions and lessons to be taken from acts of random violence such as we have witnessed this week. But now doesn’t seem the time for that. We tend to move too quickly through life. With 24/7 news we think we are supposed to move from one event to the other seamlessly. By doing that we skip the important parts of life. The feelings. The grief, mourning and celebrating of the lives that have touched us along the way.

Events such as these have a way of exhibiting for us the best as well as the worst of human nature. While this is undoubtedly much too serious a topic for a meme, I’m doing it all the same hoping for your tolerance for this one week.

I think we will probably never know all that people did to help others on Monday. The witnesses aren’t here to tell us. But we do know some who rose to the occasion and showed the courage and honor that is the best of human-ness. Here are just a few ….

  1. Ryan ClarkRyan Clark, a 22-year-old senior from Georgia came to the aid of the first girl shot in the dorm. He was killed attempting to save the first victim of the rampage. Friends say such selflessness was a hallmark of Clark’s character.
  2. Liviu Librescu, a 75-year-old Holocaust survivor and professor of mechanical engineering blocked the door with his own body to give his students time to escape the carnage by jumping out of the windows.
  3. Zach Petkewicz, a senior who held a door shut in spite of shots being fired through the door, keeping the gunman out of his classroom.
  4. librescu and odellTrey Perkins, and
  5. Derek O’Dell, a 20-year-old sophomore all blocked the gunman from entering their classrooms at Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall during yesterday’s rampage. They laid on the floor while bullets were being shot through the door. The gunman moved on to another classroom and Trey and Derek survived along with others in that classroom.
  6. A janitor, whose name I don’t have, who ran to help others rather than running away.

    7. And who knows what these victims did …. no one can tell us ….

  7. G.V. Loganathan, 51, Blacksburg, Va., was a married father of two. A native of Karatadipalayam, India, the civil and environmental engineering professor was an expert in hydrology and water resources.
  8. Kevin Granata, 45, Blacksburg, Va., was an engineering professor. Originally from Toledo, the married father of three was an expert in movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.
  9. Christopher Bishop, 35, Blacksburg, Va., was a German instructor. Along with wife Stephanie Hofer, he helped oversee an exchange program with Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany.
  10. Jarrett Lee LaneJarrett Lane, 22-year-old senior. Killed in graduate hydrology class.
  11. Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Blacksburg, Va., was a French instructor from Canada. The mother of two girls, she came to Virginia Tech with her husband, Jerzy Nowak, the head of the horticulture department.
  12. Mary Read, 19, Annandale, Va., was born in South Korea to an Air Force family. She lived in Texas and California before moving with her family to Virginia.
  13. Nicole White, 20, Smithfield, Va., was a junior international studies major who spent her high school summers working as a lifeguard at her local YMCA.

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