My sister e-mailed me this photo. As of yesterday afternoon they were still in their home and had taken in friends who had to evacuate their neighborhood only four miles away. This was the view from Carrie’s backyard. I haven’t heard from her today but I imagine they had another sleepless night.
Cpl. William A. Long, an Army honor guard member who helped bury about 600 soldiers before deciding that he wanted to aid the military effort in Iraq, died in a grenade attack while there and was buried at Arlington National Cemetary on June 27, 2005. Brig. Gen. John MacDonald presents the American flag that was on Cpl. Long’s coffin to his mother, Susan Cordner. (Photograph by Jay Talbott/Scripps Howard News Service)
“Our heroes are those who act above and beyond the call of duty and in so doing give definition to patriotism and elevate all of us…. America is the land of the free because we are the home of the brave.” David Mahoney
We look at the empty eyes in a dead man’s photograph and we ask, why? The blame game has begun, the “if onlys” are ringing out on the airwaves, on web sites, and in living rooms across our country. But sadly and most importantly, those “if onlys” will haunt the hearts and minds of the teachers, administrators and students at Virginia Tech for many years to come. It is human nature to take the unimaginable and try to make some sense of it, to take a tragedy and try and break it down into digestible portions. We will hit the rewind button over and over again and say it is because we want to prevent another tragedy like this one, that we must learn from this incident so that the people who died did not die in vain. But I think what we really want to do is change the outcome of that terrible morning, and the reality is no amount of understanding, of well meaning “thoughts and prayers”, of misplaced blame is going to do that. Thirty-two people died because one troubled young man shot them—they did not die in vain—but they did die too soon. At the end of my first book the main character writes in a letter to her daughter;
While I do not pretend to understand the workings of the human mind, the failings of the human heart, or the forces that set one man against another, this much I do know. There is knowledge and there is ignorance, there is faith and there is despair, there is love and there is hatred, and in the end, it is simply a matter of choice, this is God’s gift to us.
I hope we can learn something from this tragedy that will keep it from happening again, I really do. But most of all I hope that the survivors and the families of those who died are able to let go of the “if onlys” before they become imprisoned by them, and that they choose to have faith in love—honoring and celebrating the lives of those who are gone too soon.
MSNBC has put up a nice page with photos and profiles of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting.
“It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.”
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Bookbabie came across some rather depressing books stats on Dan Poynter’s website this morning.
Who is Reading Books (and who is not)
One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
And then this afternoon the chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates, testified before the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee about the need to improve education and immigration procedures if the United States is to remain competitive in a global economy. Gates cited figures that show the U.S. has a low rate of high school graduation relative to many other countries. To make America more competitive, he urged Congress to begin by setting a goal to have every U.S. child graduate from high school, and to double the number of science, math and technology graduates by 2015.
So come on people, turn off the TV and get thee and thy children down to the nearest bookstore, pronto! Okay, bookbabie is climbing down off her soapbox now and going to read The History of Love, so far she is loving the first person voice of the main character, Leo Gursky.
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” Margaret Fuller
bookbabie 