The Virginia Tech Tragedy

While working away at my desk this morning, I learned of the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech University. Nearly 25 years ago, when I was still an undergrad, I spent a weekend at Virginia Tech that was one of the most fun weekends of my life. Consequently, I’ve always had very fond memories of the place. Today’s news was shocking, to say the very least. That this sort of thing continues to happen is nearly incomprehensible to me. My friend Tom Perry is a Virginia Tech alum, as is fellow blogger and regular reader Ken Noe. I can’t imagine what they must be feeling tonight knowing that something like this happened at their alma mater.

Susan and I have an old friend named Melissa Delcour. Some of you may know Melissa. She is a high school teacher in Virginia who has worked as a staff historian at the Fredericksburg/Spotsylvania battlefield park. This evening, we got an e-mail from Melissa indicating that one of her former students, a lovely young woman named Emily, who graduated from high school last spring and was wrapping up her freshman year at Virginia Tech, was one of the casualties today, struck down in the flower of youth. Hearing that–being able to put a human face on this senseless tragedy–makes it all the more real and all the more personal.

My heart goes out to Emily, her family, the rest of the victims, their families, and everyone else whose life was touched by today’s events. We can only hope that nothing like this will ever happen again, although I fear it will.