Deleted Account 5,203 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I remember where I was. A fairly typical Monday morning for me. I got up at 9:30, because I had wind ensemble at 11 and it was less than 2 weeks until our spring concert, which was a trip to Virginia Beach. I didn't usually watch television, but I was flipping through the channels, and I see on CNN: "2 Dead from Virginia Tech Shooting". I call my girlfriend (now my fiancee), a sophomore at VT at the time to wake her up and tell her about it. She's dead to the world, but this gets her attention. She actually lets me go for once, so she can watch all about the news on television. I shower, shave, get dressed, and roll on to class on an unseasonably cold, cloudy Monday morning. I get out of Wind Ensemble at 12:30. I have 17 missed calls on my phone, most from people I hadn't talked to in a while. 5 were from my fiancee, so I listen to those. I hear about how an Asian man charged a building at VT and started opening fire, and how they didn't know if it was connected with what happened earlier that morning. She tells me how the morning shooting was in her very building, Ambler-Johnston. How she was just 1 floor above the commotion, and how she was shocked she couldn't hear it. How there was mass chaos all over the campus. How VT could even let classes go on with a dorm shooting, and how slow VT was to e-mail everyone about it. I get home, and my suitemates already have the TV on. Instead of 2 dead, I now see 22 confirmed dead. 4 guys, never at a loss for words, sitting there staring at a television, stunned and heartbroken. Speechless. None of us go to our afternoon classes, but our professor had cancelled them anyway. I check the 12 remaining missed calls. They're from friends and acquaintances at VT, calling everyone desperately to let everyone know that they're alright. One of them said that everyone from Graham was fine. Another was from a friend to let me know that 1 of the Marching Virginians, "Stack" Clark, was the RA victim in the dorm shooting. For the rest of the day, I'm watching the TV with my fiancee on the other line; I'm checking Facebook to see if there's anyone I know among the fallen; I'm checking online for any scrap of news that I can pass along both to my family and to my fiancee. That evening, a candlelight vigil is scheduled at the Amphitheatre at UVA on April 18th, the campus's first since September 11th, 2001; 65% of the student population, some 8,000, would turn out for that. The count of those lost peaks at 33, including the gunman; among those, a Holocaust survivor, a professor who'd just left UVA for VT 6 months earlier, the sister of a 4th-year at UVA, and 29 other lives cut down in their prime. One interesting aside. I had 5 target law schools on my list of hopeful acceptances. 4 had already rejected me. When the mail ran that afternoon, I went to my mailbox and checked to find my acceptance letter to Penn State. But given what happened that day, I couldn't feel happiness. I didn't let anyone know for a week. So that's my best recollection, 2 years after a great tragedy in our nation's history. And I still remember. In a world where sports takes up far too great a proportion of excitement in my life, I still remember that day and bow my head to pray for the saddest day in the history of my rival school. And I always will remember it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghstoga 10 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 Nice post UVAObserver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atmtaz18 10 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was in 8th grade. Suprised me to be so local, to be around this area Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMan 3,569 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 That day was anything but typical...it was cold/snowy/widny and I had the day off. I had slept in 'til about 9 AM and as usual, turned the computer on and started surfing. Techsideline.com was about the fourth or fifth website I visited that morning. It was all abuzz with reports of the shooting in AJ. Then shortly thereafter...the board went nuts with reports of more shootings in one of the academic buildings. I immediately turned on the TV, to CNN (my mistake)...no word of the shootings there yet. Then I flipped it to WDBJ-7...they had gone away from their normal broadcast in an attempt to report all the news they had. I continued watching/listening to WDBJ while I read the TSL board in shock...posts were rolling through that board like the tidal wave that swept the Indian Ocean in 2004. Panic, prayers, info...it was all on there. Someone on the board had posted they received a call from a friend in Norris Hall telling him there was someone in the building shooting and he and two others were hiding in a closet...the guy who called cut his call short "...someone's coming...". I suddenly had a cold chill run through my body knowing this was going to be a lot worse than the earliest reports indicated... Someone else posts..."just takled to my brother-in-law, he's an EMT in Montgomery Co., he says its awful..." Reality beginning to set in...reports of seven shot, then 13 shot, then as many as 20 shot... Someone else posts they are listening to the ordeal over a scanner "...they are saying they are classifying bodies...green, yellow, red, black...I hear lots of bodies are being tagged black...dead..." My bad feeling was coming true...reports of several dead...can this get any worse??? I stayed glued to the internet and television through lunch and into the afternoon... Another post on TSL from the guy who's brother is the EMT..."my brother just called, at least 20 dead, students and faculty..." Horrible...numb...why??? By mid-afternoon, the worst had been reported...33 dead, 32 victims and the gunman... A sad day to be a Hokie...a sad day to be a human being... We are Virginia Tech... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vthokies4life 10 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was in Pamplin Hall. When we got out of our 9:00 class, we were instructed to stay in the building. I had a couple of contacts there, so I was able to get some understanding of what was transpiring, but for the most part, we were clueless. Then at 11:30, we were let out, at which point I went and turned on a t.v. and saw the desturction. Crazy. Again. Thanks for the prayers everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deuceswild 15 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was waiting on the bus to go to class. We all got on then he just stopped. People were getting angry and yelling "We'll be late for class moron!" The bus driver said, "This bus is going no where". Disgruntled after about 20 minutes and confused as to what was going on, we all got off the bus and went back inside to our apartments. It was snowing that day. We went in and turned on the news and were shocked and horrified. We called and made sure all our friends were alright and demanded they stay far away from campus and for those already there, we just made sure they were safe. Time froze that morning. There was a lifetime between 9am and noon. We eventually packed up and went to Hardees for breakfast, we all wanted to get away from the news but all we saw were ambulances going up and down Patrick Henry Drive. We all thought, "There had to be 4 or 5 shooters right?" Austin Cloyd wasn't a close friend but I had met her a few times and she seemed like a really sweet girl. She's in a better place. I also remember the significant act of compassion by the UVA community when they painted "Hoos for Hokies" I think it was on the Beta Bridge (I think thats what they called it). That was really something special. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaveFan09 50 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was in my 3rd block 10th grade Biology class.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BEAVERTAIL Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was with Hokie07 pretty much all day that day, when the news struck in accounting class to the end during Entrepruenership later. Reality set in for both of us, especially since we were considering going to VT. I can just remember the toll getting higher and thinking it has to be a lie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan4VT 4,557 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was sitting in the Office of the High School. It was my office runner period. We( me, Kelli, the principal and assistant, all the secretarys) were watching in complete shock. The admin didnt care that we had our cells out trying to find out if our buddies were fine. It just dosnt seem like 2 years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beaverbaseball 10 Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 I was lying on my couch trying to recover from a broken tooth and mild concussion, when I was flipping through channels and saw it on CNN..My heart dropped..It was a tragic day and will never be forgotten... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JJBrickface Report Share Posted April 16, 2009 It was my senior year at WVU and I just came home from work when I turned on the tv and saw it. Very sad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8ball 10 Report Share Posted April 17, 2009 I was teaching -- I can remember making every attempt to contact the students and/or the families of the students that had went to VT -- we really have quite a few that end up as Hokies -- it was probably that day that I realized just how many! That was a very long day. We all need to remember this day and those that lost their lives that day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.png.01bb665814ffc257795fe158cb2045c7.png.8a531ac878a82772b21014d7a6167582.png){kind=logo}
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.