One year ago today, my hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia, came face to face with a horror few American towns have had the misfortune of witnessing. To mark this somber anniversary of Seung-Hui Cho’s rampage at Virginia Tech, 32 senseless deaths, and the ensuing rush of emotions and wall-to-wall media coverage, I thought I’d take a break from the who’s-right/who’s-wrong discourse of politics to focus on more personal matters. Specifically, I want to relate the events of last 4/16 as experienced by someone who played an important and heroic role in the midst of chaos and tragedy: my brother, a lieutenant on the Blacksburg police force.
I grew up in Blacksburg, and my father taught in the business school at Virginia Tech for about 15 years. Though Tech isn’t my own alma mater, I have since childhood shared in all the joys and pride that the Tech community has felt over its accomplishments, as well as the occasional disappointment over its failures and shortcomings. On April 16, 2007, and in the months afterward, I shared in the deep and tremendous hurt that was felt by everyone who has ever called Blacksburg home.
My own experience of the most significant event in my hometown’s history was detached and surreal. My wife and I were in London on vacation that week, and heard nothing about events in Blacksburg until we returned to our hotel at around 10 p.m. Wolf Blitzer was airing at that time live from the “Situation Room” on CNN International, and I recognized the visuals of the Tech campus and flew into a panic before I’d heard a word Wolf was saying. From there, the next two days were an adventure in international phone tag and a total immersion in cross-cultural media, as my wife and I shuffled between CNN and the BBC and passed the American, British and European newspapers back and forth.
The British press, even Rupert Murdoch’s conservative tabloids, had a field day with this latest and most appalling tale of U.S. gun carnage. The event fed perfectly into the well-established international disbelief at America’s gun culture, and our refusal to limit access to weapons effectively. (The Telegraph that week also offered an object lesson in just how far America’s reputation has fallen during this decade; a front-page news (not opinion) article in the broadsheet noted matter-of-factly that Virginia Tech’s success in attracting eager foreign students was “at odds with America’s image as a world pariah, hated by all.”) (more…)
