The response at Virginia Tech makes me proud to be an American so far

After the all the terrible news about the massacre at Virginia Tech, the details are starting to come out to the public. The details will still be coming out for days, and most of us know how unreliable first reports are. Most of us frustrated for the real details know to wait and think. And most know not to be distracted by all the other murders which occurred in America during the same day. All calls for firings of university leaders, for example, are based on incomplete data. So is this post.

Rather than focus on all that was wrong, this post chooses to focus on the response. Given the situation presented over the morning in Blacksburg, there are many things that Americans should note with some satisfaction, maybe even some pride. Hard to say given the massacre I know, but lives were also saved by the response … a Hokie and I think American response.

Many people sacrificed themselves in defense of others. Most were professors as reported today, to include a Rumanian holocaust survivor who had to come to Blacksburg to be murdered, as it turned out. He and others are real heroes when they made snap judgment decisions that it seems saved many lives. In doing so he probably suffered pain and stared death in the face, but persevered.

Basic first aid, taught by the Boy Scouts, and self applied in one student's case when he used expedient materials to apply a tourniquet to stop his arterial bleeding and probably dieing, is deserving of credit to an American way. Being Scout trained he probably knew he might be sacrificing his lower extremity, but he made his choice. The details will come out later, of course.

If one lives in a rural area, as Blacksburg is, one might expect lower medical care standards, which is historically correct. But the times have changed here in America. The medical response from the EMT level, the concept of triage to focus medical efforts, the communications to work together, the organization of the local hospitals and quality of the personnel there and on call, the whole system of making medical judgment calls and evacuating to higher levels if need be, and having the means, is truly an American infrastructure ability unique in the world. If some wacko is going to shoot and try kill me, I hope it is in America.

Last is Hokie pride. For those not sure, the nickname of all Virginia Tech is the “Hokies”. In today’s memorial events on campus, the word was out to dress in Hokie colors, not the black of mourning. No wacko will dominate the 26,000 students and faculty and staff there. This is so American.