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Letter from a current Omega brother at VA Tech.
This is a letter from an engineering student at Va Tech and member of Eta Lambda Chapter there.
am ((PDT)) Tech Shooting: A letter from a student on campus First and foremost, I want to send out my prayers to all of the families that were affected in this tragedy that took place at my beloved university today. I ask that anyone who reads personal accounts of the events that took place to please do the same. I am a student in the Aerospace Engineering department. With several teachers that have offices in Norris, which was the location of the second shooting, I have been through that building more times than I can account for. In my earlier years at Tech, I was a resident in West AJ, which was the location of the first shooting. Right now, its hard for all students, but especially hard for us engineers. At any given time, any one of us could have been in that building when the shootings occurred. The total is around 22 or so dead. These are students that I studied with, students that I had lab with, students that were studying all hours of the night at the Math Emporium with me. How can I feel right now? As I sit here and ponder my thoughts, I receive a phone call that a member of Students of African American Brotherhood, a fellow engineer was shot in his arm. There is no telling how many others that are friends that are injured. As I sit in deep thought, I remember when I was a resident in West AJ. It was supposed to be safe. We used to leave our doors open!! Thats how safe it seemed. Blacksburg was supposed to be this safe community--the perfect college environment to achieve academic excellence. We here at Tech are shaken. This event is going down in history as the worse shooting that a US university has experienced. It saddens me to the point that I drop to my knees where I stand to pray more and more. I am a HOKIE. My university is supposed to be prestigious. How could this happen? Why after the first shooting was the campus not closed down? Why were classes allowed to continue? If classes were cancelled after the first shooting, then maybe the majority of the fatalities could have been avoided. All of this pain may have been avoided. I really don't know though. I just know that it frightens me to seek the answers to those questions. It frightens me to find out who is not with us anymore because these are the people I interacted with on a daily basis. These were the students that I took tests with. All engineers go through the same curriculum for their first couple of years. So I know that these students were people I knew. It hurts to think of who could not be with us any more. Today, I was not on campus when this incident took place, but I could have been. My associates were on campus, my friends were on campus, my Line Brother was on campus. My sadness turns to anger. Anger that Tech put the people that I interact with, the friends that are so dear to my heart that I call them family in danger. That after the first incident, Tech not wanting to lose any money, decides not to cancel classes. Not to tell the students to seek a safe haven. They wait until the second shooting. I pray to calm my anger. I pray for the families of the victims. I pray for the shooter that God has mercy on his soul. I pray for the faculty here that didn't make the call to cancel the classes for the day until it was too late. I ask that anyone who reads this to pray with me, because at this point that is all that we can do. Horace Botts Aerospace Engineer Major Virginia Tech Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. |
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