Collegiate Times

Some days, I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed. On April 16, 2007, that was an understatement.

The morning flowed normally; I had my nine o'clock, Civil War history, followed by a lengthy break before my afternoon classes began. Upon returning from campus and switching on the television, I quickly learned that something completely foreign to the town of Blacksburg had just occurred. Someone had a gun in an academic building. Virginia Tech, my home, was under attack.

My roommates and I spent hours glued to the television, trying to pluck any piece of relevant information from the ensuing barrage of media. In and out of fielding countless phone calls on an overloaded cellular system, we learned what we had never expected and always dreaded: we were the victims of the most violent crime in the history of higher education, leaving 33 dead in its wake.

I sat back, helpless as I awaited the names of those lost. My notion of community had just been obliterated, and the Hokie Nation appeared to have been fractured beyond repair.

Confused, afraid, and tired, I spent the rest of the day in a sort of disconnect. My thoughts had been lost deep, deep inside my head, and sorting through the volume of information I'd taken in that Monday was too difficult a task for one day. I slept that night and awoke a wiser - but warier - individual. Some days, I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed.

So we find ourselves touching again on a troubling past. After watching a year glide by, seemingly much too fast, the time has come for us to reflect on the events that took place that day, and what one angry man's actions did to shake the foundations of an entire university.

Cho aimed to destabilize what we held dear, and in part his victory was assured, but only for a moment. What he did not expect was a resilience among this community that he will never have the opportunity to see.

As Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff, and alumni, we have spent the last 12 months showing the world not our ability to go down with a punch, but rather to rally in the face of ubiquitous despair. If we had doubted our sense of self and togetherness prior to April 16, the question of solidarity no longer needed to be asked. Never has a community come together with such conviction and downright heart.

Never have I felt a presence so powerful on this campus, and never have I seen such a heavily wounded community rise to its feet as readily as ours. If the vultures within the national media came today to see a campus downtrodden, they will find themselves sorely surprised.

We have emerged from the most difficult times of our darkest hour, and we take today to look back into that void with reverence and mindfulness of those who are not able to share it with us.

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