At first it was just two. As the morning unfolded, the story progressed. It went from two to nine, to 13 - the same number as the most famous school shooting in U.S. history. Two hours later, it was 32.

On April 16, 2007, in a small town in far southwestern Virginia, a student first shot two people in a dorm, before locking the doors of a university building and unloading his guns on anyone in sight. The shooting at Virginia Tech was the deadliest peacetime shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history, on or off campus.

As cliche as it may have sounded, on that day, especially those at universities across the country, everyone was a Hokie.

For those of us at the University of Washington, it immediately brought home the violence on our own campus. Just two weeks earlier a murder suicide in a university building had rocked the campus. It was not the beginning, nor even close to the end, of the violence that would shake the university for years to come.

In the weeks following Virginia Tech, questions lingered about loopholes, gun laws, text messaging systems and university security. The fact was and remains that sometimes things just happen. Securing an open campus, that anyone in a neighboring region can walk onto undetected, is nearly impossible. Especially when that person looks like a student.

Sometimes things just happen.

Around the country, many focus just on the death toll and the man who didn't. Little is made of the survivors, of which there were many, and even less of the heroes.

In room 204, Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, forcibly prevented Cho from entering the room. Librescu was able to hold the door closed until most of his students escaped through the windows, but he died after being shot multiple times through the door. One student in his classroom was killed. Instructor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak and student Henry Lee were killed in room 211 as they attempted to barricade the door.

As they attempted to barricade the door. In an effort to protect students, professors stood in the way of bullets.

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

In the 10-12 minutes of shooting, some 174 rounds were fired, all 9 mm hollow point ammunition, making the injuries far more severe. He killed 27 students, five professors and himself, while injured 17 more. Several additional injuries were reported by students who jumped from second floor windows.

There's a line in a West Wing episode where the president is responding to a fictional bombing at an NCAA swimming event on a campus. He says that several males swimmers were killed when, having heard the blast from next door, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire.

Hearing the commotion on the floor below, Professor Kevin Granata brought 20 students from a nearby classroom into an office, where the door could be locked, on the third floor of Norris Hall. He then went downstairs to investigate and was fatally shot by Cho. None of the students locked in Granata's office were injured.

Ran into the fire.

The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we are reminded that that capacity may well be limitless.

Yet still, on these days, when we spend so many days overcoming our challenges, we do not forget where we once stood. On these days the things that unite us are far greater than those that divide us. On this day, we are all Hokies.

But tomorrow: This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars.




- The Newseum, just a couple of blocks from my office, collects the newspapers from every city in the country everyday. There is a comprehensive index of the front page of every paper they collect from April 17th. It is enough to make you break down.