"Our prayers go to the families, friends, and to all of Virginia. This tragedy impacts our entire Nation, while challenging our own individual levels of healing."
From this morning's University Paper...
Our Sorrow, Our Resolve- writen by students:
Surreal. For an event that has touched so many lives and will define the year 2007 for generations, there are only a handful of individuals who were able to directly influence yesterday’s tragedy. For most students, whether isolated off campus or huddled in their residence halls, responding to worried parents and concerned friends came in futile sound bites * As numbers continued to rise, totals became more and more unbelievable to everyone around the country: The whole situation was especially exasperating to all those here at Virginia Tech * For students and Faculty Members, fellow Hokies - who are accustomed to our town, our campus, our world - this situation of despair, shock and a certain amount of helplessness. * There are still hundreds of questions left unanswered surrounding yesterday’s events. In the face of such devastating losses, lingering uncertainties about what caused it, who caused it and how it was handled will forever haunt our memories, but what is more important is to remember what we were before the tragedy . * We were strong, secure, confident - Team United. Seniors were preparing to graduate, Freshmen were finishing their first year of independence and all those in between were striving for an equal sense of accomplishment and success. * Those students and faculty who fell victim to senseless violence were an integral part of this unity and we, as Hokies, are lesser without them. It is vital that we reach out to their friends and families, and bear down against circumstances turned against us. Honor those that have passed, do not treat this day lightly based on your distance from those directly affected. * We are all affected, all our worlds have been shattered by momentary Chaos, and as a community we must begin to reconstruct a semblance of what our world was before these events. *
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech continually strives to accomplish the charge of its motto: Ut Prosim (That I May Serve.) ...May God comfort them all.
