Survivors of the horrific mass shooting at Uvalde Elementary School have begun to have interviews aired. Seeing these little kids recounting the trauma they suffered is heart breaking and I saw this clip: https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/uvalde-students-speak-out-after-surviving-school-shooting-140955205960 I think what breaks my heart is knowing they will not forget this and the memories will stay with them forever.
I know.
On December 13, 1972, I was 17 and entered my first period psychology class. I was a senior and life was good. Soon it would be my birthday and then Christmas. My best friend normally sat next to me and we’d pass notes but she was helping our guitar teacher that morning.
Our windows faced the quadrangle, which is where we could take our lunch breaks in better weather or take smoke breaks in the designated area. We could see the cafeteria. First period hadn’t really begun yet and our teacher was rounding up the rest of the stragglers before the bell rang. Suddenly, students poured out of the cafeteria into the quad, screaming.
We ran to our windows and opened them, letting in the frigid air. We wanted to know what was going on. A couple of girls stumbled over and yelled, “He’s got a knife! He’s chasing us with a knife!” Who? But then all hell broke loose.
Our teacher ran in and locked both doors to the classroom even as our assistant principal shouted over the intercom, “Lock all doors! Teachers, lock all doors! This is an emergency!”
Someone rattled our back door knob for a few seconds and then was gone. We heard pounding footsteps from the hallway around the corner from us, which then ran down to the cafeteria and music rooms. There was more screaming from one girl and the sound of a door slamming to the custodial closet in the hallway behind us.
A man was shouting, “Shut up! Shut up!”
The girl answered hysterically: “Get that knife off my neck!”
I can’t speak to you about what that 15-year-old sophomore was experiencing, being held hostage and being threatened with death by a custodian who'd totally lost his mind.
I can only speak to what it was like being in the next room and listening to her scream and beg and pray to God he’d let her go. And he would answer “There is no God and you are going to die.”
Once the SWAT team arrived, we had to lie down on the stone-cold floor. Some of my classmates began to sob with fear or in sympathy with the hostage. Our teacher was quick to hush them. “If we can hear them, they’ll be able to hear us,” she cautioned. “We don’t want to set him off and kill her.” And I can imagine the other teachers near the slaughter room comforting and quieting their own students.
So, we were quiet. Some continued to pray quietly; some whispered softly; some tried to occupy the time we waited. I was reading “Exodus” by Leon Uris and began reading. I tried not to think about what was happening or what might happen. I tried not to worry about my best friend. The floor was so cold and my stress must have been so high, my body began to tremble. The shaking would start in my toes, move up my legs to my torso, spread to my arms and hands so that holding the book was difficult and then even my head shook. The tremors would subside and then begin again all over. My fingernails turned blue.
It was May in Alaverde, so not cold. All the other students who had to hide were little, maybe 7-10? I wondered, were they able to move close to friends to whisper and hold hands? Did they worry about friends they had in the killing room? Did they read books too? It's not easy for a little kid to hold still for an hour. They're meant to move around.
It was timeless, all of us lying there. We could see SWAT officers right outside the windows, their huge rifles as terrifying as the girl’s piteous cries. They'd brought a negotiator with them. Did those hesitant police in Alaverde bring a negotiator? But in situations like that, a killer with an automatic weapon comes to slaughter, not to talk.
There did come a time, though, when the girl's screams and the man's shouts dwindled away to nothing. There came a time when we heard a noise at the back door and those closest to it saw adult feet racing a stretcher up the hall. We heard sobbing and knew the girl was safe and on that stretcher.
We all sat up. The relief and release of tension was almost palpable. Then we heard what I thought was one big blast and we all went diving for the floor again. The SWAT team shot the custodian at least 11 times when he charged them with the machete.
The assistant principal came over the loudspeaker again and said anyone who wanted to leave and go home, could. I stayed long enough to be reunited with my bestie. There were no feelings then, just cold numbness. Like a robot, I took two buses to get to our neighborhood. My brother met me there; he’d heard what happened on the radio at his school and walked out.
That weekend, news coverage brought tears. On Monday, the thought of going back to school brought on panic attacks but I went anyway. Our psychology teacher wanted us to write down what we remembered. What a horrible assignment. Still, I filled about 10 pages, my handwriting going from a neat script to a large scrawl. There was no such thing as crisis intervention teams or comfort dogs. I am glad the surviving children and teachers will have access to them.
Here’s what I know: after a couple of weeks, the worst of it seems to subside. Then a year passes and the anniversary comes up. Bam! Memories are so strong, it’s like it’s happening again. It’s the same with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th anniversaries and on days when something similarly horrific happens in a school. All these almost 50 years, it feels like a knife to the heart when something like Alaverde or Margery Stoneman Douglas or Sandy Hook, Buffalo, and every other place there’s been a massacre occurs. Thinking of what happened on December 13, 1972 hasn’t hit as strongly as it used to. It really does hit hard every time someone walks into a place (school, store, club, doesn’t matter) with an AK-15 and starts shooting to kill.
Those poor kids. They had to hide and be quiet. They had to hear the screams of their classmates in that room with the shooter. The little ones in there with the shooter had to think creatively and gruesomely to stay alive. Memories will travel with them, even if they get counseling. Counseling can help you understand why you remember these things. Counseling doesn’t make them go away.
Going without counseling is worse. Then you bury your feelings and memories. They come out anyway, in nightmares and depression and suppressed anger.
All because of a weapon in the hands of a person who never should've had one.
I understand the need for the 2nd Amendment. However, banning assault/automatic weapons is not undoing the 2nd Amendment. Civilians do not need AK-15s or any assault weapon. These are weapons specifically for killing people because of the mutilating damage they cause. That’s why some of the parents had to provide DNA, so that authorities could identify which unrecognizable child belonged to which family.
Thoughts and prayers don’t cut it anymore. Defensive and deflective tactics by the GQP don’t cut it anymore.
The GQP claims to stand for “pro-life”. No. They do not care about anyone once they are born. What happened to the GOP, that grand old party? Those that disagree with what the GQP shenanigans, why won’t you make a stand and do the right thing? Where is your courage, your backbone?
It's going to happen again and again because nothing is going to change. More survivors will be left with traumatic memories and more families will grieve. As for me, I'm doing what I can to advocate for automatic weapons such as the one used to murder those children and teachers to be banned.
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