Egyptian said to be a hero in VA tech killings

[deemabrouk 0]

This is soo sad.. I didnt really know where to put it.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/ti...alan/index.html

[KHURRAM SERAJ 0]

Thank you very much, it's stories like these we need to email, post and tell people about as this is a person who belonged to the muslim world and showed the true colors of being one.

Thanks again

[noura 0]

I wanted to share a bit more, if y'all don't mind. My neice's cousin (I'm related to her by marriage) attends V-Tech and shared some thoughts on the incident in a recent email to my neice. I'd like to share it here.... it's an inside perspective from someone who would have been in that classroom had she not dropped it recently.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your support has been very helpful and

will continue to be. I wanted to share some

thoughts with you all in this manner as it is

sometimes hard to talk

Right now, but I feel that some of the feelings

I have are important to share.

I don't want to disturb you anymore because I

know that the news has been full,

but I am starting off with an excerpt from today's

Washington post,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/

article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802824_2.html?hpid=topnews

because it gives an accurate account from room

206, the class of my friends that I had recently

dropped.

"The first attack came in Room 206, advanced

hydrology taught by Loganathan. There were 13

graduate students in the class, all from the civil

engineering department. There was no warning, no foreboding

sounds down the hallway. The gunman entered wordlessly and began

shooting. Students scattered to get as far away from the door as

possible. One bullet hit Partahi "Mora" Lumbantoruan,an

Indonesian doctoral student. His body fell on top

of fellow graduate studentGuillermo Colman. Then

the shooter aimed his two guns around the room,

picking off people one by one before leaving.

Colman, protected by his classmate's

prone body, was one of only four in the room to

survive. The professor and so many of his disciples

, most of them international students, were dead.

Along with Colman, the three who survived were

Nathanial Krause, Lee Hixon and Chang-Min Park.

Two other members of the class lived because they

didn't make it in that morning."

This is hard.

Sometimes I can talk about it and other times I

can't. Our Grief the first days has been shock and desperation,

a trickle then a crashing 100ft waterfall within

minutes, fluctuating from hitting hard then

disbelief.

As we learned of those killed, more hope was pulled

together for those who hadn't been heard from even

though we knew no news was bad news.

Norris Hall room 206

was hit hard, we lost 10 friends in that room and

while there were 4 survivors,

I'm not sure how they will survive. I just

dropped that class and my friend Dave, who never

skips, skipped Monday b/c he had a paper to write

for another class. Initially, we thought that

maybe had we

been there maybe we could have helped but there were

brave men in that room,

strong men, men who would have done anything they

could.

When on Tuesday we had the last confirmations of

the dead, including Julia who sat to my right,

Dan who sat behind me, and Matt who

sat in front of me, I know Dave and I would have

been helpless, too and 12 would be dead.

The media is starting to focus on the killer and

administrative errors.

These should be investigated but please focus on

those who survived, those who did

not, and the friends and families of those affected.

Because our department

was hit so hard, we have had many memorials, small

and large. Please pray especially for my friend

Nathaniel who witnessed the whole thing and survived

unscratched. Like the book The Giver, he has

sickening knowledge that he shares with those of us

in the class and family

members who lost sons and a daughter to ease our

pain and his own. Our class was the first to be

hit and the last. Nathaniel lives with the images of

all the fallen, the suffering that could have been prevented

had the shooter not

returned to the room to shoot anyone moving, and

the knowledge that some may have been saved had

medical attention come sooner. Unlike undergrad

classes, no grad student sits

in the back of the class. Everyone is in the

first few rows attentively

taking notes, which is why they were hit so

quickly with no time to respond. I am

relieved to know that the prof did not suffer at

all but am sickened by his images of those did.

I want to share with you memories of my friends.

Dan, Jeremy, Juan, Matt, Waleed, Brian, and I

shared a large office together in 222 Patton Hall.

We didn't have cubes or anything, just a communal

room with desks pushed up against the walls. These

good people were masters and PhD students studying

water resources, working on projects like river

restoration, flood control, and watershed planning.

Dan O'Neil- one of the youngest grad students in

our department with dreams of

Ireland and Boston. He was psyched about my

moving to Boston and always gave

me names of Boston friends, new places to eat,

and I looked forward to him

showing me around the city. He loved the Beatles

and as every college

guitar player does, confessed to playing the song

"Breakfast at Tiffany's" over and over.

He also was a huge Dave Sedaris fan and we

often just sat on our office desks talking about

Sedaris' wild stories.

Jeremy Herbstritt- an enthusiastic student who was

able to make people smile by

just talking- he somehow acquired a surfer accent

despite growing up on a farm

in Pennsylvania. He was a great runner and always

tried to inspire me to run a marathon.

Jarrett Lane- a shy, intelligent undergrad taking

the grad level course. Even before all this, many

of us admired his desire to take such tough grad classes

Julia Pryde- an enthusiastic new grad student who

was passionate about

protecting and restoring the environment to help

the poor. She traveled the

world and was working on land erosion problems for

villages in South America. Her close friends say she

could travel

the world with her small backpack

because her spirit was all she needed and she

knew it- this was clear to all.

Juan Ortiz-Ortiz- humble man from Puerto Rico with

a good sense of humor. He was a newly wed and he

and his wife (also a civil engineering student) would

always warm up leftovers for lunch in our office-

the good smells usually making us all start lunch

earlier than we'd thought. They were a couple that

made you feel good. When she saw me yesterday, she

kept saying "I'm so happy you are alive" but I

keep thinking how can she utter the words "happy"?

She is a strong woman and is still working through the

awful bureaucracy for her to see her husband's body.

Brian Bluhm- very caring guy in my office who

constantly asked me about

friends and family after Katrina and was ready to

help if I asked. He was a sports fan and loved the Detroit Tigers.

He just got a job in Baltimore and was

excited about finding an apartment near his sister.

Waleed Shaalan- an academic perfectionist. I was

a teaching assistant for him and he wouldn't rest until he

fully understood why things were the way they were.

He was from Egypt and left behind a wife and a 1-and-half-

year-old son who he'd hoped to bring to the US next fall.

He was one of the best ping pong players during our November

office tournament.

Last week, another friend was having a rough day and Waleed

ran to his office and brought specially

shipped cookies from Egypt to share. He always

carried a well worn photo of his son in

his wallet and loved it so much he had another

friend in our office scan it so he could have more copies.

Dr. GV Loganathan- the best professor I have

ever had. I also had him in undergrad when I was at VT

for a year and was his teaching assistant for fluid

mechanics. When I dropped the class, I expected

the usual professor response (that being no response or

simply "ok").

He wrote in the email "We will miss you"- I

remember thinking, wow- this is a true teacher.

Having taught for so long and teaching the foundation

civil engineering courses, almost every civil engineer

undergraduate from VT has been touched by him.

Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan- called "Mora".

He was a quiet, humble man from Indonesia. His family

sacrificed everything for his education. He

received 2 masters and was inspired to be a

teacher so was going for his PhD.

Many times, I'd look over to his side of the class

and think of how he

looked like a brave warrior. In his death, he was

as well. When he was shot, he fell

on the body of my good friend Guillermo (Gil). By

falling on Gil, when the

killer came back, he heard Gil breathing but

thought it was Mora so shot Mora more times.

Miraculously, Gil survived and within 24 hours the

bullet in his head was removed and he was at home with his wife

and 10 month old son. Gil is adamant about people

knowing how Mora saved not only his life but the

lives of Gil's son, wife, and parents.

Mora was a true warrior.

And finally, Matt Gwaltney. Everyone in this room

was magnificent,respectful, and remarkably intelligent but Matt

hurts the most. I know many good men in my

life, but I have never so often had I thought

"This is truly a good man".

He went to undergrad here and stayed for his

Masters. Knowing the department

well, he always took time to guide my class

schedules, give advice on how professors give

exams, was notorious for caring about his students

(he would go to student's dorms on Saturday evenings to help

with homework, etc).

He was the biggest Hokie fan I'd ever met and

rehashed every play from the previous weekend.

He and Juan had the idea of turning the big middle

table into a ping pong table and setting up an elaborate bracket

system tournament last November.

I was the only girl in the office and the water

resources guys beingstereotypical engineers, I tended

to humor them.

A while ago I brought in acorns tops I'd picked up and put them

on our windowsill. Matt teased me a lot

about them but when our office was painted and we

realized they'd tossed my odd collection in the trash- I was fine

with this because they were just silly thing to keep- Matt

immediately started digging the trash, found each

one- smiling with each new discovery. I was so

touched by his enthusiasm I kept them all. He had

character I would hope all sons of the world

would have.

As tragedies seem to do, the events on Monday

reinforced lessons in life that we

all know but tend to forget. We must get to know

our neighbors at work, at home- the common thread

of humanity binds us all and if we do not know our

neighbors, we live in isolation and are not

blessed by the many personalities and vignettes that make

life full. Also, I hope that when I look back on days,

I don't just think of the projects I worked on or

deadlines, but focus on loved

ones and moments throughout the day that made me

smile. I think this is yet

another reason to "live life to the fullest"- we

cannot be frozen by fear. Many of the people in

that class traveled the world, touching lives

outside their comfort zone but enjoying every

moment. They didn't die in the jungle, from

contaminated water, or a street bomb

but were killed in a class, learning about how

water flows over land and benefits of streams.

Death can happen at anytime- if they hadn't experienced humanity,

the lack would have made it even harder.

I am especially touched by Dr. Librescu,

who died saving students decades after surviving

the Holocaust.

It's difficult knowing so many killed at once.

I always think back to the last conversation of friends

and family members I've lost. Losing 10 in a few

minutes makes the conversations so hard because

there are of all the interactions flowing through my

head. When I feel I've remembered one

friend my mind drifts to the next. My head knows

that my questions of why these good people died so

violently will never be answered but my heart

still searches for these answers. I know my heart

will come to my thoughts but it seems like an

impossible meeting right now. I hope that all of

us have the courage to go to counseling.

During our department's ceremony for room 206, we

had 10 white candles lit for the fallen and 6 candles lit for

the #206 survivors:

Lee, Chang Min, Gil, Nathaniel, Dave,

and myself.

A few people at one of the memorials hadn't heard

I wasn't in class and their celebrating my life was

very emotional as I had no idea they even thought about me. Many

times I wake up and think about what I have to

do that day- writing athesis, finishing homework, paying bills,

etc and sometimes have the sense that today will

probably not mean much in the broad scheme of

things. But seeing my green candle lit, I now

know I have a purpose. I don't know why we were spared but we

carry the hopes and dreams of our slain friends- to live some

of their dreams is all of our purpose.

I know this is going to be the hardest time in my

life but I hope that one day my other friends

and I can truly sing a song from my childhood. I have

looked to this song in other times of need and

especially with the water connection of

my friends, I especially like it now "Peace is

flowing like a river. Flowing out through you and

me. Spreading out into the desert. Setting all the captives

free."

The thoughts and prayers from you all are much

appreciated. While I feel helpless, I know I am

not alone and have support across the world.

All of us at Tech have felt the global unity and we are

moved by it.

Please remember my friends and the other fallen,

thank you.

Linds

[nouna 0]

Oh my goodness... thanks for sharing Noura... that's just too sad just to think had she not dropped the class... I can't even imagine...

[m&n 0]

This is so sad.....and it serves as a good reminder for me as well......because instead of being upset that this VJ is taking so long, I should try and be more grateful for things.....like the gift of life......he was going to be reunited with his wife in May......that is sooo close.....and yet that is not going to happen.

This is soo sad.. I didnt really know where to put it.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/ti...alan/index.html

[CountryBoy 0]

This is a very sad story, students should feel safe in the united states .. of all places .. but when teachers make reports that they are scared for their lives when a specific student is mentioned and the school doesn't do anything about it .. it makes me wonder if the school is more worried about getting that students tuition or the safety of the students ..

CB

[JODO 2]

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll...1/NEWS/70421020

[Donna A 4]

now thats what a true marter is....not one who thinks he can kill in the name of god and go straight to heaven.

[deemabrouk 0]

now thats what a true marter is....not one who thinks he can kill in the name of god and go straight to heaven.

You are 100% true.. This would be the true meaning of martyrdom.. Inshallah he will be taken to Jannah.

[aj1 1]

I think the family definetely needs our prayers. This is so unfortunate that something so horrible could happen like this. I feel so bad about this situation and i pray for this man and all the others and thier families who have to face such a horrible situation. Life is so precious and we should never take it for granted. In times like this makes me realize even more just how woderful it is to be alive and well. God bless all of these people and there familes.

AJ1