TheDOCTORdre
04-18-2007, 04:37 PM
When I was in high school I bled Sweetwater Mustang Red, now I bleed burnt orange for the University of Texas Longhorns…nevertheless I bleed. You can find sayings like this all across the nation, from campuses on the east coast to the west coast and all campuses in between. “I bleed ___” (enter appropriate school color.) Due to a tragedy, I was reminded of school pride earlier this week. As I watched Primetime last night, I saw Chris Cuomo reporting live from the campus of V. Tech and he was telling of how he had heard the question many times during the day of “What actually is a Hokie?” He then posed this question to a student that he was interviewing to which she replied “I am a Hokie.” My mind was then taken back to earlier in the day when I was on Facebook and I noticed a group that had the statement “today we are all Hokies.” I began to think to myself how true it was that we had all become united through a single horrendous act, and we were all Hokies, as the Hokie nation was in our minds, hearts and prayers; even though all were not directly linked to Virginia Tech. You see after the events that transpired at Virginia Tech on Monday, it was not surprising to see the community come together and become closer than ever, in fact it was expected because they all bleed Chicago Maroon. It also came as no surprise to me to see the ripple effect it had on the country and how it even united the whole country because when something like this happens, it is only human nature to ask the what ifs, “What if it happened here?” or “What if it happened to someone I love?” And as we begin to ask those questions it touches us even more deeply and we feel for the victims and their families even more so. You see a tragedy like this is a reminder of life and its counterpart death, and although we do not all bleed Chicago Maroon like they do in Blacksburg, Virginia, this past Monday united us because we were reminded of the fact that we all still bleed.