Posted by
CDB on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 8:35:11 AM
In the last couple of weeks, the country has seen three incidents of school violence. Any reasonable person can't help but ask, "What is this world coming to?" It is times like this that I recall one of the stories from the Columbine massacres. It is the account of one of the young students, Corey DePooter, who chose to go into the library during lunch to study and who made the ultimate sacrifice to save others. From the May 4, 2000, Rocky Mountain News:
"Columbine victim's dream fulfilled" by Holly Kurtz:
[START EXCERPT]
He was the kind of boy who refused to play the bad guy in childhood
games of cops and robbers. Who admitted right off he had been speeding
when a trooper stopped him, then ended up befriending the man who gave
him the ticket.
Who wanted nothing more than to be a Marine, until the bullets that
flew April 20, 1999, at Columbine High put an end not only to his
lifelong dream, but also to his life.
Wednesday at Chapel Hill Cemetery, Corey DePooter's dream did come
true. He was named an honorary Marine in a ceremony held beside his
grave.
"Every time we see a Marine, we'll probably put Corey's face on that
uniform," said his grandmother, Fern Hamilton, after the ceremony by
Denver-based Marine Air Control Squadron 23.
Soon after DePooter's death, Hamilton had asked Marine Corps Gunnery
Sgt. Ricardo Davila whether the Marines might hold some sort of
ceremony for her grandson.
People had been asking her where to send flowers in DePooter's memory.
That got Hamilton thinking about what her grandson would have wanted
more than all the flowers in the world.
She remembered the family photo where a young Corey was wearing his
father's Army medal on his suit. She remembered how proud her grandson
had been when, at age 7, soldiers made a fuss over the master sergeant
bars she had gotten sewn on the fatigues she had bought him to wear
when they toured two military bases.
"What a small master sergeant!" they all said.
The Marines allow military funerals only for former military members.
So Hamilton asked if a couple of Marines might just attend her
grandson's funeral.
"We sent 20," Davila recalled.
Through this, Davila got to know the family, including the story
eyewitnesses told of DePooter's last minutes in the Columbine library
where he was killed.
Not only did he encourage other students to stay still and calm, he
also used his body to shield a boy and girl crouching behind him.
"Our son is alive today, at least in part, thanks to your son's courage
and bravery," one library survivor's parents wrote in a letter to the
DePooters.
Davila researched regulations to find out what could be done, and found out about the honorary Marine program.
"I think he would have made an outstanding Marine," Davila said.
...
[END EXCERPT]
Adversity does not build character, it reveals it. The character of this young man in the face of the events of that day is both tragic and inspiring. It is virtually impossible not to be encouraged by Corey DePooter's actions, literally putting himself in harm's way in order to help protect others.