Posted on 04/20/2007 11:58:21 PM PDT by the scotsman
A survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre has been describing how a colleague died to protect others. Although badly injured, graduate student Waleed Shalaan distracted gunman Cho Seung-Hui to save another person from his bullets.
Waleed saved another student's life.The surviving student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told of Waleed's heroics through an email to his supervisor.
He describes how he was left uninjured after Cho's initial round of shots.
Meanwhile, Waleed had been wounded but was still alive.
However, when Cho later returned to the classroom to inspect for signs of life among his victims, the surviving student struggled to remain calm.
He believes he would have been shot dead were it not for Waleed's "protective movement" that distracted the gunman.
Cho turned and shot Waleed for a second time, killing him, before leaving the classroom.
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor, has said the student asked to him to tell the tale "so that the family of Waleed understands the sacrifice."
Shaalan's mother broke down when she heard Mr Dymond's account.
"He was trying to save someone else," she said repeatedly.
Dymond said Shaalan's body was taken to a Blacksburg mosque so classmates, teachers and friends could say goodbye before he was sent to Egypt for burial.'
Why remain anonymous?
Muslim Distracts Korean From Shooting Anonymous
(It all about diversity)
HERO
No sympathy here. Sorry for the harden heart but these people kill every day in the name of Allah.....Egypt can mourn. Maybe the family will stay in Egypt.
Came all the way over from Egypt and ended up getting shot in a college class in Virginia. I would have preferred that he’d lived and gone back to Egypt; we have a number of men of good character over here, but the Middle East is in dire need of them.
Perhaps s/he isn't excited about entering the media circus.
THAT IS COLD !!.
The Muslim Student Association of Virginia Tech http://www.msavt.org/main/default.asp
Yep....I just remember the neck of Jack Hensley being cut open then separated from his body and held up...The eyes still moving...the mouth still moving...the tounge still moving...while in the backround shouts of “Allah is Great!!”... I hear Muslim Iams in Egypt, America and elsewhere call for the death of Americans on a daily basis....sorry no sympathy here.
He saved a life, the fact that he's a Muslim doesn't make him any less of a hero. I don't understand why you can't look past your prejudice and see that.
Why remain anonymous?
Probably because it didn’t really happen that way!
Hero, indeed.
Let’s just say I remain skeptical.
No sympathy here. Sorry for the harden heart but these people kill every day in the name of Allah.....Egypt can mourn. Maybe the family will stay in Egypt.That's a fundamentally self defeating way to think. "Those" people are not homogenous. For every Eyptian terrorist there are at least as many Nassers, people who gave their lives for peace.
May Waleed be blest, and may his family be comforted...
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellow men.”
The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!
-—”Abou Ben Adhem” by James Leigh Hunt; 1832
Well,perhaps my American TV link above may convince you....
I don't think that some FReepers, Dallas included, understand just how much that sort of thinking hurts us and helps the terrorists. Arabs and Muslims are not a faceless, mindless "they", and treating them like they are is idiotic and self-defeating.
You know, I admire heroes as much as the next guy. But I have no faith in this story what-so-ever and it sounds like BS.
The mainstream media, in its biased zeal to paint Muslims as peaceful upstanding people, will go to any length to manufacture a good story about them, contrary facts notwithstanding.
If the wounded student intentionally sacrificed himself by creating a diversion for the gunman, knowing that the gunman would finish him off, with the specific intent of saving the other unharmed people in the room, then he is a real hero and I admire him very much for his unselfish sacrifice.
This story does NOT pass the logic test to me.
You have a room full of students gripped with terror, inc shock and suffering confusion from a sudden violent act. Do they know for sure there is only one shooter? Maybe and maybe not. How could the person being praised as a hero in this story - IMHO BECAUSE he is Muslim - possibly know that his dying would stop the murderer from then seeking and killing the other, unharmed people in the room. In that kind of situation, I think that would be a very bad assumption to believe that by his dying, the murderer would just quit and not seek other victims.
I just don’t believe this story. I think the wounded kid saw the gunman and just moved in reaction. Some people play possum. I assume he just startled, moved and made the murderer saw that and finished him off. The kid who was saved just saw the movement of the other kid and since he came through alive assumed an intent on the part of the wounded kid who was killed.
There are no facts in this story and we don’t know the e-mail. If the Muslim student waved his arms and yelled, “hey, over here” or something, then I am wrong and indeed he is a hero for trying and succeeding in calling attention to himself and away from others. Without knowing such details, it is just a stretch for me to believe a wounded kid would intentionally create a diversion knowing he would sacrifice his life for the others - especially in light of what I said in that he could NOT know that the murderer would not just step over his lifeless body and kill everyone else after the fact.
Absent other facts, I don’t believe the Muslim student tried to be a hero. I believe the student who survived is reading way too much into the other student’s action and the media - desperate for ANY story that praises Muslims - ran with his opinion.
If I am wrong, then I apologize for my mistake caused by my deep cynicism of the mainstream media.
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