Sandy Hook shooting survivors graduate H.S. and reflect on first-grade massacre

Survivors of the Sandy Hook massacre are torn between celebrating their high school graduation Wednesday and remembering the 20 classmates who lost their lives in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

Lilly Wasilnak, 17, said graduation always seemed so far away "but now it’s here and you’re ready but I think we can’t forget that there’s a whole chunk of our class missing."

Wasilnak joins Newtown High School seniors walking across the stage as they embark on the next chapters of their lives. She told The Associated Press the accomplishment brings "very mixed emotions."

"Trying to be excited for ourselves and this accomplishment that we worked so hard for, but also those who aren’t able to share it with us, who should have been able to," she said ahead of the ceremony.

The 20 first grade students and six educators killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School will be honored during the graduation but details have not been made public, the AP reported.

Wasilnak said she is still trying to decide what she plans on studying in college but will continue to speak out against gun violence.

"I wanted to turn such a terrible thing into something more, and that these children and educators didn’t die for nothing," she said. "Of course, it was awful what happened to them, and it should have never happened, but I think that for me, something bigger needed to come out of it, or else it would have been all for nothing."

Grace Fischer, 18, was in a classroom down the hall from the shootings. Fischer, who hopes to become a civil rights lawyer, said the killings were a "core memory growing up" for her and others.

strange News-12 video: watch the kid in the bright yellow Under Armor hoodie as he aimlessly wanders around talking to people, the camera almost following him the first couple minutes till he walks around front...

there’s others, but harder to follow than the yellow is

couple other odd things too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s47URyQRVr0

I bet those kids couldn’t remember what the “victims” looked like.

Before you go on about me, I lived in dandy hook and moved out 2 weeks before the event. I know many of the people involved, I have photos no others do and can believe in the crisis actor theory.

Yes, real children were killed. Not as many as reported. The surviving kids were moved to Chalk Hill (which was abandoned) and sequestered with enough professional staff to fully embed images of the made-up kids into the memories of the real kids.

And adam lanzas brother, Ryan was pinned moments after the crime, even though he was in NJ. 3 men in camo were pulled out of the woods and dismissed as hunters even though the land they were pulled from was about 4 acres in a residential zone, a minivan had is rear windows shot out and locked-down reporters, in strangers living rooms, reported gun fire away from the property after the whole thing was over.

I counted 3 unique stories, 2 were forgotten about and the third had the least holes in it.

That girls father was laughing at the press conference and became serious when he was told to - working up fake tears and everything.

Nothing about the crime makes sense as it was reported.

Oh, and in Seymour CT, which was also locked down that day, was a parking lot full of virginia-tagged cars. More than 30 of them. They were delivered a week prior.

No one wanted to talk to me, including the Jones team when I reached out to Dan Bidondi in Rhode Island at the time.

Oh well.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.