Teaching a new doctrine in light of the Virginia Tech massacre

My oldest goes to college in Virginia. Fortunately, he is at the University of Virginia — not Virginia Tech — so when the news of the shooting broke, and I started getting concerned calls from friends, I had general anxiety, not the frightening and personal one I’m sure the parents of students at Blacksburg felt.

Afterward, I spoke with my sons about it — two are in college and one in fifth grade. I spent time reassuring the 10-year-old that he was more likely to be badly injured by bee stings than by something like this.

And as I watched the discussion unfold online about the tragedy and learned more about the events, a few have things have become clear to me.

Immediately after the murders, a left-right split developed as conservative commentators wondered why the students were apparently so passive in the face of the killer. Liberal pundits were aghast, arguing that this wasn’t necessarily true, it was “blaming the victim,” and claiming an unwarranted level of personal courage on the part of the conservatives.

But the facts as they have come in since then do support the notion that the students did not confront the murderer. The Associated Press carried this story yesterday: “Dr. William Massello, the assistant state medical examiner based in Roanoke, said Sunday that Cho died … after firing enough shots to wound his 32 victims more than 100 times. … Those victims apparently did not fight back against Cho’s ambush. Massello said he did not recall any injuries suggesting a struggle. Many victims had defensive wounds, indicating they tried to shield themselves from Cho’s gunfire,” he said.

And the Washington Post carried a story citing students who had been in the classrooms that were attacked. “I quickly dove under a desk,” Clay Violand, a Virginia Tech junior, told the Post. “That was the desk I chose to die under.”

Violand listened as the gunman began “methodically and calmly” shooting people. “It sounded rhythmic-like. He took his time between each shot and kept up the pace, moving from person to person.” After every shot, Violand said he thought to himself, “Okay, the next one is me.” But shot after shot, and he felt nothing. He played dead.

“The room was silent except for the haunting sound of moans, some quiet crying, and someone muttering: ‘It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. They will be here soon,’ ” he recalled. “The gunman circled again and seemed to be unloading a second round into the wounded. Violand thought he heard the gunman reload three times.”

The students didn’t fail to act correctly by not attacking their attacker. The doctrine they were operating under — the one we have trained them in all their lives — failed them.

Sept. 11, 2001, was not a failure of our security systems, but rather a failure of doctrine. “Doctrine” is defined as a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions. On Sept. 10, 2001, we had a standard doctrine about response to aircraft hijackings.

The passengers and crew should be compliant, not confront the hijackers, minimize exposure to violence and get the plane onto the ground, where negotiations or intervention would resolve the issue.

Similarly, the Columbine murders did not represent a failure by local law enforcement to act; it was a failure of the doctrine they had been trained to act within. Because most hostage situations are resolved with minimal force and patience, the doctrine was to cordon and wait for negotiations or SWAT.

Both doctrines have changed. No passenger airplane will be hijacked again anytime soon except by multiple hijackers with guns — and possibly not even then. Police departments have trained their officers to “go to the active shooter” and aggressively attack — as the police apparently did in responding to the Virginia Tech shooter.

Similarly, the discussions around the responses of the students seem to imply those of us who are suggesting the students could have done other things that may have changed the outcome are blaming the students.

No, we’re not. We’re blaming the doctrine the victims were trained to operate under, and arguing that we — all of us — should rethink it and start implementing other ones, just as airline passengers and police officers have.

We need to be teaching people a new doctrine, one that neither leads them into fantasies that they are more capable than they really are, nor into believing that they are helpless and must lay down waiting to be killed while muttering “It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. They will be here soon.”

You said — “There is one shooting where the victims fought back and reduced the number of deaths that directly correlates with the VT shooting. In 1998 Kip Kinkel went to school and opened up on his classmates shortly after he had murdered his parents at home. In that case instead of everyone running helter skelter or hunkering down waiting to be shot he was tackled by other students and the shooting was ended. One of those students was wounded but that did not stop him from helping take down the shooter.”

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Well, this school, Thurston High School (333 North 58th, Springfield, Oregon 97478) is just a few blocks away from where I visit a friend down there. It’s on the edge of town, on the way out of town, heading towards the Cascade Range of mountains (we’re talking wilderness out there, further out of town). That area used to have a lot of loggers around there. Of course the logging has gone way downhill since the time it was big in Southern Oregon. Springfield is on the (if you will) “wrong side of the tracks” — which some might consider a rougher side of town. It’s actually on the other side of I-5 from Eugene, Oregon. They’re much more conservative over there and I believe, quite a few more hunters and former loggers. So, if there was going to be an area where they would “take down” a shooter, this would be it. Let’s say that they know how to use guns around there. And so, that probably made a difference.

But, you’re not going to find it that way, around most of the country. I would say Springfield, Oregon would be a place they would do that. If it happened on the other side of I-5, in Eugene (about 10 miles west), it’s questionable whether anyone would have taken him down.

Now, watch..., I’m probably going to get both Eugene residents and Springfield residents after me! LOL

Hey, Southern Oregon has a significant “survivalist community” down there. They’re ready for the “end of the world”, I understand... I think they’re ready for World War III down there. Some are stocked up with guns and ammo and food to hold out for a year or more! At one time, I even believe they had one of the largest KKK groups around. So, it’s “rough and ready” down there...

Many people outside of the state probably wouldn’t know that, and I’m sure I’ll even have some from inside the state that would deny it, but Southern Oregon is a hot bed for survivalists “ready for bear” down there... If you mess around down there, you better be “ready for bear” too.

And Eugene/Springfield would be on the northern edge of that (at the southern end of the Willamette Valley). Springfield probably more “rough and ready” than Eugene. You better watch yourself around that part of the country.

And then — “Mindset is what its all about. If you decide beforehand that you are not going to be a passive victim then most likely you aren’t.”

Mindset might be what’s it about — but it’s also, and “mainly” about *reality*. By that, I mean that this is *not the reality* out there. Now, you may have wishful thinking about that and you may “decry” the situation — but — regardless, the *reality* is that this is not the way it is in most places.

Decry all you want, but it’s not going to change the “status quo” around the nation. I’ve explained the situation in Springfield, and that is the “exception that proves the rule”. The “rule” is exactly the way it happens most of the time.

You said — “This is why I have a problem with the administration for not immediately alerting the students that a killing had just accurred in a dorm. Even if they had not shut down the campus, the students would have realized the sounds were gunshots. They may have acted differently and saved lives.”

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So very true. It would have definitely made a difference. I imagine that they’ll be reviewing those rules.

And then — “The heroes of Flight 93 only took the actions that they did because they were aware that the “rules” for dealing with a hijacking had changed.”

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Exactly! Those people knew what they were in for. So, it was die one way or die another way. In their case, they were basically told it was a 100% certainty, according to what was already known on the news from the other planes. This was a *very significant* factor.

Otherwise, if they had *not* known this. They would have been like all the other planes that have had this happen. You would be docile and just wait until it was resolved. The less you did — the better you would fare (in the past).

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