My wife graduated from Tech's veterinarian school in 2005, so over the span of four years, we got to know the Christiansburg / Blacksburg area quite well.

On a lighter side note, why can't we get a Sonic drive-in if they have one there? And they call us 'advanced,' but I digress.

What we felt there was a sense of community that was far beyond what we experienced in our undergraduate life (we both attended the University of Kentucky). Maybe it's because of the isolation, what with Roanoke over a half-hour away, but there's a sense of self-reliance that spills over to many areas of the VT campus.

If any university will be able to heal itself after such a tragedy, losing 33 members of its student body and facility, Virginia Tech would be the first school I can think of that could do it.

GO Hokies!

However, I must end on a somewhat disappointed note. All the headlines I've read this week are focusing on 'security issues' at VT this fall.

Let us not fool ourselves - a lone gunman with a heavy arsenal and murder on his mind would be hard to stop, even with top of the line tactical measures in place.

If Virginia Tech and, more imporantly, all high schools and universities in the United States, would focus more engeries and funding toward mental illness identification and prevention, our students would be much safer for all of the remaining semesters of their lives.

For more information on this subject, please check out "Crazy," a 2006 Pulitzer Prize-nominated nonfiction account from former Washington Post reporter Pete Early, whose son fell victim to bipolarity. See how the Northern Virginian court system handled (or more correctly failed to handle) his case.

Posted by B_Joel_Fowler

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