A toast to Emma Gonzalez and Cadet Peter Wang
You can read the words that Emma Gonzalez spoke at a rally a few days after the mass shooting at her high school in Parkland, Florida in my March 2nd posting. Peter Wang was one of her younger classmates who died in that mass murder. He was a Junior ROTC cadet who died saving his classmates when he opened an exit door and herded as many of his classmates as he could through the door to safety before he was gunned down. Peter was awarded the ROTC Medal for Heroism along with two of his fallen JROTC comrades, Alaina Petty and Martin Duque, and buried in uniform with military honors. Then the US Army awarded him a rare posthumous appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point.
Cadet Peter Wang showed that he was made of the right stuff that we Americans need as our officers. I am proud that MY service recognized him in a special way.
There is something else West Point could do to honor this fine young man and teach his fellow classmates about duty. Give him a student roster number appropriate for his class year and have his name called out and answered in every roll call formation during the four years he would have attended. Rotate the honor of answering for him among his classmates as a teaching moment that the “Duty-Honor-Country” motto that they are supposed to live by has responsibilities and consequences.
If Peter Wang was a high school freshman in 2018, then he would have graduated in 2021, started West Point in September of that year, and gotten commissioned in 2025. When it is Peter’s turn to graduate, the Commandant could award the Wang family the lieutenant bars their son should have gotten the chance to earn and thank them for raising a son whose exemplary life continued to serve his class. We don’t ask our 15 year-olds to go to war and possibly die for their country, and I tear up every time I see his picture or read of his bravery. I never knew Peter, but I can assure you that he wasn’t thinking about heroism when he went to school that morning; he just did what needed to be done when the time came. Wang would have been the kind of officer I'd gladly follow into battle.
I read about Cadet Wang’s heroic act when I was looking up the angry words I heard his high school classmate Emma Gonzalez speak on “Democracy Now” the following Tuesday when she called out Trump for taking campaign money from the corrupt NRA. I hope she runs for city council, state rep, or similar offices while she is in college and runs for Congress as soon as she is old enough. And about the time Peter Wang would be making colonel, Emma Gonzalez will be old enough to run for Senate or President. Woe to anybody who gets in her way! I hope that her brave and angry class tramples down every crooked politician in their path and takes their jobs away from them. Go get 'em!
A toast to Emma Gonzalez and Cadet Peter Wang
You can read the words that Emma Gonzalez spoke at a rally a few days after the mass shooting at her high school in Parkland, Florida in my March 2nd posting. Peter Wang was one of her younger classmates who died in that mass murder. He was a Junior ROTC cadet who died saving his classmates when he opened an exit door and herded as many of his classmates as he could through the door to safety before he was gunned down. Peter was awarded the ROTC Medal for Heroism along with two of his fallen JROTC comrades, Alaina Petty and Martin Duque, and buried in uniform with military honors. Then the US Army awarded him a rare posthumous appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point.
Cadet Peter Wang showed that he was made of the right stuff that we Americans need as our officers. I am proud that MY service recognized him in a special way.
There is something else West Point could do to honor this fine young man and teach his fellow classmates about duty. Give him a student roster number appropriate for his class year and have his name called out and answered in every roll call formation during the four years he would have attended. Rotate the honor of answering for him among his classmates as a teaching moment that the “Duty-Honor-Country” motto that they are supposed to live by has responsibilities and consequences.
If Peter Wang was a high school freshman in 2018, then he would have graduated in 2021, started West Point in September of that year, and gotten commissioned in 2025. When it is Peter’s turn to graduate, the Commandant could award the Wang family the lieutenant bars their son should have gotten the chance to earn and thank them for raising a son whose exemplary life continued to serve his class. We don’t ask our 15 year-olds to go to war and possibly die for their country, and I tear up every time I see his picture or read of his bravery. I never knew Peter, but I can assure you that he wasn’t thinking about heroism when he went to school that morning; he just did what needed to be done when the time came. Wang would have been the kind of officer I'd gladly follow into battle.
I read about Cadet Wang’s heroic act when I was looking up the angry words I heard his high school classmate Emma Gonzalez speak on “Democracy Now” the following Tuesday when she called out Trump for taking campaign money from the corrupt NRA. I hope she runs for city council, state rep, or similar offices while she is in college and runs for Congress as soon as she is old enough. And about the time Peter Wang would be making colonel, Emma Gonzalez will be old enough to run for Senate or President. Woe to anybody who gets in her way! I hope that her brave and angry class tramples down every crooked politician in their path and takes their jobs away from them. Go get 'em!