Rampages at Columbine High School--whose victims are memorialized at a Colorado site (above)--and Virginia Tech reinforce an unsettling era for younger Americans. Kevin Moloney/GETTY IMAGES View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Tech and Generation Vexed

For today's college-age generation, the world is a scary place

Date published: 4/29/2007

GRAFTON--Police storming a school. Lines of ambulances with sirens blaring. Candlelight vigils. This all seems far too familiar. Although these scenes currently belong to the horrible events at Virginia Tech, they also serve as grim replays of past school shootings at Columbine and Jonesboro--and in doing so, call to mind how much tragedy and violence this generation of young adults, my generation, has experienced since our formative years.

My peers and I have grown up in an unsafe and chaotic world, and if recent events are any indication, our situation won't be improving any time soon.

We have endured much, my generation. We practiced hiding under our desks after Columbine, attended candlelight vigils for Oklahoma City, and watched in horror as the towers fell on Sept. 11.

Now, more bloodshed, more loss, and more unanswered questions as we see some of our best and brightest lost to another heinous act of violence. Although we may not know the victims personally, we can put ourselves in their place and imagine the horrors they experienced.

We know them; they're us.

Our world gets no sunnier once out of Blacksburg, as the news isn't any better out of Iraq. Ages 20 through 22 years old rank as the top three ages of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. All totaled, more soldiers between the ages of 19 and 24 have been killed in the War on Terror than all other ages combined.

It's our friends, relatives, classmates, and teammates fighting this war and paying for its mistakes--and when they come home in flag-draped coffins, our world gets a little bit grayer.

The hits just keep on coming. Our generation has come of age in the dark shadow of global warming, avian flu, roving interstate snipers, AIDS, West Nile virus, the USS Cole bombing, anthrax, sexual predators, weapons of mass destruction, the Axis of Evil, Y2K, shark attacks, dirty bombs, letter bombs, shoe bombs, oil crises, and a litany of other threats, fears, and dangers, each more ominous and deadly than the last.

We are told that we are safe but not yet safe, that smoking guns will come as mushroom clouds, and that the worst is yet to come. Things, as they say, are not looking up.

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Date published: 4/29/2007