Parkland Shooting Victim Peter Wang Junior ROTC R.I.P.
At West Point, folks are not easily impressed. They’ve seen Grant, Lee, Pershing and Patton, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Abrams, Schwarzkopf and Petraeus. But this week West Point welcomed a new man to its ranks: Peter Wang.
Wang is the 15-year-old freshman gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida by a former schoolmate. Wang might have escaped, but he was killed holding a door for others to flee before him. When the bullets found him, Wang was wearing the uniform of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.
The young man’s goal was to attend West Point and serve as an officer in the U.S. Army. This was not to be. But in his selfless service, West Point recognized a brother. So on Tuesday, the same day young Wang was laid to rest, the academy honored his dream by offering him, posthumously, a letter of acceptance to the West Point Class of 2025.
Wang was one of 17 innocents whose lives were so cruelly taken and whose families are now left bearing the unbearable. Much of the focus is on Nikolas Cruz, the young man who pulled the trigger, and what steps we might take to prevent similar attacks.
That is all worthy and sensible. But the nation also does well to acknowledge the courage we saw that day, whether assistant coach Aaron Feis shielding his students from the bullets with his body, geography teacher Scott Beigel killed as he helped others to safety, or a young man standing his post at an escape. We join West Point in a salute to the newest member of that Long Gray Line, Cadet Peter Wang.
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