Hours after she escaped the Columbine High School shooting, 14-year-old Missy Mendo slept between her parents in bed, still wearing the shoes she had on when she fled her math class. She wanted to be ready to run.
Twenty-five years later, and with Mendo now a mother herself, the trauma from that horrific day remains close on her heels.
It caught up to her when 60 people were shot dead in 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas, a city she had visited a lot while working in the casino industry. Then again in 2022, when 19 students and two teachers were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas.
Though I’m not originally from there, I moved to CO in '94 with my mom and went to high school there. I joined the army out of high school and was in AIT at the time of the shooting. I’ll never forget the morning after, we were all in formation waiting to get the day started, and the 1st SGT comes out and starts screaming “Who here is from Colorado!?” And of course I’m the only one out of like 300 soldiers to raise my hand, and he runs over to me and just starts screaming “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Are you all mentally insane?” etc etc, just chewing me out. I had NO IDEA what he was talking about because no one had cell phones or computers and we weren’t allowed access to TVs or newspapers. I just keep telling him I didn’t know what he was talking about, then finally he backed off and told everyone what happened. I didn’t know anyone that went to Columbine, but years later among people I met in Colorado, it sort of turned into a six degrees of separation thing where everyone knew someone that knew someone who was there.
When choosing 1st sergeants, do they specifically look for people a few fries short of a happy meal? Lol
I swear all the 1SGs I’ve met are either the coolest person in the world that you wish was your parent, or a complete fucking psycho that gives the impression they wouldn’t give a damn if you died. There’s no in-between. The good ones were amazing and inspiring and you felt honored and privileged to serve with them, and the bad ones made you feel like you were worthless and would never amount to shit.