The Value of a Life: Andrew Veal
In reporting the death of the young man from Georgia, Andrew Veal, at the World Trade Center site, a few added notes:
As with all who make a life-ending choice, the reasons for Andrew’s choice may be elusive to the shocked and grieving family and friends who must work through the process to reach some manner of closure. The media coverage, focusing on the political, may never provide a full or fair review of the more important facts here. How Andrew lived clearly matters more to those who knew him, than how he died.
It is certain that Andrew was very well-regarded, as he was a talented and caring man. Some of his friends have written us, complaining that the media has been lax in reporting details of his life, getting things wrong that were easy to factcheck. One referred to the Washington Post’s coverage as ‘noxious’.
This remains my oldest and most deeply felt complaint about the journalism profession as practiced. When someone famous dies, for whatever reason, their achievements are noted with a sense of reverence and their friends, family and peers are approached with sensitivity. When the person is not a celebrity, carelessness and callousness often occurs.
Certainly, the lure of the sensational contributes to this, but that’s no excuse. Great respect and consideration should always be shown to the loved ones left to mourn, whether recording the death of a Reagan or a Reeve, or of Andrew Veal. Less is disrespectful and diminishes everyone.
I’ve often wondered how different the world might be if such care and consideration were shown in reportage about every casualty, on both sides, in wars. After all, as the world’s sophistication in weapons technologies have grown, so have the deaths of innocents, with nothing - not even their numbers - recorded to mark the loss the world has suffered. This runs counter to claims made about the reverence of life held by most nations around the globe. Giving them names and stories would make them seem human. Not doing so makes us lesser humans.
But I don’t want to dilute my message since it’s Andrew Veal’s life I was addressing. As he apparently left little to draw clear conclusions from about his final choice, we can only speculate whether one cause or many compelled him to act as he did. But the facts of his life are far more important to get right than the raising of theories about his final decision. For the family and friends, details really matter, because the truth is all they have left to honor Andrew with.
And that’s more important than reporting it fast.
November 8th, 2004 at 4:42 pm
I would never try to fathom someone’s motives, but I wondered myself if it was more akin to a statement, much like the monks immolating themselves in Vietnam. He could have killed himself in Georgia, but what truer American statement then at Ground Zero with a gun.
November 8th, 2004 at 4:57 pm
Comments by some proclaimed guardians of morality, on this tragic and unnecessary loss of life, can be viewed at the “free Republic, web pages: http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1273317/posts and http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1273301/ (this blogger named them self “the Gospel of Thomas”), and “Right-Thinking.com”, web page: http://right-thinking.com/index.php/weblog/comments/8786/.
Both websites appear to emanate out of California’s ‘heartland.’ Be forewarned, for the most part, the bloggers appear to be true bottom feeders at the dregs of humanity. There must be a new version of being Christian, which many of us who try to be Christian, are unaware of.
May all of God’s angels carry Andrew Veal on their wings.
Diane
November 9th, 2004 at 1:14 am
My apologies if anyone tries to click on my name in the last comment and ends up on an Earthlink page. I guess I should have left URL blank, I didn’t realize what it was for.
Sorry,
Diane
November 9th, 2004 at 1:29 am
The second “Free Republic” blog page (Gospel of Thomas) I noted in comment two above is incomplete it should be http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1273301/posts, not http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1273301/.
Sorry again,
Diane
November 9th, 2004 at 4:26 am
It’s a shame that some will denigrate Andrew without any consideration for his friends and family, Diane. They are pathetic to do so and it displays how incivil some people can be.
May he rest in peace and may his wishes for a more civil world come to fruition.