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.
November 11th, 2004 at 9:24 pm
Andrew was a friend and coworker of mine, and I just wanted to mention that this was a really considerate thing for you to write. People that do not even know him are saying really horrible things and it was nice to know that there are more than just disgusting, disrespectful people out there. This is greatly appreciated.
November 12th, 2004 at 10:46 pm
probably the greatest thing done by an american in recent times ,ofcourse other than the great war on humanity by g.bush
November 15th, 2004 at 8:20 pm
Hi there. I’m one of the bottom feeders from the dregs of humanity. I’ve written a reponse to the comments above over at my site.
November 15th, 2004 at 8:21 pm
Bottom Feeder at the Dregs of Humanity
The other day I wrote a post about that guy who shot himself at ground zero because Bush won. This caused a commenter at this website to refer to me thusly. Comments by some proclaimed guardians of morality, on this tragic and unnecessary loss of life,…
November 16th, 2004 at 1:13 am
“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.”
I could write something rather uncivil in regard to that statement, but I will not out of respect for the ones left behind. Still, you seem to have sugarcoated the fact that he killed himself. Life ending choice? Yes, it does sound much nicer than suicide, but it does not change the fact that he comitted suicide. I’ve gone through depression myself and had considered such options. The thing that stopped me was imagining what my loved ones would go through had I took such actions. This Andrew Veal took no considerations of his family and friends and fiancé. He thought only about his own pain and instead of dealing with it, instead of working through it, instead of becoming a stronger person, he took the cowards way out and ended his life. I did not know him, but there is potential in all life. He ended his unnaturaly. He cut his thread short, which lessens the tapestry, but he did not think of that, or if he did, he simply did not care. I feel sadness for what his family now has to go through, but for him, I feel nothing.
And as to celebs getting such coverage about their lives’ work, that is because it was their lives that made them famous, not their deaths. They were in the spotlight for what they did and so at the time of their passing the media takes a look back and what brought this person to the height of their fame and for many we mourn the passing. Andrew Veal did nothing in his life to gain the spotlight, nor would his suicide, had he not chosen such a place to end it. Upon further consideration, I feel anger towards Andrew Veal for throwing his life away in the place where so many who wanted to live had their lives taken from them. Me religious beliefs are quite clear on where suicides go. It is unfortunate some decisions cannot be taken back.
November 16th, 2004 at 7:35 am
“Comments by some proclaimed guardians of morality, on this tragic and unnecessary loss of life, can be viewed at the”…..”There must be a new version of being Christian, which many of us who try to be Christian, are unaware of.”
Sorry, I went to all 3 of those links and I never once saw anyone who proclaimed to be Christian making those comments. Sounds to me like your making assumptions here you can’t back up for the sheer purpose of denigrating those whom you disagree with. It also takes quite a leap of faith to assume that someone is of a particular religious faith simply because of a name they chose as a handle on a forum, often times they are meant to be sarcastic.
November 19th, 2004 at 9:15 pm
I believe I had the priviledge to meet and hang out with andrew in richmond, va while he was on route to new york. he came across as a very kind and gentle person. i am sorry for the loss and i regret that i didn’t try to help him more. my email is s2jfmori@vcu.edu if any friends and family read this and if i can try and shed any light on this tradegy.
November 21st, 2004 at 2:27 am
“Now I say there might be forgiveness for a man who kills himself quietly. Who can pass judgement on another man’s suffering and on the limit of what he can bear? But the man who kills himself, making a show of his death in order to hurt somebody, the man who gives his life for malice-there’s no forgiveness for him, no excuse, he’s rotten clear through, and what he deserves is that people spit at his memory, instead of feeling sorry for him and hurt, as he wanted them to be….” p299 of the Signet Fiction Paperback of Ayn Rand’s [u]Atlas Shrugged[/u]
November 23rd, 2004 at 11:53 am
Too bad in his suicide note it appears he killed himself over being torn between two women. No election woes. No 9-11 message. You people are so stupid and gullable it’s laughable. You practically sainted this man. That must make suicide look that much more appealing to those, like Andrew Veal, who were looking for attention. Perhaps he should have thought about the pain he would leave in his wake by his action. Selfish selfish selfish.
November 23rd, 2004 at 11:57 am
WTC SUICIDE NOTE
By MURRAY WEISS, DAVID SCHARFENBERG and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN
URL: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/33757.htm
November 9, 2004 — A 25-year-old Georgia man left behind a bizarre, handwritten travelogue detailing his somber thoughts and often quirky adventures before he ended his life with a shotgun blast to the head in the construction pit of Ground Zero.
Andrew Veal’s three-page missive, which cops found in his parked car near the site, at first shows a man amused over the purchase of his suicide weapon and later anguished over his passion for two women: his fiancée and a love from his hometown, Athens, Ga.
Although the letter isn’t dated, Veal was last seen by his friends on election night. He is believed to have set out on his final journey sometime the following day.
At first, his friends believed he killed himself over the outcome of the election, but his written musings never mention it.
His first entry is about buying the gun, the same gun he used to kill himself sometime early Saturday while he sat on a concrete box in the pit of Ground Zero with a bottle of Jack Daniels at his side.
“I got 60 rounds of shells and I’m driving toward the beach or Jersey. I’m still in Walmart . . . I just bought a Smith and Wesson 12-gauge action shotgun. I can’t wait to fire it. I can contact Trent, but if I do I won’t tell him about the shotgun because he’ll get nervous.” As he drives closer to Manhattan, Veal reveals his anguish over two women.
Veal who was engaged to an Iowa college student, Audrey Grieme, 21, reveals his feelings toward another woman named Karen, who lives in Athens.
“I think I expressed my feelings to Karen with all certainty today. What bad timing. What an ass- - - I am. I learned early what it is to fall in love with someone. But I never learned how not to.”
“She doesn’t deserve the turmoil I am sure to put her through. She is one of the most altruistic people.”
Veal’s addresses his last lines to his parents.
“To mom and Dad please know this is not your fault. It’s my own doing. I’m thinking of you now. I love you both very much.”