Sheep to the Slaughter?

Marc Danziger has written an interesting article regarding the fact that Virginia Tech students took little, if any, action to defend themselves from the murderous assault of the deranged S. H. Cho.

His point was not that the students were weak or cowardly, but rather that the "training" they received in how to deal with such a crisis failed them. He argues for a new "doctrine" that may help the next would-be victims avoid the same fate.

He compared the Va. Tech situation with the change in "doctrine" for handling an airline hijacking after 9/11:

"Sept. 11, 2001, was not a failure of our security systems, but rather a failure of doctrine. “Doctrine” is defined as a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions. On Sept. 10, 2001, we had a standard doctrine about response to aircraft hijackings.
The passengers and crew should be compliant, not confront the hijackers, minimize exposure to violence and get the plane onto the ground, where negotiations or intervention would resolve the issue."

As Danziger points out, the doctrine has now changed:

"No passenger airplane will be hijacked again anytime soon except by multiple hijackers with guns — and possibly not even then."

Its an interesting point. I for one would like to think I'd be willing to go down fighting. But its easy to be an arm-chair quarterback. Who knows how any of us would react to such a horrible situation.