Tower Page #7

---

of Austin in expressing

our gratitude to you

and to the Austin

police officers

who put an end

to the reign of terror

on the University

of Texas campus.

- I've never known

braver men.

Their decisions

were correct,

timely done,

and accomplished in an honorable

manner.

If I had to do this

over again with these men,

I certainly would.

The Chief of Police

offered me a check

from the City of Austin

for one day's

deputized citizen's pay.

I refused it, of course.

- Somehow, we ended up

out on Airport Boulevard

in a vacant lot

with a case of Lone Star beer.

Took off our weapons,

still dressed in our blues

and everything like that but...

We wasn't policemen no more.

If I would have just gone in,

if I had just gone

right up to that elevator,

pressed that button

to the top floor...

Gone in and get him done.

- Go up and get him done,

then Billy Speed

would still be alive.

- Billy!

- And a lot of other,

I'm sure, but...

But-but-but...

didn't happen that way.

- [sighs]

Shoulda-coulda.

[chuckles]

But I didn't.

- Shoulda, coulda. Shoulda...

Shoulda, coulda.

But didn't.

So...I don't know.

- Well, to say it hasn't

affected me in my life,

it wouldn't be

a truthful statement.

But I have, um...

tried.

I have tried

to just forget it.

I hate to see people

get hurt.

But, you know,

you have to be realistic

and know that these things

are gonna happen.

And so you have to have the way

how to cope with it,

how to take care

of the problems.

- If somebody were

to ask how you feel,

well...

Well, I'd say no words.

It's something--

I've been asked that before,

How-how did it

make you feel?

And then I kinda

have to say, "Well...

"How would I describe

the colors of a rainbow

to a person born blind?"

You can't,

'cause there ain't no words.

Uh, I don't know.

- This is the shirt

that I was wearing.

And I must've weighed

about 90 pounds when...

When this shooting happened.

See that little tear

right there?

It's where the bullet

just kinda pew.

[gunshot]

This is my cousin,

Lee Zamora.

He was with me

when I was riding the bicycle

and delivering newspapers at

the University of Texas Tower.

- I was just thinking,

you know,

I've never talked to anyone

about this before.

[gunshot]

[gunshot]

And I thought, you know,

maybe it'll help me,

you know, do some good

to sit and talk about it

to someone, you know, for once.

Maybe it's something

I need to do.

- If you folks had not

given us this opportunity,

I would not have seen

this cousin of mine. I do now.

Been a long time.

I mean, almost 50 years.

- It was just

a whole different world.

Nobody ever talked about it.

- I didn't meet Claire

until, uh, a few months ago.

- I never knew

who Artly was.

I finally decided maybe he was

just an angel or something.

- I was 17.

I'd never seen death.

I didn't know

anything about guns.

It was nothing but a big,

raw, gaping wound,

you know, in my psyche.

In my memory.

There has been

a passage of time, and...

[stuttering]

It's still raw, but it's not

as raw as it once was.

A lotta times,

the worst days

of your lives are...

personal and, uh, private.

Maybe that's why I've...

I sort of...

[stutters]

Um, hid it inside.

I feel guilty because

I didn't go out soon enough.

- Oh, Artly.

- You know, that you were...

- Artly.

[laughs]

- Yeah, it's just--

I think--I think guilt

comes with events like this.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Strange guilt.

UT was closed for one day.

That was it.

They came in

and cleaned up the blood.

I think the university

should put up a memorial.

There's still lots of family

and lots of friends

of people that were

killed and injured.

- Paul Sonntag,

Claudia Rutt,

Robert Boyer,

Billy Speed,

Roy Schmidt,

Edna Townsley,

Marguerite Lamport,

Mark Gabour,

Thomas Eckman,

Harry Walchuk,

Thomas Ashton,

Thomas Karr,

Karen Griffith,

David Gunby,

and my baby.

They said I could have babies,

but I never got pregnant.

But I got to adopt my child.

I adopted my child Sirak.

He was born in Ethiopia

and I adopted him

when he was four.

And he's now 27.

I mean, Sirak

was a wonderful child.

And there are times,

even though

his skin is brown

and mine's white,

there are times when

I absolutely cannot remember

that he didn't

come out of me.

But the baby...

I-I dreamed about him

from the beginning

and I still have dreams

that I found him

and I have him

and I'm so happy.

But then I'd look away

or something and he's gone.

[gunshots]

- I remember looking

at the Tower, of course, a lot.

And from the Main Mall,

you can see

there's a biblical line

from the Bible.

"Ye shall know the truth and

the truth shall make you free."

[gunshot]

I've thought about it.

[sniffles]

One of the truths I learned...

Is that there are monsters

that walk among us.

[sirens wailing]

There are people out there

that think unthinkable thoughts

and then do

unthinkable things.

- Through the years,

he remained

largely kind of wooden

in my mind.

But the longer I've lived

and the more I've seen,

these precious little children

who grow up

and do sometimes

horrible things,

the more I have come

to think of him

as a very confused,

very damaged young man.

He died at about 25.

There's a picture of him

standing at three years old,

holding a rifle on either side

on the beach.

I just think of him when

he was that three-year-old

who would have been sitting

in my lap, you know.

I'm a teacher,

and I love that age.

So much promise

and so much hope.

How can I hate

somebody like that?

I can't hate him,

in spite

of the incredible damage

that he's done.

I can't hate him.

I just can't do that.

- Do you forgive him?

- I forgive him, yes.

How can I not forgive?

I've been forgiven so much.

[slow rock music]

- The horror of these,

the sick among us,

must be found in the horror

of our hyper civilization.

A strange pandering to violence,

a disrespect for life

fostered in part by

governments which,

in pursuit of the doctrine

of self-defense,

teach their youth to kill

and to maim.

A society in which

the most popular

newspaper cartoon strips,

television programs,

and movies are those

that can invent

new means of perpetrating

bodily harm.

A people who somehow

can remain silent

while their own civilization

seems to crumble

under the force of the

caveman's philosophy--

That might makes right.

It seems likely that

Charles Joseph Whitman's crime

was society's crime.

This is Walter Cronkite.

Good night.

[soft rock music]

- Somebody said to me,

"Why would I want

to revisit any of this?

Why would I wanna dig it up?"

That it would be so painful.

It was devastating.

It was devastating.

You know,

I still have that loss.

But what's painful

is to just not have any sense

of the whole thing

and not have other people

that knew about it,

and that could talk

about what happened that day.

That's what was painful.

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