After seeing the events in Newtown unfold over the last few days, it makes me realize just how lucky we were to have avoided a tragedy such as this. While one student was shot, Daniel has seemed to make a full "physical" recovery but we all know it could have been a lot worse if it wasn't for the guidance counselor that instinctively jumped on the shooter after he fired off his first couple of rounds.

This was a town that I grew up in. A town that I went to both the middle and high shcool. The school where I met my wife. My wife even teaches at the middle school and we still live in the immediate area. We never left. It was a town where you never thought in a million years that something like this could happen.

So of course on that day, my anxiety level was through the roof as I had no idea what the hell was going on. I had a wife teaching at the school right up the street and my daughter and son attending classes at elementary schools in that same district.

It was a stressful day but everything was "ok" in the end.

But now the thing that hits the hardest is the realization that the events in Newtown could have been our reality.

Our incident never received the level of attention (for obvious reasons) and while at the time I felt that the guidance counselor (who BTW graduated from that very high school) should have received way more recognition for what he did, in the end, I'm glad he didn't and from what I hear around the way, he didn't want the attention either. Even if he is a hero.

The media blitz on this is pretty sickening. You can see that they only care about getting the best interview or headline to run. Not to mention the amount of false information that they spread around at the beginning. Even going as far as naming the shooter incorrectly. IMO, the media should be held accountable for that. It's almost insult to injury for this small town. A town that seems very similar to ours. I couldn't imagine having to go through this.