I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of my fellow Blue Devils.
Often, I’ve been less than thrilled with the company I’m in as a Duke University Law School alum. Ken Starr and Richard Nixon seem to be the most famous graduates of that otherwise fine institution.
But these guys are amazing. They are undergraduates, not law students, but I'm claiming them anyway.
Last week, three Duke University sophomores posed as Associated Press journalists, slipped into New Orleans, and evacuated seven people who were receiving no assistance from the authorities.
Pissed off sitting in Durham watching news reports, they packed up their car with bottled water and headed to the Gulf Coast to help. They worked for a little while at an emergency shelter on the LSU campus, swiped an Associated Press identification, photocopied it, and headed into New Orleans, brandishing the fake ID. (Do spare me the conservative bleating about “stealing.”) They made it all the way to the Convention Center, where they described the scene:
"The only way I can describe this, it was the epicenter," Buder said. "Inside there were National Guard running around, there was feces, people had urinated, soiled the carpet. There were dead bodies. The smell will never leave me."
Buder said the students saw four or five bodies. National Guard
troopers seemed to be checking the second and third floors of the building to try to secure the site."Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out," Buder said. "They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame
needs to be placed somewhere."
After their tour of the Convention Center, they ferried seven people out of the city in two trips in their Hyundai, and put them on a bus to Texas.
Bush should replace Brown and Chertoff with these guys.
|