Deanna Pan: JUNE 20, 1994 — This is how it all ends: Four gunshots as steady as a heartbeat.
Pop, pop, pop, pop.
The third hits Dean Mellberg in his left shoulder, just a superficial wound. The fourth strikes square between his eyes. The blast sends his body soaring, feet splayed, straight into the air, like a stuntman’s in a movie. He spins counterclockwise and lands on his back in the grass, his left hand still gripping the stock of his rifle.
Seventy yards away, Senior Airman Andy Brown lowers his handgun, a military-issued Beretta M9. Brown gets up from where he’s kneeling and dashes for cover behind a small pickup parked across from the base hospital.
“Don’t move!” he shouts.
When backup arrives, the medics rush to revive the man in the grass. They don’t know who he is or what he did. They don’t know how many lives he ended or how many people he hurt. The radio dispatcher alerts all patrols to a possible second gunman. Someone had called to report a sniper on a nearby building. Brown scans the roof, his sidearm drawn, as medics declare the gunman dead on the scene.
Meanwhile, in the hospital dining hall, 15-year-old Melissa Moe hides underneath a sink in a pool of her own blood, breathing hard, waiting for help. She’s cradling 5-year-old Janessa Zucchetto in one hand. The other clutches her right thigh.
This is it, Melissa thinks. I’m going to die.
Leave a comment