Described by friends as “a protector to all of those he loved,” 45-year-old Shannon Johnson wrapped his arms around his younger female co-worker when the shooting began and told her, “I got you.”
Johnson died in the San Bernardino massacre last week. Denise Peraza, the 27-year-old he comforted, lived.
Here’s her account:
Wednesday morning at 10:55 a.m. we were seated next to each other at a table, joking about how we thought the large clock on the wall might be broken because time seemed to be moving so slowly.
I would have never guessed that only 5 minutes later, we would be huddled next to each other under the same table, using a fallen chair as a shield from over 60 rounds of bullets being fired across the room.
While I cannot recall every single second that played out that morning, I will always remember his left arm wrapped around me, holding me as close as possible next to him behind that chair.
And amidst all the chaos, I’ll always remember him saying these three words, “I got you.”
Stories of men shielding women in mass shooting incidents are common, a testament not just to their courage but also to the male instinct to protect women — an instinct that thankfully resists gender-bending social engineering. As we gender-integrate ground combat units, Americans need to understand that our leaders are telling our warriors to treat women in utmost distress no differently than they’d treat their male comrades. That simply won’t be emotionally possible for our men in uniform, nor should it be. Some experiments are doomed to end badly.