Meet Chris Mintz, The 30-Year-Old Army Veteran Who Was Shot Five Times As He Tried To Stop The Oregon Shooter

Yesterday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon was no less gruesome and unsettling than the mass shootings that have come before it in our country. Sadly, these disgusting acts of violence have become a common occurrence in America. And whether or not the 26-year-old shooter did it to gain notoriety or because he was just a deeply disturbed individual, I’m not going to give him the pleasure of having his name mentioned here.

What I am going to do is talk about 30-year-old Chris Mintz, a retired army veteran who put his life on the line and charged the shooter in an effort to protect his fellow classmates. This brave and selfless decision caused Mintz to get shot five times. FIVE. What makes his choice to potentially lay his life on the line to save others all the more heroic (and perhaps crazy) is that Mintz has a wife and 6-year-old son at home.

But fleeing and saving himself isn’t in Chris Mintz’s character. According to his cousin Derek Bourgeois, who joined the military alongside Mintz right after college, he knew exactly what his cousin would do.

“I was told he went after the shooter. There was no way he was going to stand around and watch something this horrific happen.”

Although he was shot five times and may need to learn how to walk again, Bourgeois told reporters that Mintz is expected to make a full recovery.

In the wake of such a great tragedy, it’s the victims of Umpqua Community College shooting and the heroes like Chris Mintz who we should be talking about, because that’s the exact opposite of what the coward who shot them would want.

Get well soon, Chris.

[H/T The Daily Beast]