Source: United States Army
WASHINGTON — On a cool March morning in Old Dominion University’s Constant Hall, Army ROTC cadets attended class like any other day.
Cadet Wesley Myers arrived to class early to set up a presentation. Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, ODU professor of Military Science, briefed the class on cadet command briefings, an exercise that prepares cadets for officer leadership roles in the Army, teaching them to plan and coordinate missions.
The students didn’t know that they would soon put their cadet training into action.
As class presentations concluded, the cadets prepared to leave class. Shah wished the cadets a good weekend and mentioned that he would be having surgery, so the cadets would not see him as often.
Then a nervous looking man entered the classroom.
“Is this the ROTC classroom?” Cadet Samuel Reineberg recalled the man saying. “Or is this a seminar?”
The class fell silent.
Cadet Cecilia Fosso and Shah quietly nodded their heads yes.
Then the man suddenly shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “Allah is great,” Myers recalled. He then reached into his waistband and pulled out a Glock 44 pistol.
At 10:43 a.m., the man fired his weapon in Shah’s direction and then on the students.
“My first thought was ‘is this a drill?’” Cadet Oshea Bego said. The class had just recently discussed force protection and how to safeguard U.S. forces and assets. Then the cadets began to drop to the ground. Some huddled under their desks to shield themselves from the bullets.
Shah charged and attempted to subdue the shooter.
Cadet Louis Ancheta, seeing his professor risk his life by shielding cadets from the gunshots, rushed to Shah’s aid. Ancheta uncorked his knife as he ran towards the shooter, feeling a bullet graze his body. Then Shah turned the shooter away from Ancheta. The cadet then thrust the knife into the shooter as quickly and as many times as he could.
“If [Shah] didn’t charge at him there’s a possibility that I wouldn’t be here,” Bego said. “There’s a possibility he could have turned his gun, and I could have been next.”
Several more cadets joined the scuffle punching and stabbing the shooter. Myers noticed the perpetrator still had his shooting hand free, holding the pistol upward.
Then Myers grabbed the weapon and tried to secure the firearm against the wall.
Ancheta and the other cadets eventually brought the shooter to the ground, still struggling to remove the weapon from his hand. Finally, Myers squeezed his fingers beneath the man’s hand and pulled the weapon away. Myers released the magazine and pulled back the slide, revealing the shooter had one more round to fire. He placed the weapon on a table for law enforcement.
The cadets eventually ended the life of the shooter to prevent further attacks.
Ancheta, feeling sudden pain, asked his fellow cadets for help. Cadets learn basic combat medical care and how to treat a fallen comrade in the field. Suddenly the cadets had to use those skills to help their friend, who suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen. They bandaged his wound and put his arm on a tourniquet.
Reineberg caught Shah as he fell to the ground. Shah suffered a gunshot wound in his upper leg.
“It was just what I thought I had to do in that moment, to get there and do what I could,” Reineberg said. “It’s different when it’s not a mannequin and it’s your friend.”
Bego called the ODU chief of police while Fosso sent out an alert on the ODU ROTC battalion group chats. Cadet Jeremy Rawlinson, who also attacked the shooter, found police officers and led them towards the classroom and the victims.
Members of the S.W.A.T. team later arrived and rendered further aid to Ancheta, applying a chest seal and placed him on a stretcher. Ancheta would undergo surgery to repair his wounds.
Several of the cadets would later learn the tragic news that Shah had passed away from his injuries while watching a news livestream.
“There was definitely this sense of ‘could we have done more?’” Bego said.
Fallen Mentor
A painted rock sits near Constant Hall on ODU’s campus bearing Shah’s name. Colored handprints by cadets decorate the stone with the words “Be Bold, Be Quick, Be Gone,” Shah’s slogan for motivating his students. The cadets painted the stone as a tribute to their fallen professor.
“I take solace in knowing that he was conscious and awake for all of that,” Rawlinson said. “He got to see all the training that he and the rest of the cadre had been giving us for the [past] few years. He got to see us instantly do that in action.”
A white banner that reads “Shah Strong” contains the signatures of his ROTC students. Shah, a native of nearby Chesapeake, Va., enlisted in the Army as an aviation operations specialist in 2003 before graduating from Old Dominion University in 2007 and commissioning into the Army. As an AH64 Apache pilot he logged 1,200 flying hours including 600 in combat.
His assignments included serving as an operations and training officer for the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia. In the 3-17 Air Cavalry Squadron, Shah oversaw modernization efforts for attack helicopters before returning to his alma mater to teach and mentor ROTC students.
The cadets said the memory of Shah’s actions remain with them today.
“He’s a hero,” said Ancheta, who received a Purple Heart for the wound he sustained. “He tried to save us.”
Bego recalled one instance during the summer of 2025 when his mom met Shah.
“One of the last things he told my mom when they met this summer was that he would take care of me,” Bego said. “He followed through on that word.”
Several of the cadets later attended and spoke at Shah’s funeral service on March 22.
Said that Shah grew close with many of his students, often treating cadets like family. As the leader of ODU’s ROTC Monarch Battalion, enrollment rose by 50% in his first year.
“It’s never easy to lose a friend and mentor,” he said. “And especially such a great teacher. I never thought that I would have to speak at his funeral. Everyone looked up to him. He was the standard to follow.”
Katherine Shah, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah’s wife, expressed her thoughts and emotions following the incident regarding her husband’s actions that day.
“Brandon and I shared 18 beautiful years together,” she said. “He was everything people say he was and more. A protector, a hero, the kind of man who made you feel safe just by being there. He was the father every son dreams of having, and the husband any woman would be blessed to stand beside.”
“But what made Brandon truly extraordinary was who he was in the everyday moments,” she added. “He was a teacher, a Soldier, and a leader, someone who could change your perspective, lift you up, and make you better just from a single conversation. In his final moments, he did what he had always done; he protected.”
“He placed himself as a shield for the people he loved, making sure his kids would have the chance to carry on his legacy, his name, and his mission for years to come. We love him with all of our hearts. And every day we have left, we will live in a way that makes him proud. We will make sure the world knows his name and that it stands for pride, strength, and courage. That man… my man… Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah.”
For Shah’s actions in risking his life to save others during the incident, he was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart.
For cadet actions during the shooting, Cadets Myers, Ancheta, Reineberg, Rawlinson, all were awarded Meritorious Service Medals in a ceremony from Secretary of the Army Dan P. Driscoll and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael R. Weimer. Acheta also received the Purple Heart, along with another fellow cadet, after suffering wounds from the event.
Four additional cadets received Meritorious Service Medals, and one cadet received the Army Commendation Medal for their actions during the shooting event. The members of the 2026 ODU Army ROTC class will graduate from the university and be commissioned into the Army on May 14 as second lieutenants leading Soldiers in their initial assignments as Army officers.