This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
From childhood, many of us are taught to be kind, to be compassionate, to forgive - even to love our enemies.
But what if that enemy detonates a bomb that embeds hundreds of pieces of metal shrapnel, nails and wood fragments throughout our bodies? What if it takes years of wearing casts and enduring surgeries before the physical scars (never mind the emotional or psychological ones) begin to heal?
Gary Wright was able to.
It took him 18 months, but the 44-year-old Salt Lake City resident ultimately decided the only way he could lead a happy life was to forgive whoever had planted the pipe bombs that exploded in the parking lot of his computer store in 1987.
"It was a very freeing moment," he told students at Judge Memorial Catholic High School on Tuesday morning.
Years later, Wright discovered he was the 11th victim of Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber.
The dilemma faced by Kaczynski's brother, David, the 55-year-old executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, in 1995 was arguably more difficult.
After months of sifting through Ted Kaczynski's letters and comparing them with the Unabomber's recently published manifesto, he had to decide whether to tell the FBI that the country's most-wanted killer might be his brother.
"It was awful," David Kaczynski told the students. "Anything I did could lead to somebody's death. If I didn't alert the FBI, the blood of an innocent person would forever be on my hands. If I did turn my brother in, and he was put to death, I would have my brother's blood on my hands for the rest of my life."
He credits his wife, Linda, with helping him choose to go to the authorities.
"We decided that if there was any significant chance that it could be him, that's what we'd have to do," he said.
After reading his brother's letters and the manifesto, he told Linda he thought the chances were 50-50 that the Unabomber could be Ted KaczynÂski. "It was either: Try to stop violence or turn away."
Some Judge students could only imagine what the two men must have gone through.
"It would take time," said senior Nick Sasich when asked if he could be as forgiving as Wright. "I would have to think about what [the Unabomber] did, the reasons and what his mental state was."
Another senior, Tess Tallman, said she didn't think she could turn in her own brother.
"I'd try to get someone else to do it because I'd be feeling really guilty that he was killing people."
The anti-technology Unabomber's nearly 18-year reign of terror killed three people and wounded 29. He now is serving a life sentence in a Colorado maximum-security prison.
Today, Wright and David Kaczynski are most unlikely friends. Their relationship started when Kaczynski called Wright in 1997 to apologize for his brother's crime.
"I just said, 'Look, everyone's got someone in their family they'd like to apologize for. You can't carry that around. That's something your brother did, not you,' " Wright told Kaczynski.
Wright also told him he could call back any time. Kaczynski did. Their conversation continues.
That's what most impresses Judge senior Martine Troy, who never had heard of the Unabomber until Tuesday.
"[Wright] got over being hurt himself and then he helped [Kaczynski] get over being hurt as well."