The smell of cordite and the stench of blood — to use the famous phrase — was still over Las Vegas when a reference to Aldean’s Army showed up in dispatches. We first read it in James Freeman’s column — “Americans Under Fire” — in the online Wall Street Journal, which linked to an editorial of earlier today in Chicago Tribune. It referred to the courage of those who had come to hear country crooner Jason Aldean, who has long described his fans as the Aldean Army.

An apt metaphor. Their courage under fire will be talked about for years to come — even if we have so far witnessed on the internet only glimpses captured on cell phones. One is of one fan standing up and giving a rude gesture to the machine-gunner attacking the crowd. Others show individuals huddling protectively over injured friends, even while automatic weapon fire is still raining down on what used to be the concert.

These were Americans like Sonny Melton, a nurse from Tennessee quoted in USA Today. When the shooting started, his widow, Heather, a physician, said, “he grabbed me from behind and started running, when I felt him get shot in the back.” It killed him but not before he saved his Heather. One witness told NBC’s Today show that “you saw a lot of ex-military jumping into gear. I saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers.”

The witness saw “police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people to tell them where to go.” He added: “The amount of bravery I saw, words can’t describe what it was like.” It’s not as if there weren’t glimpses of bravery in earlier mass shootings. Rarely, though, have such attacks been made with fully automatic weapons (which are illegal in all states) and lasted 72 minutes.

That in itself is an astonishing span of terror — aimed at thousands of concert goers peaceably assembled for the most American of pastimes. No doubt in coming days we will start to learn more about the dark side of the story, the killer’s descent into whatever madness came over him. What a contrast to the thousands of ordinary Americans who, when fired upon, sprang to help one another and inspired their countrymen in a time of terror.