From STAFF REPORTS
September 23, 2006

On September 11th, 2001, the world in which we live changed. Over 2,900 lives were lost that day in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor. For the students of Belmont Abbey College, both in 2001 and in 2006, the tragic events of 9/11 stripped from us a sort of innocence that had acted as a veil to the cruelty of the world around us, and the people who are in it.

The symbols of September 11th have become etched in the memories of everyone, almost replacing the memories of the iconic Towers which once stood in New York. No one alive that day will soon forget the horrors that they witnessed, nor will they forget the unity and patriotism, and the outpouring of support that everyone displayed following the attacks. People from different states and countries, different economic, racial and religious backgrounds all came together in support of the victims and their families. For a time, we were united as human beings, dealing with the struggles of our fellow human beings in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Though the memories of our emotional outpouring and patriotism are bittersweet against the backdrop of such tragedy, the memories of the innocent victims of that day will never fade. It is our responsibility then, as the generation of young adults who witnessed 9/11 to tell our children of the events on that September day, so that the memory of the victims on September 11th, 2001 may never be forgotten. For our inaugural issue of the year, the Crusader staff thought it appropriate to look back on what remains the single most newsworthy event of the century thus far.

“They had a TV on in my classroom, and the first plane had already hit,” recalls sophomore Marie Marquez. “We started to watch, and about ten minutes had passed before the second plane hit. Then it became real. The first thing I did was to think of my family, because I have family up north. It was scary. I never thought something like that could happen.” “Being a government school, we went on an extended lockdown; no classes, no one entering or leaving campus,” remembers senior Jessica Sells. “Our outside contact was limited to the TV, short phone calls, and limited internet access. One of our teachers managed to get on and off campus a few times, and meet with some of us in her classroom where we talked about what was happening. I remember a girl whose fiancé worked in the towers, crying and praying and breaking down in front of all of us. I remember the school wide meeting where we were informed of our lockdown status, and then asked to stay in the auditorium to think about what was happening. We were encouraged to let it out -- anger, frustration, fear, tears . . . everything. And we were asked to support each other. This was perhaps one of the greatest lessons I learned in high school -- the importance of supporting one another.”

Junior Edwin Zelaya went to high school in Virginia, not far from the Pentagon. He remembers the day vividly. “I was in art class doing some doodles on my little pad and all of the sudden you heard this big loud noise that sounded like an earthquake -- like a pop-sound, like a huge firecracker near your ear,” remembers Zelaya. “Everything shook and we thought it was our garbagemen taking the dumpsters out and they dropped it, but the principal came on the P.A. and said ‘Everyone get on the floor, it’s an emergency. Get on the floor, get on the floor.’ The teachers turned the televisions on before we got on the floor and we saw that the twin towers were hit, and we were on total lockdown for the day until our parents came to pick us up.”

Freshman Felicia Kostiuk of New Jersey also witnessed 9/11 unfold first-hand. “I was in science class, and you get see all of New York from where we were in our school. They called all the teachers out and no one knew what was going on and people were freaking out. My friend’s mom took me to her house, but before that you could see all the smoke around and the sky turned gray. Where the towers were, you could see the smoke go up from miles away. When we got to her house, we just sat there for four hours just watching people on the news jumping out of buildings and running through the streets. This one guy was freaking out and he had just gotten out of a building, and he was in every camera shot. He finally got interviewed and it turned out he had run out of one of the towers with his best friend behind him and had hid under a fire truck. When the smoke cleared, he thought his best friend was behind him, but since everyone’s face was sooty, it turned out that the man was just another guy running away from the destruction.”

As senior Emily Robleto notes, one didn’t have to be in New York, Washington, or Pennsylvannia to feel the effects of the attacks. “Even though I wasn’t there and I was not physically involved in it, whenever I hear something or experience something about September 11th in music or movies, I become very emotional and I start crying,” says Robleto. “It has become apart of the American collective conscience. And we all experienced September 11th together on that level, so it was a very momentous event in our lives. It changed the world in which we lived. It changed the course of my life.”

Junior Steven Price, a Gastonia native, also recalls what it was like coming into school that day. “When I walked into my classroom that morning, the television was on and broadcasting images from New York and Washington,” says Price. “Experiencing something so tragically real kind of makes you stop and wonder what kind of evil has to exist for something like this to happen. That was at 11:00 that morning, and the towers had already come down, but none of us knew it yet.”

“It is in tragic moments like September 11th that we realize our own mortality and how quickly life can be taken away from us,” says senior Grace Gunter. “If anything, 9/11 should motivate us to live each day to the fullest, for we don’t know what tomorrow brings.”

Dr. Mary Ellen Weir of the English department similarly speaks of how looking back on that day also inspires more positive thoughts of the future: “It seems like it’s such a dim, hopeless time in history, but I have hope that love will prevail. History will go on and human beings will become better and more loving.”