Editor's note: To reflect more fully on the meaning of Sept. 11 to our generation, The Eagle chose to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 by publishing these first-person student accounts describing where the authors found themselves at the time the terrorist attacks occurred. Each piece explores the authors' raw initial reactions, as well as their present-day reflections on what has changed - or not changed - in the five years since.
Just as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were the definitive events of our generation, hopefully reflection can help us face them objectively and move toward greater peace, respect and understanding in generations to come.
Could this be real?
Looking back, 9/11 is foreign to me.
I was in physics class when the planes hit the twin towers, ironically learning how the velocity of one object affects the velocity of another. By lunch, speculation was a reality. Our country had been attacked by terrorists. The World Trade Center had been hit. Everyone's words echoed my thoughts. Could this be real?
In homeroom, the usual trivial conversations were replaced with the possibility of retaliation. Debates began on reinstating the draft. No, I thought, my generation is not supposed to go to war.
I would like to know how my country lost sight so quickly of its true enemy. How were we blind to involve men and women of my generation in a war built on false pretenses? But most of all, I wonder when the killing will stop - on all sides.
I want to know how my country can remember the pain of loss but lose awareness of what caused it. I want to know how my country can glorify it in movies, can build memorials and hold services for those who died, but quickly lose attention and capacity for the anger that was at one time all-consuming.
I want answers to the most basic of questions. How did my country fail so completely in protecting its citizens? Why did the most powerful military in the world have just a handful of armed jets at its disposal? And most of all, could it happen again today?
Five years later, many of us are still asking these questions. If my country is listening, I would like some answers.
-JESSICA KRUPKE
We had to heal each other.
Five years after the attacks, I remember a night later that fateful week more vividly than I remember 9/11.
In 2001, I was a 15-year-old high school sophomore. My school selected me to speak at a 9/11 memorial candlelight vigil, and I had one afternoon to prepare the speech. I sat on the team bus after my lacrosse game that afternoon, pencil in hand.
What to say? My concept of the world, humanity and my own life had been shaken in one morning. What could one teenager say to honor the losses, sacrifices and heroes of 9/11? No one in my Pennsylvania school had lost family in the attacks. How could I comment on the issues of national security, terrorism and jihad? They had jumped from textbooks to the headlines. What bearing did my teenage thoughts have on these issues?
My speech would be a disaster, a stab in the dark about the meaning of a world I no longer recognized. I sat on the bus and looked at the faces of the girls around me. Some laughed, some talked, some sang and some stared out the window. I didn't know where the world was heading, but I still recognized these faces. I could not find the words to honor, to understand, or to heal by myself. I could see the lives around me. We had to find meaning together. We had to heal each other.
Five years after 9/11, this community of survivors determines what that day meant. There will be no just remembrance, no appropriate homage, until those still living realize their responsibility to create this meaning. 9/11 was a turning point in American history; the survivors must decide our new direction on every level. Through interpersonal relationships or foreign policy, we constantly create this American identity. It is our duty and privilege to determine what so many died for that day. Let it be something we've seriously considered and of which we can be proud.
-COURTNEY JONES
"You might want to bring your kids in here."
On this fifth anniversary of 9/11, I can't help but reflect on the actual time, the actual moments, when the planes hit the twin towers.
It was my junior year of high school and we were sitting in our United States history class. A teacher from another class, Mr. Truscott, had been lingering in the doorway chatting with us and our teacher. He left, so we opened our books and got ready for class to begin.
A minute or two later, he returned to the doorway and told our teacher, "You might want to bring your kids in here; a plane just hit the twin towers."
We were stunned and hurried to the classroom next door where we watched the events unfold on TV, shocked and dismayed. It was hard to comprehend, and I felt like my head was spinning as I tried to absorb it all. We watched as the first tower collapsed, and it was probably the scariest thing I have ever seen. When I started thinking about how many people were still in there, I couldn't hold back any longer and tears rolled down my cheeks.
A part of me felt foolish for crying. I did not know anyone in the towers or on the planes. My few relatives that lived in New York City were a safe distance away. I was not in danger of losing anyone, yet the event itself was too painful, too terrifying. All the innocent people in the towers and on the planes, and the heroes who lost their lives trying to save others - it was too much for me to wrap my head around.
From the moment that 9/11 was declared a terrorist attack, our world changed. Like most Americans, it is difficult for me to understand how someone could hate us so much. I still marvel over the amount of careful calculation and planning that took place - just to be sure that there would be as much human devastation as possible.
-MAGGIE NAPLES
We are not invincible.
The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, unfolded before my eyes on television as I watched in shock with the rest of the world. Millions of Americans were reduced to helpless bystanders as an era of security and safety for the United States abruptly came to an end.
As a resident of Orange, Conn., the attack on 9/11 did hit close to home. I was in my 11th grade French class reviewing verb conjugations when another teacher abruptly ran in to announce that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. As we watched the terrifying images of thick gray smoke pouring out of the tower, a second plane hit. I tried to piece together the shocking images into something real. I had never felt so unsafe or threatened as an American citizen.
My mind raced, thinking of people that I knew that could have been in danger in either New York City or Washington, D.C., and I realized my neighbor worked down the street from the World Trade Center. That night, our neighborhood gathered at his home anxiously waiting with his wife for his safe return. He emerged from the car covered from head to toe in black ashes. He did not say a word as he and his wife embraced each other and cried. Later on when I was able to speak with him about that day, he said he would never again take for granted returning home safely from work to kiss his wife.
As each anniversary approaches, I reflect on how witnessing an attack on my two favorite cities stirred feelings of sadness, anger and vulnerability, but also awareness. We live in the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, and we were paralyzed. It was the first time that I had questioned my safety as an American. It was something so basic that I had taken for granted. The terrorist attacks have jolted the American population. We are not invincible, but we are now aware and strong.
-STEPHANIE REYNOLDS
