What follows below the jump is the piece I wrote after September 11th for the Connecticut College Voice. I was in DC at the time, studying at American University for the Semester in Washington Program, and sent this story in to the paper via email.
It ran in the September 14th edition of the Voice, as it was/is a weekly paper. I had my notes, but was unable to find my original file of it amongst my digital archives. But thanks to the Voice and current editor-in-chief Jazmine Hughes, I was able to get my hands on a scan of the paper. It appears here almost exactly as it did there, except for minor grammatical changes and the inclusion of a moment involving a military plane that appeared in my notes but for some reason (probably length) did not make the final copy.
My plan is to reprint this today as a visit to the past, and then to write “September 11, ten years on” on Monday as a look to today and, hopefully a future where it is less raw.
Richard Rivas ran into the room and announced what many in the nation already knew.
“Everything is on fire. It’s on TV. It’s terrorists,” he said, nervously pacing the lobby of Congressional Hall.
At first, no one reacted.
“I’m serious, I’m serious,” he insisted.
His classmates remained frozen in place, unbelieving. Natalie Hirt was first to break out of the stupor.
“Oh God,” she whispered before running back to her room, “I have to call my parents.”
It was in this way that the majority of students enrolled in the American Politics program of American University’s Washington Semester first heard about the series of hijacked plane crashes that literally rocked the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
As Hirt departed, another student said aloud, “Thank God it isn’t Thursday.” All American Politics students work at their internships on Thursdays, the majority of which are located in downtown Washington.
The rest of the students listlessly returned to their dorms just in time to see the second World Trade Center tower collapse. It was a scene that would be played often throughout the day in dorm rooms and the lounge at Federal Hall. Many of the Tenley campus students split their time between the television and the computer lab, searching desperately for more details.
Some students chose to avoid the television, instead sitting huddled in the halls with cell and cordless phones pressed to their ears, hoping for some sort of respite from the overtaxed phone service. Most would have no such luck and hung up after a few minutes of frustration.
“I can’t get an outside line,” Gerardo Rodriguez, a student from Guatemala explained, clearly annoyed, “I’ve been trying for twenty minutes. How do I call my family?”
Others, concerned about friends and family in New York, waited impatiently for phone service to be restored.
A female student, shaking her head with slight embarrassment after checking her voicemail for the eighth time in twenty minutes explained, “My boyfriend lives in the city. I know he is, like, nowhere near there, but I just want to know for sure.”
As more images of the Pentagon burning flashed across the screen, Rodriguez expressed disbelief, “This is America. How does this happen?”
At 11:00, American University was officially closed down. All events and classes were cancelled for the rest of the day. Later, Mayor Anthony Williams announced that Washington, D.C. was in a state of emergency.
On campus, RAs knocked on doors and attempted to compose a list of missing students. A group from the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China was initially reported missing. They returned just prior to one o’clock, having made the trip back, on foot, from the Social Security office, where they were filing for American Social Security cards.
Professor Richard Semiatin, a Connecticut College graduate, called each of his students individually to tell them classes were cancelled and that he would be available to talk if they wanted. He expected the other professors were offering a similar service to students on both Tenley and the main campus.
A hastily planned religious service and prayer hour was offered in the spiritual center. Some students did take advantage of the service, but more seemed content to sit outside the center and simply discuss how they felt with friends and classmates. As the service ended and students and faculty emptied into the campus, a lone military plane flew by above. All stopped and turned their eyes skyward. The sense of the crowd simultaneously holding their breath in anxiety was palpable.
The streets of the city were unusually quiet on Wednesday morning. The usual hustle and bustle of the downtown was replaced with respectful mourners who offered warm hellos. Buses were full all day as those who went to work seemed reluctant to use their cars or the metro.
On telephone poles, small signs read, “United We Stand,” with a computer generated American flag above the words. Police armed with machine guns staked-out corners of the streets and watched cars as they drove past. In Georgetown and downtown, soldiers in fatigues with crossing guard vests acted as police. They seemed to be stationed every twenty feet.
After a quiet Wednesday, dual bomb threats, made within an hour of each, shook American University once more. The campus shut down for the day, then reopened for a discussion session entitled, “Looking at Our Common Humanity.”
On Friday, another session will discuss the bomb threats. The goals of the session are simple, to find meaning in the tragedy and to assure one another that the worst has passed. American University, like the rest of the nation, is looking to one another for security and comfort.