The freshman class of 2019 is the last generation with students born before 9/11. For many of us, that is just something to make us feel old, but it is a cornerstone moment — for this class and the future classes after them, 9/11 was only ever history.
I was eight years old when it happened. My story is similar to most my age — it happened at school, and when we got home, my parents were scared and did not know how to explain it.
The more compelling story came from my mom. She was getting ready for work the morning of 9/11 and as she was leaving the house, horrible news came across the kitchen television. Tragically, a plane had crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Seventeen minutes later, a second plane hit the south tower. It was not until the final minute that the world knew what was happening. This was not a disaster nor was it a tragic accident. It was a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
In those 17 minutes, we did not know what to think. We did not even know it was intentional.
The effects of the attacks that day reverberate still in virtually every aspect of our lives.
Opinion editor Autumn Edmonston and photo editor Kevin Barrett do not remember that day. Arts and living editor Arielle Robinson only remembers that her brother was born on Sept. 11. Her mother was giving birth, and the nurses and doctors were just crying.
“No one was happy,” Robinson said.
Sports editor Teddy Teshome lived in Ethiopia at the time of attacks. He did not know about 9/11 until 2007 when he moved to Georgia.
“I don’t recall what happened the day of — I was only three,” Teshome said. “We were celebrating because Sept. 11 happens to be Ethiopia’s New Year.”
Editor-in-chief Abi Marmurowicz and production manager Bridget Walker were both five at the time, and they remember being confused and scared by the emotional grown-ups around them.
Managing editor Rio White, three-years-old at the time of the attacks, remembers being at home.
“My mom’s from Japan, so the weight of what happened was hard to explain from her perspective,” White said. “As far as the explanation of it, I don’t think my mom or [American] father wanted to immediately subject us to the imagery of it, having to somehow figure out how to explain it to toddlers. It wasn’t until middle school that I started looking into it and wondering why it all happened.”
But the distance from that day may have its perks.
“The good thing was that I wasn’t told what to think,” White said. “There were a lot of people of middle-eastern descent getting attacked over 9/11, but I avoided that xenophobic mindset. I was able to understand and figure out on my own the true weight and horror of it. At the end of the day, I didn’t have all these preconceived thoughts about it.”
