9/11 Through the years

By Andrew Ivers
Editor-in-Chief

On Tuesday morning, I walked into my second period classroom—for Latin IV with Mark Tychonievich—worrying about the previous night’s translation homework, which I had yet to complete. The television’s corner was brighter than usual: I was taken aback. As we filed in, Tychonievich told us to sit down. This was the day’s lesson. You want to go to school? Tychonievich asked in a realistic tone his friends know well. This is it. The twin towers of the World Trade Center looked like smoke stacks, as Tychonievich later observed. 

We were watching because there was nothing to do which was more important, yet I think very few of us felt or knew the magnitude of the situation. About ten minutes later, the south tower collapsed. I excused myself and made a brief search of the upper halls, trying to find any students or teachers upon whom I could impart the information. They needed to know. I could honestly think of nothing else besides relating the situation to anyone I could. I found Latin teacher Mary Lee McConaghy conversing with a sole student in her classroom. 

As I entered her room, I told myself she had surely heard something; she had not. I spit out the information: hijacked planes...the Pentagon...the World Trade Center towers...one already fell... Then I said a word which has stood by itself on countless lips the last few days: “its...” I could not finish the thought. I finally said “ridiculous,” then immediately realized my understatement. Soon we were back in Tychonievich’s room. The second tower fell. The Pentagon was on fire. Lower Manhattan was a cloudy pile of rubble. Another attacking plane might be 25 minutes from Washington. All I could think of was precedent. I realized there was none. 

I thought about the way the Great Depression reconfigured the mentality of one or two generations directly and changed the basics of the U.S. economic and federal banking system. I thought of the way World War II elevated the U.S. to the peak of a global pedestal, again, changing American mentality. Tychonievich was right in assessing the situation’s gravity: things happened on Tuesday that had never happened in our nation’s history. I realized I was living through a moment of before and after. Some of America’s most prominent establishments—from industrial Manhattan to the view American have of their security—had been “All changed, changed utterly,” as Yeats said in his poem “Easter 1916.” He was talking about the execution of 16 Irish nationals by English officers after an uprising in Dublin which transformed the men from questionable rebels into heroes and invoked fervent support for the Nationalist cause among the Irish. He knew the world after that action would be completely new and different. And so it is now. 

As I watched the events unfold, I did not think of the casualties. I will admit that. The sheer awe the acts against the country inspired was what mainly drove my emotions on Tuesday. Now we live in a different world: the world after. Bush lived like a ghost on the evening news; political and military headlines on old newspapers in my room seemed completely unimportant. The gravity of the perceived and the palpable repercussions alone are too much for me to think of; such an utter change is too much to comprehend.

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My Fellow Classmates, 

I cannot describe the feeling I had inside me when I watched CNN Tuesday morning, and watched the “secure” world I have always lived in disappear. Seeing the airliner streak across the New York skyline, then bury itself in an explosion of glass and flame as it struck the World Trade Center, is an image I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. How can one imagine a living person intentionally planning such a merciless attack on innocent civilians, going about their daily lives? This was not an act of war against a military force, as Pearl Harbor was. This was an action against Americans, simply because they live in a civilized, humane country that prides itself on freedom. 

Thursday afternoon, news of another event struck me beyond belief. This event was not the evacuation of the Capitol, but rather the rally being held on Friday, encouraging people to sign a petition against violent action towards the terrorists. Who could sign such a petition, I do not know. I wonder, with no success, how these rally members suggest we put an end to terrorism, and an end to the death and destruction that ultimately results from such acts of evil. I do not believe striking back at a time such as this is immoral, or going against Catholic belief. Self-defense is no sin. I would feel no remorse for the destruction of the evil in men like Osama Bin Laden, men who would kill fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives, simply because they live in America. 

I know and pray that the United States of America will pull through such dark times as this, and I pray that we will not turn on each other, over matters such as military action. I pray for everyone in this country, and I know God will lead us through this dark cloud to the light that is always there. God Bless America.

Christopher Seals ’04

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Last Tuesday’s undiscriminating act of terrorism was cowardly, unjustifiable, and evil. I am just as saddened, frightened, and angry at this tragedy as any other American, but I am also saddened, frightened, and angry at the response that I have seen from the American people. 

Americans all over are calling for blood, and demanding “justice.” There has been talk of the United States bombing Afghanistan and other nations where anti-American terrorists may reside. President Bush made it clear that the United States will “make no distinction” between the terrorists who did this and the country that harbors them. If we take this course of action and launch a campaign of violence against Afghanistan or any other nation, innocent civilians will end up dead, wounded, or missing just as they did here in America after the attack against the World Trade Center. I fear that, as Andy Neilsen pointed out in last week’s issue, America is adopting the same attitude that drove the fanatics who perpetrated this awful crime. We cannot allow any more innocent people to die as a result of this mess, even if they happen to be Arab Muslims instead of white Christians. 

If we don’t respond to this tragedy with violence, then what do we do? I submit to the people of this country that even if we were to eliminate every single terrorist on Earth tomorrow, the threat to American lives would still remain. It would not be long before America’s violent, unsympathetic foreign policy would provoke the formation of new terrorist organizations with the same goals as the ones who threaten the citizens of this country today. President Bush called this catastrophe “an attack on freedom,” and I feel that this is a gross oversimplification. Are we really expected to believe that these terrorists decided that they were going to launch an assault against American civilians because they despise the ideals of freedom and democracy? I strongly desire freedom, and they have been deprived of it for decades by the United States and other Western countries who intervene in their affairs and use violence to impose a proWestern, pro-corporate agenda on the Third World. The United States endorses the violent suppression of Palestinians by the state of Israel, bombs Iraq on a daily basis, and exploits the workers and the environment of Arab nations by way of “free trade” agreements and even outright violence. Our country needs to halt its violent, exploitative, and interventionist foreign policy and work towards building peace and social justice in the Middle East and all over the world. The United States needs to reevaluate its foreign policy and how it affects the rest of the world. People all over the world need our sympathy, compassion, and prayers. They don’t need our bombs.

Chris Storey ’02

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By Andrew Mueth
Features Editor

“But one night, through the latticed window, snow begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine. Good-bye is the end of every story we know that night, and when we close the curtains, oh, we hold each other against that cold white sign of the way we all begin and end. Hello, Good-bye is the only story. We know, we know.” —Martha Collins 

I thought I knew my plans for a feature about 9/11: I would look at pieces in other publications for inspiration, and then tell a student’s story about his connection to the tragedy. But as I looked at one predictable headline after another on a page of survivors’ stories in the New York Times, a page looking more like the obituaries in the back sections of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, something hit me. 

First, let me clarify that I love America, and would regret living anywhere else; but as I read the papers, I felt saddened by my realization: I was tired of 9/11. 

I was no longer interested in reading the stories of those brave souls who died in the attacks, or the heartwarming stories of survivors who did not “go gentle into that good night,” as Dylan Thomas once put it, or the tales of the heartbroken families who have done their best to survive the loss of loved ones. 

I understand the toll such a tragedy has taken and continues to take on those who lived through this tragedy. Yet, unfortunately, the stories all seem to run together. Having read a full two-page spread of quarter-column stories in the New York Times, I was sad that, after hearing so many real stories, I felt no different. I felt saturated by the news, could see the stories, faces, and names all running together into some crowded room in my mind set aside and entitled “9/11.” 

Yet Monday morning at prayer service, on the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, I listened closely to responses to the day as told by two high school students, one from Massachusetts, one from Virginia. My eyes welled with tears as I listened to the way these young adults, the same age then as I am now, described the events of the morning as their poorly informed eyes saw the day, and I felt the panic and chaos as they struggled, like citizens across the nation, to get the story straight. 

I realize now that I still feel the need for stories about the day. I know that I would feel let down, even outraged if The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Post-Dispatch, US News and World Report, or anything else did not publish some sort of tribute to the innocent Americans somehow harmed or marked by the tragedy. I just wish I still had it in me to care enough to pick up and read those tributes. 

My wishing did not make me feel any different, however. I reread the poem, “The Story We Know,” by Martha Collins. Collins speaks of the shallowness and predictability of human interactions, but also of the focus on each other that people need, a focus made clear with the realization of death. The message and words of the poem struck me: “In the end, this is a story we know so well we don’t turn the page, or look below the picture, or follow the words to the next line.” 

I saw myself doing just that: looking at the headlines and mocking how fake and clichéd they sounded; I realized that I no longer did look below the pictures of September 11. 

I have wondered what this all means, and whether there is an escape from the clichés threatening to bury the reality of the tragedy. 

From the start of the week, I had hoped to find a way to put into words how 9/11 has changed the lives of students here at SLUH. I found out, after reflection and talking to classmates, that for most of us, it hasn’t. Don’t get me wrong—we think and say it has changed our lives—but in reality, for most of us, all 9/11 means is taking off our shoes before getting on a plane, a thirty-second hassle. Yet, every student here was in grade school in 2001, and all the people I talked to agreed that we were too young to know how it has changed us: we can hardly remember if terrorism was or was not a part of our lives before September 11. I know that students whose parents work in the flight industry or the military were most certainly affected, but most of us have not had to alter our lives significantly because of September 11. 

We have certainly grown up with the word “terrorism” in the backs of our minds, and with some semblance of knowledge that there was a war going on in a country we’ve never been to, begun in the name of fighting terrorism. But as with the stories of 9/11, every day we hear of “yet another” suicide bomber in Iraq killing seven marines, and each one lessens our interest. 

The conclusion to such a diminishing care for this tragedy, however, is most certainly not to cease reporting such stories. My soul knew this fact when it sensed the outrage I would feel if newspapers did not tell the stories of victims year after year. 

As Collins wrote, when death approaches or we realize our mortality, “when we close the curtains, oh, we hold each other against that cold white sign.” When death turns and faces us, we must hold on to one another, listen to one another, and value one another’s experiences. 

What newspapers and every American must do is to keep listening and recording the stories, not only in their minds, but also on paper and the Internet. And even if we don’t want to hear right now what the stories say, we must at least use them to form some massive, informal database where people can go, today, tomorrow, or years from now, look at back issues of newspapers and magazines, or at web pages and see the human side of this tragedy, and hope to learn from it what the victims did, hoping to gain some wisdom and inspiration for their lives, their time. 

If, as George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” then we at the very least must do our part for future generations, let it be known forever, that these people died on September 11, 2001, and that these people lived to tell the tale, and that these families mourned for the loss of loved ones, and that the whole country rose up around them, and wept with them, and later, gave them a shoulder to cry on, and later vowed to do their best to bring the dead ones justice. We must, as those students did on the tragic day, strive to get the story straight. 

Maybe 9/11 happened too early for the classes of ’07, ’08, ’09, and ’10 to notice that their lives have been changed. Maybe the litany of stories has worn us out. It may be too early to find a historical perspective on how 9/11 has changed our generation, but if we don’t record what happened that day, and how we see it shaping us today, all will be lost to the past, and we will be unable to learn from the past how to change the future. If we give up now on learning from 9/11, not only will we fail to learn now, but we will be unable to learn from it later, when we may need the lessons of this tragedy more than ever. 

So someday in the future, when we feel that September 11th became “the story we know,” pause a moment, read the personal tales from the day, and listen to what fellow people learned that day in 2001, when all most of us wanted to do was get the story straight, and be glad that for the years afterwards, people continued to do their best to value the truth. 

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By Sean Kickham
Features Editor

Math teacher Frank Corley remembered “the smell of the concrete dust was still hanging in the air. ... It just burned your nose,” when traveling to New York City two and a half weeks after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He went to support his friend Paul MacDonald, whose brother had gone missing after the attacks. 

Corley attended the funeral of Joe MacDonald, a victim of the 9/11 attacks, this past Monday, Sept. 11. 

MacDonald was the eldest brother of Corley’s best friend, Paul MacDonald. Joe MacDonald worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the north tower of the World Trade Center. On Sept. 11, 2001, MacDonald had decided to go to work instead of golfing with his cousin, who also worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. 

Around 9 a.m. Eastern Time, the MacDonalds’ younger sister Nancy heard on the news that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. She then drove over to MacDonald’s house to watch the news with his wife Denise. Together they watched as the towers crumbled. 

After seeing the south tower fall, “Denise just fell apart, just screaming and crying,” Corley said. “She just fell to the floor. And, of course, when the north tower fell, here’s this woman literally watching her husband die on TV.” 

That night, not yet knowing of the MacDonalds’ horrible news, Corley called Paul because he thought Paul might know someone that worked in the buildings. “I said something like, ‘Paul, were any of your family members in the building?’ And he said, ‘Joe works for Cantor Fitzgerald. Joe’s in the building.’” 

The following Monday, Corley learned that no one had heard from MacDonald. The 43-year-old was dead. 

“When you watch stuff like that, and you’re in a city far away from New York or Los Angeles where everything happens, you’re just watching a television show,” said Corley. “It might just as well be a movie. It might as well be someone landing on the moon that they’re faking. You don’t really connect to it.” 

“And then when I found out Joe was killed, for me it stopped being a television show, obviously. It became something real and personal. But the other thing that happened was for so many people the whole September 11th thing is this whole international event … but for me it became a much smaller story. It became the story of this one family that I know that got caught up in some big international tragedy, but really and truly, it’s just this one woman and these two daughters who no longer have a husband and a father.” 

“This was a good guy,” Corley said. “If you showed up somewhere and Joe was there, automatically it was going to be okay. Joe made sure you would get along with everybody. ... Joe would never say anything to you that was negative. He wasn’t a sarcastic man. He wasn’t insulting. ... Any human interaction he had always left the person he was with feeling better about themselves.” 

Corley went to New York City about two and a half weeks after the attacks to attend memorials. Two things stood out in his memory. 

Among all the candles and flowers and posters people had made with pictures of missing loved ones, Corley noticed a sign someone created. “It (said something like), ‘We are all looking for our friends, and what we have to realize is that they are part of the air we are breathing right now,’—because of the fire they were vaporized and their very being was in the air—‘and so we must behave respectfully wherever we are.’ It just blew me away. … It was almost Zen-like in its observation that all of humanity is just one being. … It was more just a ‘Hey, look, you are now on sacred ground and so you need to act that way.’” 

Corley pointed out that in St. Louis there are some people who were directly affected by 9/11, perhaps by a lost loved one, but in New York and New Jersey, everyone knows someone who died. 

“I don’t know how you recover from that kind of loss,” Corley said. 

MacDonald’s remains were discovered in the rubble within the past year. The MacDonald family decided to have the funeral on the fifth anniversary of the tragedy. 

“It definitely stuck in my mind on Monday. Okay, here we are. It’s September 11 again,” Corley said. 

From his most recent trip to New York City, Corley recalled “the bright blue skies and thinking, ‘God! It’s a day just like it was five years ago.’ … New York City looked exactly like it did five years ago—bright blue skies and a crisp air to it. It was kind of eerily reminiscent.” 

Of riding through New York and seeing all of the houses with flags in their yards before the funeral, Corley said, “It’s a very personal, very powerful presence all the time there. It’s not the war in Iraq. It’s not President Bush. It’s their next-door neighbor, it’s their cousin, their brother, their friend.” 

Along with his remains, a crucifix given to MacDonald from his wife was recently recovered and will soon be returned to Denise. 

Said Corley, “I can’t imagine the enormity of the emotion when she puts that in her hand. I mean, it’s just going to all come back.” 

According to Corley, the priest and Joe MacDonald, Sr., who gave the eulogy, focused on two things at the funeral mass: “the personal hurt of the day,” not the national pain, and “the resurrection. (The priest) talked about the baptism, the rebirth, and meeting Joe in Heaven.” 

Throughout the day, “Everybody really worked hard to put a positive ... feeling to his death,” said Corley. “We’re all here to party for Joe. ... There was nobody sitting around saying, ‘Oh, those damn terrorists,’ or something like that.” Corley believes the day turned from one of mourning to one of hope. “Monday was a real turning of the page, a turning of the chapter,” he said. 

MacDonald’s death has brought the family and friends of the family closer together. “That doesn’t really make it worth it, but yeah, some good has come out of it,” Corley said. 

On how this personal attachment to the tragedy has affected him, Corley said, “We and they have to find a solution to end all violence, find a way better than just killing. Somewhere along the line somebody’s got to draw the line and say, ‘Let’s find a different path.’ … We don’t have to kill each other. There are other ways to do this, because when we kill each other, people die.”

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By Jim Santel
News Editor

“The Saturday-night roads were saturated with a feeling of afterness, of lateness—the rain wasn’t falling, it had already fallen.” —Jonathan Franzen, The Discomfort Zone 

I knew immediately that the terrorists had destroyed more than just buildings on September 11. As soon as my sixth-grade math teacher gave our class a vague, uninformed description—planes, bombs, World Trade Center—and we had fumbled off a prayer and attempted to return to arithmetic, I understood that the world would change. But like everyone else, I didn’t know how. 

For those of us whose connections to the attacks were somewhat more indirect, perhaps the worst thing 9/11 left in its wake was uncertainty. That day reduced the future to a single, glaring question that loomed over every aspect of our lives in the months to follow: What do we do now? 

A few weeks after the attacks, when my fear was most acute, I was throwing a football outside with my friend Doug. In the waning light of the autumn dusk, a plane appeared overhead, vapor trail in tow. We kept playing, the sting of football leather against my numbed hands solid and comforting. But then another plane entered the dome above, followed by two more until seven planes filled the sky at once. We stopped playing and began speculating: had there been another attack? Were these planes on our side or Theirs? Who were “They,” anyways? I braced for a sudden flash and the ensuing annihilation. It never came, but I felt more helpless than ever: what was I to make of a world where coincidentally converging flight paths was cause for panic? 

Such was the anxiety I still felt three months after 9/11, in December, when my dad announced to my family that as a Christmas present, he was taking us to New York. The brief excitement I felt at seeing New York for the first time was quickly outweighed by the knot in my stomach. “Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked my dad over and over. Of course it is, he would reply, but that didn’t assuage my fears, didn’t stop me from lying in bed at night, wondering what it would be like to be in a plane before it slammed into a building. 

* * * 

In times of calamity, people tend to cling to the familiar, and what was familiar when I arrived in New York on December 26 was Christmas. There was a fresh pit in lower Manhattan, but the same Christmas tree was erect in Rockefeller Center, which had become the hub of the eerie holiday warmth that filled the city. It was certainly the most beautiful Christmas I’ve ever seen, and in many ways, 9/11 made it even lovelier. People window-shopped not to purchase but to remember what it was like when windowshopping wasn’t a significant act, imbued with sad meaning. There were reports of parents crying as their children sat on Santa’s lap at Macy’s. It became difficult to distinguish between morning and dusk, for Christmas lights twinkled wistfully during both. I had somehow expected to see people frantically running uptown to escape the smothering cloud of debris, but Christmas had calmed the city. You could hardly perceive a change, but it was there, floating in the ether. The city had shrunk and the air expanded, smelling clean and thin. 

A delicate quiet had settled on Manhattan, as if after a snowfall. The few homeless people to be seen dared not accost passerby or even rattle their cups of change. Times Square pedestrians walked with pursed lips and downcast eyes. Every street block seemed to hold the same scene of two police officers chatting cautiously in front of souvenir shops selling FDNY shirts. Waiters seemed quietly relieved you had chosen their restaurant. A walk through the Upper East Side on a sunny morning was an almost overwhelmingly powerful experience—seeing gardeners work on tidy flowerbeds beside the sidewalk and bakers set out the morning’s first batch of bread—these were the things that helped the most, the first signs I saw that there was something on the other side of 9/11. 

* * * 

The prospect of visiting New York so soon after the attacks terrified me at first, but the effect was in fact the opposite. The calm of the city engulfed me, and I became a part of the informal community that had formed in Manhattan’s streets, a community bonded by the same terrible link. Doubt still prevailed—New York was a city peering over the precipice of the future, which was suddenly very deep and very dark—but I was reassured by experiencing the way the city forged ahead into the void, the way the skaters at Rockefeller Center continued carving their silent patterns into the ice, the way people gazed at Rockwell’s Four Freedoms in the Guggenheim, the paintings no longer quaint anachronisms. Being closer to Ground Zero placed me farther from my fear. 

I’ve returned to New York twice since 2001, once in the summer of 2004 and again this past August, and each time, the city has inched closer to normal, but that word lost its surety in the rubble of the Towers. 9/11 was a day suspended in time—there is only before and after the attacks, no in between. It drew a line in the sand, one which we had no choice but to cross. Trying to achieve the normal, the familiar, the pre-9/11 is to deny the reality of the After. 

9/11 did change our country, and its legacy hasn’t gone away; we’ve simply gotten better at not looking over our shoulders. You can sense it in New York, where 364 days of the year, things continue as if the attacks never happened. But as New York, and America with it, ease back towards complacency, the shadow of September 11 remains. And in light of what that specter has brought about—shoes and shampoos as potential weapons, an interminable war, the end of the unity that followed the attacks and a return to fierce political divisions—I can’t help but like New York better the way it was that first Christmas After, when what I took for bleak uncertainty was actually a passing peace.

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By Galen Bacharier
Features Editor

St. Louis U. High’s current senior class had hardly started preschool. The juniors were just beginning to walk, and most sophomores and freshmen had yet to be born. And yet, every single student knows about that day, September 11, 2001. Millions glued to their televisions, confused and frightened, watched as two of the tallest buildings in the country were struck by hijacked passenger airliners and collapsed, enveloping New York City in a billow of smoke and rubble. It thrust the United States into a new era, an era of terrorism and Middle Eastern relations. 

That Tuesday morning, clear-skied, was as normal as any other. Students and teachers came to school throughout the morning, with the biggest obstacle of their days being tests or class. What they didn’t expect to hear was news of the deadliest domestic attack in the United States since Pearl Harbor. 

“We used to have a radio in the foreign language office and we would have the news on in the morning,” said Spanish teacher Charles Merriott. “They were saying that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. … Of course everyone thinks some little thing, a small dysfunctional plane.” 

Merriott wasn’t alone; there was no sense of danger, no anxiety, no reason to panic—after all, the World Trade Center was two massive, strong steel buildings, structures a single plane would be no threat to. 

“It didn’t look terribly dangerous because it was a small plume of fire and this massive building,” said Assistant Principal for Mission Jim Linhares. 

Within minutes, every student and teacher who wasn’t in class was watching the news feed, gathered in classrooms that used to house box TVs in the corners. Helicopters circled the burning North Tower. 

“I went into the language lab and turned on the TV, and saw one of the towers burning,” said Merriott. “Well, that didn’t look like some little airplane.” 

Less than 20 minutes after the first, hundreds of thousands watched, mortified, as a second Boeing 767 flew into the South Tower. In a mere moment, the entire perception of the day had changed. This wasn’t an accident; the United States was under attack. Within an hour, video of a third plane crashing into the Pentagon joined the images of the burning South Tower. Later, a fourth plane that was headed for the White House would crash down in a Pennsylvania field after passengers attempted to retake the plane from the hijackers. 

“Things really started to go fast forward and crazy,” said Linhares. “You began seeing shots from the street, you began seeing increasing panic, you heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon, you heard about Pennsylvania; were there going to be more planes?” 

The calm became calamity, and SLUH’s air was dominated by panic and anxiety as the country experienced the most significant pain since World War II. How many other planes had been hijacked? Where else were they targeting? Was St. Louis safe? 

“We didn’t really think we were (in danger), but St. Louis is a key city for a number of companies and industries, so if we were in one of those key places, we could’ve been,” said Merriott. “Right here at SLUH, probably not, but downtown? Yeah.” 

The school had fallen silent except for the updates and panning images of the towers and the occasional teacher still trying to muster strength to teach. Few were. 

“I can’t imagine getting much taught that day, given the gravity of the incident, and all of the uncertainty around it,” said Ralph Houlihan, S.J., a theology teacher at the time. 

It was a tragedy that the country was unable to look away from. Students and faculty alike stayed transfixed on the TVs all day, still unable to completely process what they were watching. 

“Everything stopped,” said Linhares. “People in class were trying to hang in there, but if you weren’t in class, everything was stopped. Even teachers in class stayed tuned, aware of the impact it would have on students.” 

“I watched with my students pretty much all day,” said Merriott. “I told them that it was important because it was certainly something that was going to affect their lives forever. We’re living through a moment of history that we never have to live through again, but I thought it was that important.” 

If the Titanic was the unsinkable ship, then the World Trade Center would have been the indestructible towers. They were built to withstand massive impacts from natural and unnatural causes alike, until the thousands lining New York’s congested streets and the millions of others watching from their TVs saw the North Tower collapse. 

“It was just horrifying, seeing it come down so fast,” said Merriott. 

Linhares, who had experience with the World Trade Center in the past, was especially struck by its downfall. 

“I had worked in the Twin Towers because I went to graduate school in New York and had made deliveries there as a kind of errand boy for a computer company,” he said. “So I knew the buildings, and seeing it like that it was scary to think about. It was super strange that they didn’t exist anymore, that the city had been so radically altered.” 

To those hearing about the event through word of mouth or radio, the idea of any significant destruction was nothing short of absurdity. Seeing and hearing the tower fall in on itself was nothing short of petrifying. 

“My wife was talking to me about what she was seeing on TV,” said principal Craig Hannick. “I remember teasing her at the time because she was saying ‘those buildings are going to fall down.’ I said to her, ‘there is no way those buildings are coming down.’ I couldn’t see what she could see.” 

For many people, seeing one of the World Trade Center’s towers, a highlight of the definitively American New York skyline, toppling down in an earthquake of debris, was the moment they realized this would never be forgotten, an earmark in human history. 

“I happened to be standing in the office watching when the first tower collapsed. It was one of those moments where you feel like there will be ‘before this event’ and ‘after this event.’ History has changed, the country has changed, the way we think about things has changed, this is one of those markers that redefines everything,” said Linhares. 

The second tower’s collapse, while shocking, was overshadowed by the first. Still trying to understand the gravity of the situation, people were speechless as the South Tower was reduced to smoldering rubble in less than a minute. 

“Watching the first tower fall was just horrifying, seeing it come down so fast. When the second tower went down, my first thought was ‘why are they doing an instant replay of the first tower?’ And then I realized,” said Merriott. 

The terror attacks were over, leaving an alien sense of vacancy where the towers used to be. The halls of SLUH stayed silent between classes. Rather than canceling classes and sending students home, the school chose to continue as scheduled, with a prayer service after school that filled the chapel to the brim. 

“The chapel filled up really quickly for the prayer service,” said history teacher Tom McCarthy. “There were people in the doorways that were spilling into the hallways. There were faculty, students, parents.” 

“There had to be at least 400 people there,” said Houlihan. “It was special.” 

Several prayer services of a similar vein were held over the next weeks, commemorating the victims killed in the Twin Towers and the lives of first responders, firefighters, and law enforcement officers who were lost rescuing civilians. 

“School went on, announcements were made, and prayers were said,” said Linhares. 

Although some students were picked up by parents or left for home directly after school, Linhares, a cross country coach at the time, distinctly remembers meeting with the team after the prayer service and classes had ended. 

“I let them know that the best thing we could do was to continue with our endeavors with integrity, with some sense of purpose and mission,” he said. “Those words felt kind of hollow, but that’s what I said.” 

Throughout the day but especially after classes, as students and teachers traversed the campus either attending activities or beginning to head home, they all noticed the deafening silence in the sky with all planes grounded. 

“There’s normally a lot of air traffic around here with Cardinal Glennon helicopters and Lambert,” said history teacher Tom Wilson. “For a couple days, when there was something in the air, it was a low flying military helicopter or plane.” 

While the uncertainty and confusion persisted, and the country seemed to stand still for days after, some noticed a certain unity that the attacks brought about; a sense of togetherness as citizens from every corner of the nation came together to mourn and strengthen each other. New York became the epicenter of an American camaraderie. 

“Sometimes we think of New York as being uppity, snooty and all that, but all of a sudden New York was everybody’s city,” said Merriott. “What are they doing to our New York? What are they doing to us?” 

For days and even weeks after, SLUH’s atmosphere among students and faculty alike was one of silent sorrow, a constant sobering reminder of the nearly 3,000 deaths as more details were released about the attackers. Wilson entered his room, M114, on the 12th to find another reminder. 

“I came in the room the following day and someone had put a flag up. This year I said ‘Ok, this is the 15th anniversary, it’s time to put a new one up.’” 

But among the anger, confusion, mourning, and thirst for revenge of the worst attack in American history, some saw inspiration, a chance to rebuild. 

“There wasn’t just this sort of revenge-only kind of feeling,” said Linhares. “George Bush climbed the wreckage and said ‘we’re going to find the people who did this’, ‘they’re gonna hear from us’ … but next to that, there was this inspiration the first responders who had given their lives, the firefighters’ rescue of people, the people working against all odds to deal with the debris and restore New York to some sort of order. There was a great swelling of admiration for heroes, and a celebration of the American spirit that was in the air in that month after, which maybe you wouldn’t expect. It wasn’t just doom, gloom, hatred, revenge… Human beings need to meet these kinds of moments with the best that’s in them, and there was something about that that was special. In fact, if there’s something redemptive that came from this tragedy, it would be that. … I think over time, that event has loomed larger and larger and larger in some profoundly negative ways. That early optimism and creativity that I saw, I really regret that it hasn’t blossomed as I might have hoped.” 

—Matthew Book contributed reporting.

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