Wiston Papers

Remembering 9/11

At 6:00 Tuesday morning an American Airlines plane takes off on a trip to history.  Its journey will end 46 minutes later in a moment forever seared into the collective memory of virtually every American alive that day.  Only the very young are spared the horror of recollection.

September 11, 2001 changed America.  Terrorists have hijacked American Airlines flight 11 and aimed it at the north tower of the World Trade Center.  Seventeen more minutes and a second plane, United Airlines 175,  rips  into the south tower.  The Pentagon is the third target...struck by American Airlines 77 at 9.40.  The last commandeered aircraft, United 93, smashes into a Pennsylvania field just moments after 10 o’clock.

In nine and one-half hours the entire World Trade Center collapses piece by piece, four airplanes destroyed,  and nearly 3,000 persons perished.

I had just walked into the journalism building at Iowa State University when someone told me the news.  I didn’t believe it.  Just as I did not the believe the moment when I learned of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 or the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life in 1981.

Too many evil acts this September morning have left a wounded nation paralyzed.  We are huddled around the TV set that carries the unbelievable images.  Everyone is silent, transfixed.

What do I do?  I’m scheduled to teach my classes.  But no one cares about anything that day but the attacks, death and destruction.  This is a moment of history...a moment of grief...of shared emotions.  That’s how we held class that day...the day after that...and for many other days.  Talking and sharing.

But reporters are supposed to plow through tragedies and try to make sense of the moment.   Even amid tears, anger, sorrow, and disbelief.  How can I help these young journalists both cover a story and deal with their pain?  

I have no doubt that I did little more than listen and respond.  Our answer was to take our microphones, cameras, notepads and humanity and interview fellow students, faculty, staff and friends.  But we listened more than we talked, we recorded instead of interrogated.  We were community instead of adversaries....fellow Americans as often as we were reporters.

We all were changed. Many of my students have remained in the business to this day.  I know that they are working and thinking of that moment eleven years ago and how they changed.  Other students chose another career path.  But their recollections, too, mirror the thoughts and feelings of their former classmates.   

Every September is a painful reminder of how America lost her sense of security, realized her vulnerability, responded with both anger and compassion, sometimes with vengence and foregiveness, and often with discrimination and tolerance.

I hope, however, the passage of time has made us more reflective as a nation and people.  I hope that the intervening years have allowed us to realize that evil in the world is not the domain of a single religion, nationality, race or philosophy.  All Americans were changed on September 11.  Not a resident of this nation was untouched by those events.  

Not all of the changes, I know, have been positive. We have lost some of our innocence and naivete.  Our world now is obsessed with more security and we’ve relinquished some of our freedom as a price.  Some Americans are less tolerant of divergent opinions, which was not the dream of our founding mothers and fathers.   And too many of are quick to blame the “other” for our problems.

Yet I still love America and her people.  September 11, 2001 did not change that.  Despite the solemnity of this date I remain optimistic about the essential goodness of human beings. I truly believe that we are a better country and people than before September 11, 2001.  That thought comforts me as the years pass.  

Steve Coon

September 11, 2012