The Manhattan Skyline Before the September 11th Terrorist Attacks

The first thing I remember is my Mom waking me up by calling me on the phone. I was only living in the fraternity house for a few weeks and school only just started the week prior. I didn’t have class until a little bit later that day so I was sleeping in. Anyway, I didn’t have a cell phone yet so my Mom called me on my house line (I was the only one in the fraternity house with a house line – more on that later) and wanted to know if I was watching the news. I said no, but flipped on the television to see what she was talking about. I hopped from MSNBC (my channel of choice back then) to CNN and finally to FOX News to see what was going on. And what I saw was pretty amazing – one of the buildings that comprised the Twin Towers was burning… and pretty high up, too!

I asked my Mom what was going on and she said a plane flew into one of the towers. We talked for a few minutes and then hung up. I kept laying in bed watching the television wondering if they were going to show a replay of the plane going into the building. And as I laid there watching the television screen, it looked like I got what I was looking for because I saw a plane fly directly into one of the buildings. Except, as I was watching the television I focused in a little bit more and noticed that there was already a building burning – this must have been a second plane! It was shocking to see that happen on live television. Absolutely, utterly shocking to witness.

Now, I don’t want to go through a minute-by-minute recap of that day, but needless to say that within an hour or so the entire fraternity house was awake and all classes had been canceled on campus. But unlike other days off from school, the guys didn’t rush out to get some food and drink to enjoy the day – we were all glued to the large screen television in the living room waiting to see what would happen next. Right after the plane flew into the Pentagon, I remember thinking and saying out loud that the airspace over the Pentagon was restricted and no one could get over it in the first place (I was wrong). I remember flipping through all of the channels on the dial and, remarkably, every single channel on the dial was either broadcasting news coverage of the terrorist attacks or on standby with a message of condolence related to the attacks. And folks, when I say that every channel was covering the attacks or on standby – I mean every channel on the dial. Every single one. It was truly a moment in television history, for sure.

One of the guys who lived in our house was a volunteer fireman. Somewhere around midday – after both towers had fallen – he jumped in his car and went to New York City to help with recovery efforts. When he came back later that night not only were we all still glued to the television, but he had the World Trade Center dust on his fireman boots and gear. It was unbelievable.

Another one of my vibrant memories of that entire situation was how poorly one of my professors handled the situation. I don’t know if I’ve ever written about this particular professor, but he was straight out of the 1940’s university setting – down the ultra elitist attitude and tweed elbow patches on his jacket. Anyway, what I remembered about this first class back on campus (the day following the attacks) was that this professor opened the class by saying, “Notwithstanding the events of yesterday morning, we are here for a different reason. So, let’s open our books to chapter one and begin reading about Cain and Abel.”

I was amazed at how cold and callous that professor was that night – especially considering that he was talking to a room filled with scared, horrified college students. This was a British Literature class where, over the course of the ensuing semester, we talked about traditional literary themes like good versus evil and the loss of innocence. Looking back, I shake my head at the lost opportunity that this professor let slip through his fingers. Here he had a chance to not just talk about these themes, but to show real world examples of these themes occurring all around us.

Anyway, the guys I lived with and I stayed up all night watching coverage of the cleanup and recovery efforts in New York City. We had news coverage on all day, every day. Everyone – including me – started caring a lot more about politics and who was trying to do what in our political leadership. Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the guys I lived with as well as the students on campus either became Republicans or began voting Republican. It was the general feeling of the nation and that feeling was alive and well on Monmouth University’s campus.

It was a scary and yet fascinating time to be a college student.

And it was only ten years ago. On the one hand, it feels like September 11th happened yesterday. But on the other hand, the world has changed so much since then. It makes me wonder where we’ll be in another ten years. Hopefully, terrorism will continue to decline over the next ten years and we can – as a global society – begin working towards a stronger world peace. No, not the hippie version of world peace where we’re all holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Instead, I hope we can move towards a real, workable peace that serves to advance the human race as a whole.

Moving in that direction seemed impossible ten years ago. But today it seems like a totally reasonable expectation for the future. What an amazing ten years…

This has been a pretty happy place for the last week and a half.

About a week and a half ago, nearly a one-third of the planet’s population began celebrating the Easter Triduum. The Easter Triduum is the three day period leading up to Easter Sunday and the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly something for believers like me (and some 2.1 billion other believers in Christ) to celebrate.

On the first of two personal notes in this entry, one of the young men that I advised when he was an undergraduate in Sigma Pi Fraternity became a member of the Roman Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil mass. For him – and those of us who know him – this was also a reason for celebration.

After a solemn, joyous Holy Week the world then began preparing for the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Normally, I wouldn’t cite this as a reason for the world to celebrate. However, following the tragic, paparazzi-fueled death of his beloved mother Princess Diana, there were many people who saw this past Friday’s wedding as a sort of victory for civility. The Sun Newspaper (based out of the United Kingdom) estimated that up to 3 billion people might watch the wedding. I’ve read post-wedding viewership figures as high as 2 billion, so I don’t know the exact number of people who saw the wedding, but I’m sure that most folks out there either saw the wedding live or saw footage.

In any event, the adoring crowds in the United Kingdom reflected the joy and happiness that most people shared for the young bride and groom.

And on a personal note – this past Friday a good friend of mine got married. I was honored to be one of his groomsmen and the excitement of the wedding helped make this past weekend a really great one for me and the hundreds of people who are celebrating this wedding, too.

And then Sunday, May 1st came. For the more than 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, we celebrated the beatification of Pope John Paul II – now known as Blessed John Paul II. The beatification mass was viewed around the world as a man who many knew as a world leader took the final step before being declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly a reason for celebration among the faithful Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church communities!

Of course the only way for such an amazing week and a half period to come to completion was with the announcement that the United States had located, stormed, and killed the most wanted terrorist in the world. And not only was I excited about the confirmation of Osama bin Laden being killed, but I was proud about the way the United States citizens celebrated the victory. I posted this message on Facebook late last night about our national celebration:

When certain countries on the other side of the world celebrate a big event, radical extremists come out in the streets and burn effigies of world leaders and flags of other nations.

When America celebrates the death of a global mass murderer, we have men, women, young, old, Republicans, Democrats, black, white, Hispanic, etc. all celebrating together chanting “USA! USA! USA!”

We win. Again.

Followers of freedom and believers in liberty have a big reason to celebrate this news. Congratulations go out to the men and women of our military and intelligence services on a job well done.

As I posted on Twitter last night – I feel like this week and a half period of happiness and celebration is the beginning of something great for this world. Let’s hope that the good times keep on coming and that we continue to receive good news (or the Good News, as it were) in the coming days, weeks, and months! Enjoy!