9/11: Students perspective
Many feel a disconnect
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HOUGHTON -- 25 years ago today, a total of four U.S. airliners were hijacked in a large-scale act of terror. The largest incident was at the Word Trade Center in New York City where two planes struck the two largest buildings in New York and killed 2,753 people in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the country's history. The aftermath of the attack not only shook Americans for years to come, but those around the globe. A third aircraft struck the Pentagon, while a fourth, reportedly targeting the US Capitol was thwarted by passengers who sacrificed themselves to prevent the attack.
The current generation of undergraduate students in the U.S. were either not born or don’t remember the Sept. 11 terror attacks. A few students at Michigan Tech said the event was a tragedy, but cannot help but think of other events happening in their lifetimes that affect them more.
21-year old data science major Anna Tolles said she remembers her parents were scared something like 9/11 could happen in their backyard. "They were more afraid after 9/11 happened. I think they started locking their door when they never had before," she said. "Which doesn't really make sense because we live in Michigan. Somehow, 9/11, like multiple states away, scared them enough to start locking their door every day."
Tolles added she grew up pretty close to downstate Oxford, where a school shooting took place in 2021, so in comparison, an event she did not remember does not affect her as much. "I feel like it's not as scary, just because so many terrible things have happened in the world," she said. "I grew up with school shootings. I know the Oxford shooting happened pretty close to my school. So, I feel like huge, dangerous events are more normalized now."
19-year old James Parvel said he is disconnected from 9/11 because he and his peers did not experience it. "Obviously, we shouldn't forget it, but it's kind of hard for us to fathom what actually happened when we're not living it, or seeing it in real time," he said.
Actuarial science major Braden Thibault was born in 2006 and remembers going to a Catholic school and learning about the Sept. 11 attacks. Thibault said he did not know of the importance of it when he was younger. "Surprisingly, in the third grade, I was not devastated," he said. "I was like, 'that's bad,' but at that age you don't really register anything. So, the next week we were back on English and math."
Thibault said he is worried about the current political climate and how 25 years later, 9/11 still affects everything. "I think it's pretty heavy," he said. "There's a lot of things, especially now, that make me upset when I think about it, because nobody learned from it."
One international student, mechanical engineering graduate student Kunal Deshmukh, was born two years before Sept. 11, 2001, but grew up in India. He said he did not have any memories on the day of the event but learned of its death toll later on in life. "I didn't understand the events that were taking place, but what I've heard from the news that the death toll and the injuries that took place during that event were very high," he said.
As with every year, Michigan Tech’s Army/Air Force ROTC will honor those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001 with its “In Honor and Remembrance” ceremony from 8 a.m. to noon today in front of the ROTC Building on the Michigan Tech campus.