Richland Chronicle SPECIAL EDITION: 9/11 20 Years Later

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CHRONICLE Richland

September 10, 2021

9/11 - 20 years later

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2 SPECIAL EDITION

September 10, 2021

Where were you on 9/11?

The Chronicle asks, “Where were you when the 9/11 attacks happened?”

Dr. Tara L. Urbanski Enviromental Science professor “On 9/11, I was actually a student at North Lake College, taking a geology class of all things. And I remember that my instructor at that time, who’s since retired, he pretty much shut the class down.

And had us all watch the news to see what’s going on, to observe it because it was very chaotic to see it happening live on TV at that time frame.”

Edward Sesay SGA parlementarian “During 9/11, I was in Africa and not here in America and I [was] young, I think 2 years old and we watched it in the news. By then, my uncle and auntie were here in America. My uncle was in Harlem, New York, and my auntie was in Baltimore, Maryland. So my mom was scared, we were worried about them. We called them on the phone and we were worried about if they were OK.”

Toby Baldwin Librarian “On 9/11, I was a librarian at Mountain View College and I remember that someone in the media department [said] that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and because they were media, they set up a television and I went in and looked at it. And then they go to work and they put televisions all over the college and I remember all day, people were standing in front of them.”

Samantha Thompson Business major “I vaguely remember being on the floor in the living room and my mom coming in and turning on the TV, we just saw people running and screaming. My mom got on the phone and I think she was speaking with her mom and she just started crying.”

Marisela Contreas Berrios Biology professor

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“I remember leaving to go to work, I was a teaching assistant at Oklahoma State University, and I was getting ready to leave when I saw the plane go through the building on TV and nobody knew what was going on at the moment. On the news, it was like a plane hit the building. Planes somehow hit the building but they didn’t even know it was a terrorist attack. They thought it was an accident but it turned out, it was intentional later on.”

Billy Yost Veteran, Veterans Affairs leader “On that particular [day], I was really unaware of what really had happened. I had already made it to work, I was busy doing things and my wife called me and told me that I needed to get to the internet and to do some research and a plane had hit the towers. The internet back then, when everyone and their grandmother tries to get on it at the same time as news starts to travel, it was very slow. And I didn’t know the magnitude because people were talking maybe it was a Cessna, maybe it was an accident. Just there was so much confusion. You’re thinking about that about this other thing going on and my daughter was just an infant and so as a new dad too, you’re thinking about that and it wasn’t really quite as bad at that moment, because the second plane hadn’t really hit. And then when that happened, my wife had called me again and that’s when we knew it was deliberate in my perception.”

“When I got home that afternoon, I had to pick up my daughter and watching all that chaos in person with the baby, man. That was hard and I don’t mean to get emotional because all you think about is that child. How you can protect them and that was something out of my control.”

September 10, 2021

SPECIAL EDITION 3

Lessons of 9/11 may be hard to teach to students Alex Ortuno

Interim Managing Editor Three buildings, four planes, nearly 3,000 lives. Many were lost that day, from memories to loved ones. Feelings of tension and uneasiness overwhelmed many across the nation. ; h However, as history shows, it must come to an end. The rubble was cleared, the dust settled and the dead were mourned.

History, on the other hand, is to be recorded, taught and shown to future generations. How does one teach about Sept. 11, 2001?

Dallas College Richland Campus U.S. History Professor Michelle Navarro said it is not only important for classes but to connect personally with experiences of those who witnessed it.

“One of the things I do is I try to connect with an individual’s experience, and I do this in a variety of ways,” Navarro said.

She encourages students to engage in watching a specific documentary titled “The Falling Man” (2006). It focuses on a specific photograph taken from the terror attack. The photo is of a man falling headfirst from the North Tower towards imminent death. While the photograph captivated many across the nation, it was received with controversy as it was deemed too graphic for publication. One example was the decision to publish it in The New York Times on Sept. 12, 2001, but it was quickly pulled because of its graphic nature.

While many events in history can have an impact on what happens in the future, some

moments of it are iconic and can define the generation of people who witness it.

“The generation before me, you could ask someone older than me, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ like my mother, my father, they knew exactly where they were.

They knew exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. For my generation, it was, ‘Where were you when the Challenger shuttle exploded?’ That was in ’86. And then in more current events, ‘Where were you when 9/11 happened?,’” said Navarro.

As people may read articles that show the statistics of the terror attack, Navarro has her students engage in telling their stories of witnessing 9/11.

“It’s about having those stories and in my classes I ask students. Sometimes, some of my older students have their own 9/11 stories and letting them share what they went through.

Now, I have a generation of students born after 9/11 and were not even babies. Some of my students that have stories, they were in grade school,” Navarro said.

The domestic impact of 9/11 was strong but was also extremely impactful in American foreign policy; something that isn’t fully understood by many.

“It’s also a lesson at looking at U.S. foreign policy. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are not aware of how U.S. policies in other countries have had a direct negative impact on them,” continued Navarro. One such example of U.S. policies having a negative impact is Operation Cyclone, the codename of a CIA

Photo The Associated Press

Plaques that honor Lauren Grandcolas and other victims who died on United Flight 93.

program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen, including involvement with Osama bin Laden during the Soviet-Afghan War. Bin Laden later turned on the U.S., becoming the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks, according to Navarro.

Navarro believes it is important that there be discussion about how other countries are impacted by U.S. policy.

“We need to have those conversations and that when you go to other countries, they’re

frustrated with some of these foreign policies especially things like embargo acts and how we deal with leaders that are corrupt, ” she said.

As the anniversary of 9/11 looms, Navarro feels students will eventually learn from it, as it affected the United States in several different aspects, from how security is done at airports in the present day, to foreign policy that involved the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the racial attacks that were influenced by the terror attacks.

Alexis Rodriguez Staff Writer

On Oct. 7, 2001, in the shadow of the Sep. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush committed the United States to what would turn out to be the longest war in its nearly 250-year history.

Bush and an almost unanimous Congress (with the exception of Congresswoman Barbara Lee) declared a “War on Terror ‘’ and plunged America into a nearly 20 year conflict that ended this past month.

After spending $2.2 trillion and having lost the lives of 2,448 American service members, 3,846 military contractors and 47,245 Afghani civilians, the legacy of Sept. 11 remains.

“It’s one of those moments that we talk about in my history course where an event happens and after it we are never the same” U.S. History Professor Michelle Navarro said.

“And as a country, we were broken for a good long time … how we go to the airport now and the security and everything else, all that changed because of 9/11.”

Sept. 11 had a long-lasting impact not just politically but culturally in America.

Racial and religious tensions rose shortly

Photo The Associated Press

The Statue of Liberty stands in front of a plume of smoke after the attack in Manhattan.

after Al-Qaida took credit for the attacks.

“I have to be honest, the level of racism very much increased especially with the Muslim community,” Navarro added. ”You’re trying to blame an entire group for a few extremists.”

The FBI released the Hate Crime Statistics document for 2020, showing Islamophobia and Anti-Arab sentiment is still high in numbers.

The United States involvement in Afghanistan goes beyond the 9/11 attacks and actually begins with the 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. “What a lot of people don’t know is that Osama bin Laden was actually a CIA asset,” Navarro said.

“When the Soviets invaded, Bin Laden reached out and we actually trained a lot of the people that are in the Taliban. We gave

them weapons … The irony is that when we went back to Afghanistan in this war that’s just now ending, those same weapons are the same ones that are being used against us.”

Bin Laden, who was killed by American forces in 2011, was, in fact, originally a member of the Mujahedeen fighters the CIA funded in Operation Cyclone under President Ronald Reagan, in one of the many proxy wars that made up the Cold War. Bin Laden went on to form Al-Qaida in 1988 with other ex-Mujahedeen members and others went on to form the Taliban. Both groups have caused the U. S. issues with the Taliban, most recently, taking over the government of Afghanistan after the U.S. pull out in August, according to Navarro.

Afghanistan is no stranger to being a war zone. After 20 years, however, it remains to be seen how it will recover, especially under the oppressive rule of the Taliban. Similarly, the U.S. has seen its fair share of unwinnable wars but with the cost of the War on Terror, including the War in Afghanistan, is expected to cost 8 trillion dollars according to document released from the Costs of War Project from Watson Institute. What further impact it has on contemporary American life, political or otherwise, remains to be seen.

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2 decades later, 9/11 aftermath still affects Americans, Afghanis

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September 10, 2021

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mythology, spooky stories and folk lore

Source Information: World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA 9/11 Memorial Timeline

May Peace Prevail on Earth RichlandStudentMedia.com

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