Ten years ago

Ten years ago this morning I was a junior at EIU and getting ready for my 8 a.m. class. It was my first semester working at The Daily Eastern News and I walked through my dorm's lobby to grab a copy of the paper to see how it turned out. I remember thinking how weird it was that there was a TV in the vacant front desk area tuned to what I thought in passing was old footage of the Oklahoma City bombing. I know how silly that was now becuase while I don't remember specifics of Oklahoma City, I know that building looked nothing like the twin towers! I walked across the quad to my class in Coleman Hall, Intro to Mass Communication. It was a class that I took because I was a PR minor for a semester. As I walked across the quad I was oblivious to what was going on. I hadn't turned on the TV while getting ready for class.

Only once I got to my class did I start to realize what had happened, though I'm not sure anyone realized at that moment the true enormity of it. The teacher was really upset and we discussed it a bit. We were dismissed just after the first tower fell and I got back to my room just in time to watch my TV horrified as the second tower fell. I was crying in my room wondering what the heck was going on and suddenly realized I needed to get to work. There was tons of work to do for the paper!

I don't remember too much afterward. It's faded over 10 years. I remember all the panic of the skies and that our editor in chief and a photographer had gone to the little airport in Champaign an hour away after we'd heard that planes had been diverted there. I remember the school administrators arriving at the newsroom to meet with the editorial board, which I was not yet a part of.

That evening I covered a prayer vigil that was held at the union. I wasn't the most aggressive reporter and thats the story that I ended up with. It was such a powerful service though. I don't remember much about the service, but I remember the picture on a photopage in the paper of a campus minister kneeling and sobbing.

In my short journalism career, this was the most surreal, the most significant day. I'm not sure what could surpass it if I was still working at the newspaper. I certainly don't want to find out because that would mean it would likely be something even more horrific than 9/11.

I didn't know anyone who was in New York or Washington D.C. or on flight 93 that day. I know a few people now who were closer to the action. But even though I wasn't closely affected, I know we were all affected. We were affected when those terrorists stole our security out from under us. The thought that no one could touch us on our soil was no longer. In its place came security alerts and difficulty traveling, particularly flying. The country got sucked into a war that I'm not sure is any closer to being won 10 years later.

One of my facebook friends posted this link a few days ago. Someone, I have no idea who, posted The Daily Eastern News from 9/12/01 (for some reason dated 9/12/08). I still get chills looking at that photo on the front page. We did our best to never use wire stories on the front page in those days and I don't even think we normally had access to wire photos. But thats what it was on Sept. 12, 2001, the first day of our alternate reality.

I write this because I think its important to remember. And I think everyone has their own interesting stories from that day. But I also write this because above all, I hope beyond hope that Allie, any future children of mine and everyone's kids never have to experience this horror. I hope we can end this war soon and show those terrorists that when they mess with the United States, they lose.