Students, faculty and first responders gathered on the quad at SMU Friday to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. SMU Police, Highland Park DPS and University Park Police and Fire departments attended.
"It's important for events like this to continue," says SMU President Gerald Turner. "For many students, it is a just a historical event they studied but didn't experience. For them to understand this affected a lot of people and they think, 'I'd better check it out and see what was involved with it.' It's important to reaffirm the importance that Americans will stay unified on things."
They held a bell-ringing ceremony for the fallen and bagpipes played "Taps." Some students who attended say they were born after the attacks, but they still feel the impact of September 11 now.
"It's truly, for me, about honoring those who did give their life, not only on September 11, 2001 but following that in the global war on terror," one said.
Several alumni attended as well. Ryan Trimble, who had just started his freshman year in the fall of 2001, says students gathered together after the attacks.
"I can tell you exactly where I was. I was just texting with a friend. We counted the steps from the dining hall across to this dorm. He was taken back to that moment just by mentioning it," he says. "Everybody came together on campus. It was somber, but we all had a common mission," he says. "We all had a common mission. It was freedom and supporting our fellow Americans."
Trimble says, despite division in politics now, he believes people would still come together if the attacks happened now.
"It's important to have events like this. I saw banners and signage that says, 'never forget.' Darn right we better never forget," he says.
Aaron Molkentine, director of Facilities Planning and Management, says he was recently teaching a class on industrial hygiene and told the class about debris and air quality issues when the World Trade Center was hit.
"And I stopped in the middle of the lecture. I looked at the class said, 'Wait a minute. None of you were alive when this happened,'" he says. "That's when it really hit me: We've been through a whole generation since this occurred."
"If it happened today, something that tragic would provide an umbrella over all of our differences and bring about a commonality," Turner says. "How quickly we may fracture off again may be sooner than 2001, but I think people would respond to it just because it's so tragically human. In the end, that's the biggest umbrella is humanity."
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