In remembrance of 9/11, the Clarion spoke with various students, faculty and staff members at Sinclair Community College about their memories regarding 9/11. Some watched as tragedy struck on TV, while others were in closer proximity to the disaster. Regardless, it is a memory that they have not forgotten.
“I rode my [Harley] to this little place, and this Indian family owned this place. It was like a little carryout and I stopped in to get a drink and people were yelling at them and stuff and calling them stuff, because they were all freaked out because of the terrorists. And for some reason, they thought these guys looked like terrorists. So I parked my bike out there and I sat there in my own humble way, [and] defended them all day.” — Denny Wilson, advisor of the National Society of Leadership and Success
“I wasn’t here, but I remember seeing news in India about it. And as a Muslim, it was sad for us to hear all the rumors about what happened and all Muslims were blamed on it. After all, we hate whoever did it, because they ruined the reputation of Islam. And I can say how sad it is because even though things are better now, they still have the criteria that Muslims are terrorists; which is very sad, because there are many people right now in Afghanistan and Syria and Egypt who are dying for no reason, just because this happened.” — Nilofar Gagan, student ambassador in the Student Leadership Development office
“I was actually in Buffalo N.Y., that was on the other side of the state, at a conference and it was just a very sad day. I can remember being panicked, because I was flying home that morning and all the flights were canceled. It was just a sad day. I just remember feeling very vulnerable and for the first time ever in my life, I was not sure of anything. I didn’t feel secure about anything, how I was going to get home, how my family members were doing, what was going to happen. It was a very, very scary feeling and I had never felt like that ever.” — Judy Kronenberger, professor and program director of Medical Assistant Technology
“I remember walking into the family room with a piece of toast, because it was that early in the morning and thinking, ‘this can’t be happening’ and trying to figure out what I can do to help. A lot of people were giving blood and stuff, and I was like ‘what can I do to help?’ And I went up to the schools to help handle the phone calls, because I knew that’s what they were going to be fielding. And unfortunately, there were a lot of students attending classes who had parents in the military, because of Wright Patt and they were concerned not knowing what would happen… Gives me chills just thinking about it.” Patti Celek, marketing specialist in the Theatre and Dance departments
“I had a cold that day. I was working at [University of Dayton] and I was waiting for my wife to get ready to go to work, watching TV. And when I saw it, they showed the rerun of the first plane and when the second plane hit, that was live. I was convinced that it was not an accident, that it was deliberate and just watching it… It was scary at that time, because we didn’t know in the initial time what was happening.” Glen Lobo, associate professor in Mathematics.
“It was the week before classes and we were registering. We were crazy busy and when it was all happening, we went into a classroom that had a TV. And they couldn’t pry themselves away from that TV. And the other thing is… they were concerned about the federal buildings and the federal buildings were just right across the street (from Sinclair). People were really anxious about being so close to the federal building, but we were stunned. Couldn’t do anything, couldn’t pry ourselves away from it.
— Peter Bolmida, student success coordinator
“I was sitting in my office at my former college, when my secretary came in and knocked on my door and said, ‘someone just hit the World Trade Center with an airplane.’ And I thought, ‘must’ve been an accident, pilot error, or small plane or something.’ I just didn’t realize the gravity of the situation, then once things started unfolding, I remember everyone in my building crowded around this small television set just watching it. And the sense of it being surreal, like we just couldn’t believe it.”
— Kathleen Cleary, associate provost of Completion by Design
— “I was in seventh grade; I was in middle school in New Jersey. They locked us down in our classrooms. They wouldn’t tell us what was going on — they just told us that we couldn’t call our parents, so we were locked down in our classroom for the majority of our morning. After a while, we could start seeing the smoke because we’re not that far from the city, so you could see the smoke come our way. They finally let us out at the end of the day and we went home and it was all over the news.”
Dominique Starr, graduate assistant in the Student Leadership Development office
“[I was] still doing full-time clinical work over at Grandview at the time, so I had taken my son to the preschool. On the way there (to work), the preschool called me because he cried so much that he made himself vomit and I had to go back and pick him up. So he was actually at work with me that day when 9/11 happened. I can remember people were all alerted after the first plane, and so then all of the TVs’ across the hospital went on and people were gathered around. We were all watching as the second plane went into the building and so I remember [my son’s] response, which was very innocently ‘where did the plane go?’ I remember that very clearly. It’s one of the things in psychology we call a flashbulb memory, which is [when] sometimes something so dramatic, so life-changing occurs, it’s almost like burned into your memory, like a flashbulb.”
— Mary Wells, assistant professor in Psychology
“Watching the Pentagon burn. I went to college in D.C., so I was ROTC training that day and later that evening, I went over there and the building was on fire. When you’re 21 and you’re looking at the world one way, you’re not smart enough to appreciate what all of it means in that moment. I understand now that my whole world changed. I was being commissioned, I was going to be an officer for the Air Force and the world changed. And that day and the months to follow, everything about my life trajectory had just shifted and you’re not aware enough and thinking globally enough at that point to appreciate that change. I can’t say that that’s what I was thinking, because certainly I wasn’t. But it was scary, I mean you’re driving along D.C. and there’s tanks along the street and National Guardsmen with rifles on every corner of Georgetown — that’s a whole different way of living. Crazy day.”
—Sally Caspers, coordinator of Veteran Services
“It’s sort of complex for me. Because for me, 9/11 had been a scene of tragedy for much longer than 2001. When I was in Chile, there’s a horrible dictatorship that took over… and it was Sept. 11, 1973. There’s no relation… And I remember thinking when I got up that morning, ‘oh my goodness’… So to me, people always forget that other things happened on 9/11. It’s a tragic event and people passed away because of it. Other people died on that day in 1973.”
—Derek Petrey, director of the Honors Program
“It was very scary, because there was no communication to my family. At one point, everything shut off and I couldn’t get to my mother (who was in N.Y.)… The last thing my mother said was ‘don’t come here to get us if we die,’ because she didn’t know what was going on. See, in New York, you’re locked [in]. Everything was blocked off… bridges are closed, everything is on an island and it’s all shut down, all transportation. That was pretty scary… You just never think the same way again.”
—Merri Shearer, administrative coordinator in the Student Leadership Development office
“I was taking care of my father who had a stroke, turned the TV on and I honestly thought it was a movie, until I realized it was real. And seeing the second airplane crash into the second tower, and it was just unbelievable. I mean, that’s the only thing I can remember. I was fixing my father breakfast and I thought he was watching a movie until the second plane went into the tower. And the rest, there’s just no words. I couldn’t believe it. After I fixed breakfast, I came here (Sinclair) to work and Sinclair dismissed us early because it was just like, it affected the whole world. Something just took over everything. I just have no words, I couldn’t believe it.”
—Margaret Baily, clerk typist in Career Services
“I was scheduled to go to a church meeting that evening and we had a set agenda. Between the morning event and the evening meeting, we changed it completely so people could be home with their families. So we would offer an opportunity for people to be in reflection and silence and to pray for everyone involved of all religious traditions and to support one another, in what was an immediate sense of dis-aster, d-i-s — aster. [It] means when the world falls apart, when the stars fall apart. Disaster. It’s a word that really captures it for me, what really happened… That’s my strongest memory, that feeling of disaster and needing to be with people who could support one another, needing to pray for everyone who was involved and to make sure we did not continue with just business as usual, because something significant had happened.”
— Barbara Battin, interfaith campus minister in Campus Ministry
“I was in the Army at the time, I was sleeping on the couch and my mom called me and told me to turn on the TV. As I was watching the news the second plane hit — that’s when I knew it was an attack and not a fluke. All my neighbors were freaking out, everyone was confused and scared.”
— Nicholas Anderson, Communication major
“Remembering if it was real or not, it’s so surreal when I think back on it.”
— Patrick Freeman, Nursing major