9/11: A Story Still to be Told

Today I felt like it was appropriate to take a break from my Greece and Israel posts to honor and remember this infamous day in American history.

This summer before my trip to Greece and Israel I went to New York City for a week with my family (I know I'm lucky). Along with going to Broadway shows, a women's national soccer team game, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Museum of Natural History, and so many other landmarks (especially movie landmarks), we also went to the 9/11 Memorial. 

I have always been a little bit of a history buff, so before we even arrived I knew it would be something that was powerful for me to experience, but I didn't expect it to be as powerful as it was. For those of you who have not been to this memorial, I highly recommend it. They are still working on parts of it even now, but in addition to the other surrounding buildings in the same network, they have two reflecting pools in the old foundations of the Twin Towers themselves, the new Freedom Tower, and other details that really bring the history of the location to life. The two reflecting pools sit in the foundations of the Twin Towers and have the names of the victims carved in the sides by group and alphabetically. The freedom tower, one of the buildings built to replace the fallen towers, stands at 1,776 feet tall, representing the year that marks the United States' formation and independence. This building stands taller than any other building in New York, as can be seen in the image above, taken from the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. 

When I started working on this blog post this morning, I had no idea what today would hold for me. Due to bad wifi, when I thought my post was done I was unable to post it until after my afternoon classes. Little did I know what would happen in one of my afternoon classes. I walked to my Intro to Journalism class rechecking twitter in preparation for a news quiz, which happens every Friday, but when our professor walked in he said that we were going to do something different today, change it up a bit if that was okay with us. So we all got up and followed him to a bigger classroom and joined the Intro to Public Relations class with another communications professor. We spent the next hour listening to the PR professor talk about his experiences volunteering for Red Cross a couple weeks after the event. The purpose of this hour was to discuss the differences but dependent need for each other between journalists and public relations consultants, but it ended up as so much more than that. Both professors were speaking through heavy emotion, and when they dismisses the class the first time not a single student moved. 

I wish I could share every world and story of that hour to have documented to read every day on this year since, being so young, I do not have many vivid memories of my own. This day will forever hold a powerful meaning and mark an emotional change in America; it is our job to make sure these stories of the people who were there do not go unheard or untold.