NCC Remembers September 11, 2001

Myra Saturen
September 11, 2009

For those who were children on September 11, 2001 and for those who lived the day as adults, Northampton Community College's remembrance service offered a time to reflect and to be with others on the tragedy's eighth anniversary.

Stephen Heckler of NCC's Christian Fellowship Club, recalled being driven to elementary school on a Tuesday morning and innocently observing that it was a beautiful, clear day, perfect for flying. Eight years later, he recounted, minute by minute, the catastrophe as it unfolded. Nearly 3,000 people perished that day in attacks by Al Qaeda members on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and aboard flight 93 over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Heckler honored the people who rushed into the burning towers to rescue those trapped within. "This service is dedicated to the heroic actions of the men and women who ran into the towers to try to save the lives of people they didn't know."

Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael McGovern thanked the men and women who voluntarily put themselves harm's way to protect our safety, security and liberty. Placing the day in historical context, he reminded listeners of other dates etched into national memory-December 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor and November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Each of these traumas, he said, coincided with a different generation's coming of age.

McGovern considered the short and long-term impact 9-11 has had on our country. "The attacks led to an abrupt change in our foreign policy," he said. "They are the direct cause of the war in Afghanistan and, misguided or not, our occupation of Iraq."

Images of fleeing people, cars left behind by the dead and posters of the missing have torn away our illusions of invulnerability, McGovern said. "New York City and the rest of the nation will never see themselves as bastions of safety as they once did."

Nevertheless, McGovern urged listeners, "When we remember Sept. 11, 2001, we must remember the humanity that all of us share and be compelled to seek justice and disavow revenge."

Prayers of invocation and benediction were offered between and after the speakers' remarks.

A black-papered wall held pictures of many of the hundreds of emergency workers who perished and the names of each person who died on 9-11. Slides depicted images we all remember. Pictured below is Raj

Kooma contemplating the list of names of people who perished.

The event was sponsored and put together by the NCC Band of Brothers and the Christian Fellowship Club.

Pictured at the top of the page are Stephen Heckler, Jenni Smith, Ashley White and Mark Benn