As Americans commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, several SFU community members recently reflected on how their lives – and the lives of all Americans – were forever changed a quarter of a century ago.
At an event hosted by the History and Political Science Department on Sept. 3, Randy Frye, Dean Emeritus of the Shields School of Business, shared some of his recollections of that day.
“I thought we were at war,” he said. “I really did.”
Members of Al-Qaeda, a Middle East terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden, hijacked four commercial planes that day.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
“It really hurt to see New York City hurting like that,” Frye said.
Twenty-five years ago, Rob Young – the University’s Associate Vice President for Advancement – was working in Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster’s Clearfield office.
“I went to work like any other day,” he said. “For a period of time, I had no idea what was going on.”
After hearing that the North Tower had been hit, Young turned on the TV in his office.
“Just as I flipped it on, the second plane hit the South Tower.”
At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 hit the western section of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia.
Shortly after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, Shuster called Young from Washington, D.C., to tell him that he had evacuated to an apartment in Virginia.
“It was a scary time,” Young said.
Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93 likely intended to crash that plane into a target in Washington, D.C. Passengers overpowered the terrorists, however, and crashed the plane into a farm field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
This site is 51 miles from Saint Francis.
“It was really terrorizing to know a plane crashed in Somerset,” Frye said.
The Flight 93 crash site was in Shuster’s congressional district. Young visited the site shortly after the crash.
“I distinctly remember walking through that site and luggage falling out of trees,” said Young. “It was a gravesite.”
On Sept. 24, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Flight 93 National Memorial Act, which officially added the site in Shanksville to the National Park System.
This Friday at 8:46 a.m., SFU community members will gather at the Bell Tower to honor the victims of the attacks with a prayer service.
