Not too young to feel

moved by the occasion

When I was selected for an internship at the News-Register, I was told that I would probably be the youngest staff member.

But I was even younger on Sept. 11, 2001, when planes crashed into the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City. I was a 14-year-old high school freshman when terrorists struck American soil.

My alarm clock rang out in preparation for another day early in the school year.

My mom, who is usually bustling about to get ready for her day, was sitting on the couch in our den. She was watching flames, clouds of dust, people yelling and crumpled steel.

I didn't understand. I hadn't known that those two towers even existed, or where they were located. I didn't understand that those towers were pinnacles of American commerce.

My disillusion continued to the front doors of my high school and beyond into the classroom.

I started my day with a U.S. History course. We spent the entire period talking about Middle Eastern politics, the history of terrorism and what exactly was going on in the photographs that hovered on the television above my teacher's head.

My classes, my lunch period and even my break periods were filled with fellow classmates crowding around TV sets tuned to CNN.

That day, high school teachers became a lifeline for my classmates and me as we tried to understand what had transpired.

On Sept. 11, 2001, some of us were young. But we still remember a year of flags flying in the name of freedom and passion, inspired by the heroes of that day.

We helped parents mount brackets for brand new flags. I stuck a static-cling flag to the side window of the car I would purchase for myself two years later.

The sight of the American flag can bring me to tears, and it's probably because of Sept. 11. I am proud to be an American and I am proud to be old enough to remember the events that took place.

It is on this soil, even after attack, that I feel safe and secure in the freedoms others have earned for me.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside," said President Abraham Lincoln. "It we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

Lauren L. Dillard

Reporting Intern

503-472-5114, Ext. 229

ldillard@newsregister.com