Oakton Community College marks 10th anniversary of 9/11
Living halfway across the globe in Mumbai, India, Riddhi Wagadia was 10 years old when she saw television images of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
She remembers how chaotic that day was for her family as they frantically tried to contact her father and uncle living in the Chicago area at the time to make sure they were OK.
“It was very sad and upsetting that something like that happened,” said the now 20-year-old sophomore at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines. “It affected basically the whole world.”
Dozens of Oakton students, faculty and staff members gathered Wednesday to remember the victims of Sept. 11 during a somber wreath-laying ceremony marking the upcoming 10th anniversary.
A four-member U.S. Marine Corps color guard presented the United States and Marine Corps flags. Oakton President Margaret Lee, Des Plaines Mayor Marty Moylan and Shane Maxton, president of the college's student veterans club, placed a wreath at the base of an American flag at the entrance to the college. That was followed by a moment of silence.
“As I walked through O'Hare (International) Airport this past weekend, I saw posted in remembrance of the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, the 43 names of the flight crew members on the four planes that became weapons of terror that changed all of our lives,” Lee said.
She recalled how she had spent an afternoon several months before Sept. 11 having a late lunch at the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center, looking down at the Statue of Liberty through the floor-to-ceiling glass panes of the Windows on the World restaurant.
“We are, all of us in this world, victims of the attack that took the lives of passengers and crew members on those planes, those people in the buildings that were targets, and those who heroically rushed to be part of the rescue effort,” Lee said. “I hope we have learned that the ties which bind us together as human beings who share this fragile planet are more powerful than the borders and beliefs that are misused by those who seek to tear us apart.”
Most Oakton students who were part of the ceremony could barely remember the details of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil because they were too young at the time. Yet, many acknowledged that it was necessary to recognize the 10th anniversary so they don't forget how the attacks changed their lives.
“I remember it vaguely because I was 15 years old and it was the biggest thing that ever happened in my life,” said Maxton, now 25 and head of the student veterans club. “It's important to me because I enlisted and it strongly weighed on my mind when I enlisted.”
Maxton served two tours of duty in Iraq and is using his GI benefits to earn a college degree in Middle East history, which he hopes to teach someday.
His club organized Wednesday's ceremony so people would never forget the victims, and “the men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
A 30-foot by 15-foot hand-woven American flag created by the college's performing arts students with 6,100 feet of red, white and blue grosgrain ribbons. Students and college staff members tied 3,000 individual yellow ribbons onto the flag for each of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We are still progressing from that whole shock,” said Wagadia as she tied ribbons onto the flag that will be displayed in the foyer of the college for a few weeks. “We still have a lot of grief, and a lot of pain and sadness that (it) happened because a lot of innocent lives were taken away.”