Thursday, Sept. 11 marked the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

St. Edward’s University Police Department officers were joined by Brother Larry Atkinson, C.S.C. to honor America and the victims of 9/11.

Atkinson said a commencement prayer and blessed the United States and Texas flags. Captain Dan Beck and Officer Leo Saenz, veterans of the Vietnam and Iraq wars, raised the flags to their peak, then slowly lowered them to half-mast. Proudly wearing their dress-blues, all the officers saluted the flags, followed by a recitement of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

Most people at the memorial vividly remember where they were and what they were doing when the news broke on Sept. 11, 2001.

Beck recalls that on that fateful morning, he and other UPD officers were driving to a shooting range for an annual gun qualifying test. On their way, Beck received a phone call from his wife saying that the first tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane.

Anxious to quickly return to campus, the officers decided to complete their shooting tests without any practice. As they were returning to St. Edward’s, the news was reporting that the second tower had been hit. When they arrived back on campus, Beck observed that no one was outside.

“Everyone was glued to a TV inside the buildings,” Beck said.

In the UPD building there were many students from the New York and New Jersey areas, desperately trying to call families back home from a landline, since cell phone towers were overwhelmed and out-of-service, according to Beck.

“I didn’t realize how many St. Edward’s students were from the East Coast until that day,” Beck said. “Seeing them so panicked and knowing there was nothing I could was the most helpless feeling as an officer.”

In the hours that passed, news came of the third attack at the Pentagon and the fourth plane crash in Pennsylvania.

On the West Coast at the time, Brother William “Bill” Nick C.S.C., was watching the news at 6 a.m. in the Brothers’ residence at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles, California, when the first reports of 9/11 appeared on his television.

“I stayed watching the news and saw the second plane hit the South Tower. Due to the time difference between California and New York, school was about to start and not too many students were aware of what happened,” Nick said.

After calling an assembly, he notified the staff and students, and held prayer services throughout the week.

Soon after the reports of the third and fourth crashes, Nick learned that a fellow colleague of his in the Congregation of Holy Cross was aboard Flight 175, which was the flight he witnessed flying into the second tower. Rev. Francis Grogan, C.S.C. was a World War II Navy veteran who had been residing in Massachusetts where he was serving as a teacher and the head of the Holy Cross Residence in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

To this day, the brothers at St. Edward’s fondly remember Rev. Grogan, who died at the age of 76.

“It’s a great sorrow, but you must not have feelings of revenge or hate,” Nick said. “Yes, condemn the act, but pray for peace.”

Another account of 9/11 comes from Dr. Daniel P. Glenn, a St. Edward’s assistant professor of history. At the time he was a graduate student in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he returned to his apartment after a morning run, his wife called and told him to turn on the television.

“I couldn’t turn [the TV] off for the rest of the day,” Glenn said. “The questions in my mind were how could Al-Qaeda pull this off? And what was going to happen tomorrow and the next day?”

Both Beck and Nick both mentioned their clear memory of Sept. 12, 2001 as well.

“The scariest part was Sept. 12. There was an eerie silence since all flights were grounded for three days which took me back to my days as a kid when you didn’t hear the noise of big airplanes,” Beck said. “Imagine walking out today and hearing not a single bird chirp. That’s what it was like.”

Americans have come a long way over the last 13 years; but every Sept. 11, we unite in memorial for the innocent victims and service men and women who tragically lost their lives.

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