Remembering Those Who Died on 9/11

Here are the ash-covered shoes I wore while covering the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.

On Sept. 10, 2001, a Newsday deputy city editor gave me – a reporter in the newspaper's Queens bureau – my next day's assignment: Starting at 10 a.m., if not called earlier, cover “all non-Election Day news” in New York. From crime to quirky, if it happened in the five boroughs and wasn’t linked to Primary Day, I would scoot to the scene.

Of course, a crime of previously unimaginable dimensions happened that next day. Today, my students and I will take a little time to remember the thousands of innocent people who lost their lives in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. We will also reflect on how much the terrorist attacks changed all of our lives – for better or worse.

A year ago, various media in Milwaukee and at Marquette took interest in my "9/11 Chronicle" – an accounting of my personal experience those fateful hours after the planes hit the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Here for your quick and easy access are the media accounts that focused on the attacks' 10th anniversary in 2011.

• "Marquette Educator Reported Near Ground Zero on 9/11" – "Live at Daybreak" segment on WTMJ-TV (Milwaukee) on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011.
• "A Reporter's Account, Minute by Minute" – abridged version published in the Sunday, Sept. 11, 2011, edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
• "Remembrance and Rebirth After 9/11" – "Lake Effect" segment on WUWM (89.7 FM), on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011.
  
• "Flashback 9/11: Herbert Lowe" –  video interview by Marquette University journalism major Katie Doherty for The Marquette Tribune, posted Thursday, Sept. 8, 2008.
• "Zero Hour: Reflections on September 11" – posted Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011, on Communic8, the Diederich College of Communication blog.

Let us all pray that Americans and those everywhere who love peace and freedom will never again see such tragedy.