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Letters from Home

I left the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church, Va. where I had a meeting at 8 am. Driving toward my firm in Georgetown, the traffic on Interstate 66 at 9:55 was not too bad, although I picked up my cell phone to inform my office I would not make it back for a 10 a.m. meeting there. I could not get a signal on the phone, and looked up to see a car accident happen about a half mile ahead. Other cars seemed to be drifting in their lanes with some slowing down and some pulling over. I realize now that people were probably listening to their radios or looking out the window. I took the Key Bridge exit and pulled over when I saw the smoke. I asked another stopped driver standing beside his car what the situation was. He shouted that he thought a plane had crashed into the Pentagon but he wasn't sure. I got back in my car, turned on the radio, and learned of the attack on the World Trade Center.

I drove in disbelief to work, trying frantically to get the phone to cooperate, where I found the entire office crowded in the conference room around a television set, and messages from friends and family asking me to return their calls. In speaking with my parents, I learned that my brother, Lance Corporal Troy Campbell, and his battalion of Marines from Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts had been dispatched to Manhattan.

I learned that the one person I knew who worked in one of the Twin Towers was safe because he was sick at home that day. My co-workers and I went to both Sibley Hospital and Georgetown University Hospital to give blood but were turned away both times because they were understaffed. The day was long, and I took a co-worker home that night to his house in Alexandria. Driving from Alexandria to my home in Arlington, I drove past the Pentagon and caught a glimpse of the building though the smoke was still very heavy. Yesterday and today my co-workers and I watch with curiosity out our windows at the policemen and women patrolling the reservoir that supplies D.C. with water. We haven't been told anything official, but we suspect this is an attempt to keep the water supply safe from tampering. This image plus the sight of tanks rumbling around downtown D.C. is strange to say the least - but strangely comforting, too.

Amy Campbell

GSAS 2001

I had been in Florence, Italy, for a week when I heard about the tragedy in America. Once the news sunk in, I was sure my semester abroad was ruined. The city, which had initially overwhelmed me with its richness and beauty, was now a random collection of strange faces, confusing streets, and meaningless monuments. I felt isolated and vulnerable. Thousands of miles away from home, all I wanted was to be with friends and family. But, on the night of Sept. 12, I realized that I was not as alone as I imagined.

The Piazza della Signoria is normally filled with bustling crowds of foreign tourists and Italian vendors. At 9 p.m., this space in the city center was filled with people, citizens of the city and visitors alike, raising candles that burned against violence, against terrorism and for all of those suffering in America. With banners of every town and city in Tuscany displayed, the religious and civic leaders of the region spoke to those assembled of sympathy and solidarity. The city around us, which normally rings with the sounds of car horns and mopeds, was utterly silent.

As the speeches and songs took place, I felt an overall sense of belonging and the beginnings of healing. I now know that I am not alone here, and I know that my country is not alone either, that people around the world are thinking of us and praying for us. This ceremony was an enormous comfort to me, an event that will always remain strong in my memory. I hope that it may be a comfort to all of you at home as well.

Kate Moomaw

CLAS III

I am a first year at U.Va. I live 10 minutes outside of New York City in New Jersey. My life every day is affected by what happens in the city because my dad works there, some of my friends go to school there, most of my friends parents' work there and so on. There is no way to describe the feeling of panic that flooded my body as I desperately called my parents, attempting to ease the fears that chilled my body. But even to hear that they were safe did not stop the tears from running down my face. And that is not because New York is home to me.

This reaction of total helplessness was one that people all over the nation were trying to deal with. We have all been victimized - not only the people in the airplanes or the streets or the buildings. This is our home and it is as if it has been burglarized. We have been violated by a faceless demon that was planning this mass destruction with only evil in his heart.

The feelings of fear, doubt and uncertainty are new emotions that many of us have never had to contend with before. However we must remember that all over America, people are having the same reactions. But this devastation will not only be felt by the people of the United States.

The aftermath of the attack on Sept. 11, 2001 is one that all nations will have to learn to adjust to. Our lives have forever been changed and the ease that we took advantage of not too long ago boarding airplanes, going to work or driving our cars will never again be the same.

For all of us, the images of three passenger jet planes slamming into American symbols of finance and defense will never be erased. For the people who are desperately awaiting news about loved ones, their sense of hope will slowly fade away in the coming weeks as the rubble is cleared and the cities calm down.

We all must now continue on, but something was changed in all of us on Tuesday. For schoolchildren, their sense of bright-eyed optimism and idealism has been skewed. For the elderly who lived through the last domestic attack, memories of those awful years are all too real once again.

And for college students, our sense of security and trust in the United States of America has been severely damaged. The type of world we have only read about is now a reality that we must try and face with courage and unity.

This is not a time to retaliate against our brothers, but to hold hands and fight the hate that bleeds in some people's hearts. I know that I will never again be able to look at the world with the same kind of optimism as before, but I also realize that this is a time that American unity is more important than ever. Of course our lives will never be the same again and a piece of mankind has been taken from us, but we must also stand together in peace - now more than ever. So let us all find the place in our hearts that will give us peace of mind and gather together to achieve that goal. It is the best we can do.

Ida Oetgen

CLAS I

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