Learn from history: 9/11, Oklahoma City bombing cannot fade in our memories

The image of 1-year-old Baylee Almon’s lifeless body cradled in the arms of an Oklahoma City firefighter is seared in my memory. Like most of America, I spent much of April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the days that followed watching the news unfold on television, stunned by scenes of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building torn apart by a homemade bomb.

About 22 years later, while teaching a journalism class, I was taken aback when my students informed me they had never heard of the Oklahoma City bombing, what the FBI called “ the worst act of homegrown terrorism in the nation’s history.”

We spent the remainder of class looking at images and videos, and reading news accounts of the horrors of that day.

Teaching college students offered a daily reminder that events I considered common knowledge or part of some collective memory were sometimes mere historical footnotes for the next generation. Sometimes the lack of shared knowledge was simply a reminder of my age - they didn’t know Tone Loc and the Funky Cold Medina and I couldn’t identify a single hit song by BTS. At other times, it was truly frightening.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote Spanish philosopher George Santayana.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, it worries me. The last American troops left Afghanistan just days ago, but without knowing our history are we doomed to respond to the next attack seeking revenge by sending troops overseas to fight an unwinnable war?

In the 11 years or so that I taught at community colleges and large universities, I would often devote some time each semester to Sept. 11. I never encountered a group not familiar with the date, but as each year passed fewer and fewer students had an independent memory of 9/11.

Today, an 18-year-old college freshman would have been born two years after the World Trade Center came crashing down. Two years after a plane struck the Pentagon. Two years after the passengers and crew boldly battled with their hijackers and brought down a plane - likely meant for the U.S. Capitol - in a field in Shanksville, Pa.

That day, Sept. 11, 2001, the newspaper I worked for put out a bulldog edition, a rare event in which a daily morning newspaper issued a second afternoon edition.

Since that day, I have had several jobs and lived in several states and the one newspaper I carry with me from place to place is that Sept. 11 edition. Over the years, I brought it to my classrooms to share with students - both the rarity of such editions and the significance of the day.

What concerns me, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, is the reality that as each day passes that day and our response to it fades further into history.

Those that lived it forget and those that didn’t move further away from ever understanding the events as they unfolded, the damage they inflicted and the long-term effects that changed this nation.

That day President George W. Bush spoke to the nation from the White House.

“Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror,” Bush said. He continued, “These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat, but they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.”

Bush acknowledged the good work of first responders and rescuers as well as community members who had come together to help by donating blood or helping where they could.

Then he spoke of retaliation.

“I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice,” Bush added.

What followed were brutal and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the creation of the massive Department of Homeland Security and its new Transportation Security Administration, changing the way Americans moved across this country.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11 was tracked down and killed some 10 years later in Pakistan, but his end did not suddenly end the personal pain or national trauma of 9/11. It did not resolve disputes or end acts of discrimination or hate crimes against Muslim Americans.

Today, calendars mark Sept. 11 as Patriot Day, a designation that hardly captures the lengths to which this nation was transformed.

That worries me, too.

As Sept. 11 approaches, do more than hoist a flag or wear red, white and blue.

Make it your responsibility to not only remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost and the aftermath that led the nation to war, but to also talk about it with those around you, particularly the youngest among us who were not witness.

Descriptions of the sky on April 19, 1995 in Oklahoma City and on Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City are often eerily similar.

It was a beautiful day, clear blue skies and then ...