Ryder Preston Brown

Naperville honors the victims of 9/11 with memorial, where many meet in remembrance to the victims of the attack.

9/11 was a very impactful day in this nation’s history. While it may not have happened on Illinois ground, Downtown Naperville commemorates that day with a Memorial of faces and multiple plaques dedicated to remembering and reflecting on the innocent lives lost.

The attack was linked to the group Al-Qaeda, who planned to hijack four individual passenger planes and target areas that represented the United States, those being the World Trade Center, White House, and the Capitol. One of these planes, instead, hit the Pentagon, another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, the last two caused the fall of the Twin Towers.

In this terrible accident, 2667 innocent lives were lost and more than 6000 others were injured. They will all be remembered.

In addition to the significant impact this day had on the country as a whole, many people have been left with a lasting memory of what they were doing that day before the first tower fell. Here are three incredibley thought-provoking stories.

When one hears the stories of those who were alive during the event, many of those will be from those who were in schools. Ranging from elementary to university, student to teacher, all were deeply affected by this event. 

One of these individuals was Ralph Drendel, who worked as a Drivers Education teacher in Canoe Highschool. 

“I taught Driver’s Ed out at Canoe High School, and we were in the car when it got hit, the first plane, and the first plane hit,” Drendel said, “and I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I stopped and went to my house with the kids in the car, and we went inside and watched it. So it was pretty scary.”

Aside from schools hearing the live takes on what was occurring that day, another part of the population is represented by those who worked for the government and in one of the buildings that were hit. Jonathan Sander, at the time, worked in the Navy Annex at the Pentagon.

“I worked at the Navy Annex in the Pentagon on 9/11, so we had to be there after the crash.” Sander said, “We had to be evacuated and [couldn’t come] to work for the next week. I mean, the Pentagon was burning. It was sobering.” 

Another angle of the story comes from those not at the scene or hearing about what was happening live, but those receiving heartbreaking calls from family members who were at the scene. Thomas Cowan was here in Illinois when he received a shattering call from his daughter in New York.

“I was at work up in Highland Park on a job site, and my daughter called me crying, and she worked at the Metropolitan Opera and short was crying, and said, Daddy, I have to leave work. The buildings just blew up. See the towers just blew up and we’re being asked to evacuate. And then she hung up. I instantly turned on the TV at the home where I was at the job site, saw what was going on, and I told everybody to go home in their cars and leave and go take care of their families. And so hour and a half later, I got back here in Naperville, and then we were successful at getting on the phone with my daughter off and on as she was walking down the streets of New York. And she basically said it was the most eerie thing she’s ever experienced. It was dead silent, and there were thousants of people, and all you could hear was footsteps.” Cowan said. 

The lesson to be learned from all of these heartbreaking stories is that it is important to remember and commemorate those lost in the 9/11 attacks. Everyone from that time was effected in some way or another and it is vital that people come together to reflect on the past and find better ways to move forward with the future.