Posted on: Sunday, September 16, 2001

Tragedy leaves indelible mark on young

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Elizabeth Dangers, 18, a student at Hawai‘i Pacific University, prays at Our Lady of Peace Cathedral on Tuesday. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Teens and twentysomethings are often viewed as a pampered, sheltered lot who haven't witnessed many national tragedies.

They don't remember the Vietnam War or the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy or the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. And Pearl Harbor and World War II are the stuff of history textbooks.

But all that changed Tuesday, when they lived through one of the bloodiest days in American history, a day that may be the defining moment for this generation.

Many young people lost some of their sense of security and innocence with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and now they're sorting through their own emotional rubble.

For Ashlie Borowski, 15, of Silver Spring, Md., Tuesday was one of the longest days of her young life. Her father works at the Pentagon near the section that was destroyed. She didn't know whether he had survived until 2› hours after the crash.

She tried calling her family but wasn't able to reach anyone. She was scared. She cried. She prayed.

"It was completely surreal," says Ashlie, a junior at Connelly School of the Holy Child in Potomac, Md. "No one knew what was happening. No one had any explanations. Everyone was really, really tense."

Her dad phoned home in the afternoon to report he was safe and came home later to hugs from his family. But the events left an impression on Ashlie. "I don't think I'll ever forget what happened yesterday."

Kirk Cassels, 22, a senior at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., still hasn't heard from his best friend, who worked on the 93rd floor of one of the World Trade Center towers. "It changes everybody's life in the sense of our safety and hope. Stuff like this happens every day all over the world. You wonder when people will let go of the hate and the misunderstanding that drives them to do the wrong thing."

But you didn't have to have a personal connection to the tragedy to react with horror and shock. Young people throughout Hawai'i say watching those images unfold on their television screens will be engraved in their memories forever.

"This is a huge challenge for students my age who are going to be running the world, because we're not in control," said Elizabeth Dangers, 18, a Hawai'i Pacific University student. "We have so much to work on as a society."

"We're still going to remember where we were," said Nancy Kishi, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. "I just woke up that morning and my alarm turned on my radio and I started hearing about the planes crashing. And when I came downstairs (at the dorm), people were glued to the television."

Ginger Grinpas, a 19-year-old UH sophomore, agrees: "Like the JFK assassination, everybody knows exactly where they were, like my dad remembers he was shaving. It's going to be like that."

To Solomon Marchessault, a junior at the University of Hawai'i- Manoa, it was a brutal assault on his world view. "I never thought something like this would ever happen in my lifetime," said the 20-year-old.

"It opens my eyes that while we may be a world power, there are countries that aren't happy with us. Why were those kids dancing in the streets? We need to re-evaluate what we do in foreign areas."

Ryan Watanabe, a 24-year-old Honolulu graphic artist, knows that morning will be forever engraved in his memory. He was sleeping over at a friend's house, and woke up to a phone call, and then the horrendous images on television. And while it hasn't left him with a sense of vulnerability, the terrorist acts made him recognize even more strongly how tragedy can strike in a moment.

"To know this stuff does happen, it does scare me," said Watanabe. "I still think I'm safe," he added, "but we could be bombed — like Pearl Harbor — any time. You could be walking down the street."

Benn Goldschein, 16, who attends New York's Stuyvesant High School, only a few blocks from the towers, says the terrorist attacks have changed him forever. He was on his way to school when he saw the first plane strike its target.

"I felt a big rumble. I could feel it in my heart and in my bones. There was this big, gaping hole in this huge monument."

Later, Benn watched the tower collapse from his classroom window. He says it would take a major catastrophic event to shock him now. "It doesn't get much worse than this," he says. "It's pretty traumatizing to see these things happen right near us. It's one of the biggest events that's happened, and it was right outside my window."

Spike Gronim, 17, a senior at Stuyvesant High, says his world view has changed, too.

"It made me more receptive to foreign action against terrorism. I have much less of a problem with our finding these people and extracting them with military force," he says. "I don't want another Vietnam, but I don't want another day like that, with jets crashing into buildings."

Elaine Chan, 18, a freshman at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, says some people she knows are worried about retaliation, the possibility of war, the possibility of a draft. "Everyone is feeling kind of vulnerable."

Still, she says, "maybe this will boost a whole new idea of American patriotism."

Shinzong Lee, 18, of Basking Ridge, N.J., says this is bringing out the best in many people. "I've seen everyone really rally together and call friends and family to tell them they loved them, line up in droves to give blood, donate their cell phones to the Red Cross, house World Trade Center workers in their apartments.

"So despite this tragedy, it's good to see human beings caring for each other and being shaken out of their ignorant bliss. Hopefully, Americans will start to care a little more about the world around them."

Experts expect these events to have far-reaching effects on the nation's young people.

"This is like an emotional assault. It has shaken a lot of these kids to the foundation," says Carolyn Flaningam, chair of the Social Studies Department at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Va. Many students there have parents who work at the Pentagon.

Abby Wilner, 25, co-author of "Quarterlife Crisis," which deals with twentysomethings as they leave college, says the events may dramatically affect their lives. "We have always said that our generation has nothing to bind us together, like a war. This could help form an identity for us.

"Nothing like this has struck home before. The Persian Gulf was over there, not here at home. And now the trade center is gone. That is such a huge thing. This may be the first thing to bring us together."

USA Today reporters Nanci Helmich, Karen S. Peterson and Tracey Wong Briggs, and Advertiser staff writer Beverly Creamer, contributed to this report.