Students realize loss of innocence after communities shattered by terrorist attacks

The precise moment many say America lost its innocence: Sept. 11, 2001, 8:46:40 a.m.

Patrick Cahill, an undecided sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, lost his innocence 102 minutes later.

Cahill's 30-year-old brother, Scott, died when the north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Scott sold municipal bonds for Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm formerly headquartered in the north tower, which was hit at 8:46 a.m. and fell at 10:28 a.m.

"I had to grow up a lot faster," Cahill said.

Every generation has a watershed moment. The Silent Generation has Pearl Harbor. Baby Boomers have the Kennedy assassination. And Generation Y has 9/11. But for many, the events of 9/11 were more than historical — they were personal. People from New York City, Washington, D.C., and Somerset County, Penn., lived the attacks firsthand and were forced to take stock of their lives. And 10 years later, Syracuse University students from those areas or nearby can still remember every vivid detail.

Cahill was in fourth grade at the time and lived in West Caldwell, N.J., about 20 miles outside of the city. Someone came into Cahill's class that morning to announce school would only be a half day. The explanation: high pollen count outside. Cahill didn't think anything of it.

He waited for his mother to pick him up, but she never came. His best friend's mom came for him and told him that his mother was busy. The friend's mother promised to take the boys to KB Toys, but the store was closed for the day.

At the end of the day, Cahill was dropped off at home. And that's when he found out about the attacks that killed his brother.

"My parents were probably scared to tell me," he said.

Cahill's father was lucky to make it home unscathed. He worked a block away from the World Trade Center and told his family he had to run through debris to get to safety.

Kathryn McCool, a senior psychology major, lost her innocence when the reality of her father's dangerous life as a New York City firefighter was thrust upon her.

An announcement came over the loudspeaker as McCool sat in social studies class during her first weeks of sixth grade in Westchester, N.Y., about 30 miles outside of the city. The message was vague: There was a plane crash, and students were going to be sent home early.

One or two students were pulled aside, the rest — McCool among them — unaware as to why. Then, McCool was brought into the main office, too. While waiting to be told why she was called in, she overhead adults talking and realized what happened was more than a simple plane crash, but still lacked specifics.

Administrators told McCool her parents were not home and that she would have to go home with a family friend. One guidance counselor approached her to calm her even though she did not yet fully understand what she should be worried about.

"It's OK. You're dad's fighting the fire, but he's going to be fine," McCool recalled the counselor saying. "And I was like, ‘What does this mean? What fire? What's going on?'"

McCool's older sister was in the office, too, and filled in the gaps. The guidance counselor was partially mistaken. When the planes hit the twin towers, McCool's father and a group of 50 other firefighters happened to be golfing in the Poconos, in northeastern Pennsylvania. They rushed back to help but didn't make it there until about 5 p.m. — long after both towers fell.

McCool's father escaped the risk of having the towers fall on him, but his colleagues were not so lucky. His best friend was one of the first responders and stood in the lobby of the second tower as it collapsed.

Still, there was much rescue work to be done when McCool's father arrived. In the first 24 hours after the incident, he was among groups of firefighters who saved a few lives. After that, work turned to finding missing bodies. For the next few days, McCool's father was either at the site or resting at his firehouse and only had brief moments to reassure his daughter over the phone.

A year later, McCool visited ground zero — by then nothing but a gaping hole — and could only think of her father: "Since then, if I think a little bit too much about when my dad's at work, I get really nervous. Now, it's the reality that these terrible things happen."

Ivory Sherman, a senior radio, television and film major, lost her innocence and realized the danger her life could be put in during her 10 a.m. sixth-grade science class.

Sherman attended middle school three blocks away from the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. During her class, someone came on the intercom to tell everyone to go downstairs to the gym converted from a bomb shelter.