Across the world, people watched the World Trade Center collapse through their televisions, the United States they knew collapsing with it.

Twelve years later, the memories of that day are still fresh in the minds of those at Syracuse University.

Every generation remembers it differently. They have different stories with different perspectives. Still, it is a day in history everyone remembers. 

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When the first tower fell, Lt. Col. Michael Bianchi was in the sky, surrounded by clouds.

He couldn’t see the earth below or around him. Only white clouds through small windows. The only connection he had was through the aircraft’s radio, and what he heard shocked him.

Bianchi, who was a company commander and captain at the time, was flying between Fort Drum, N.Y., and Rochester, N.Y., on a training mission at the time.

The idea that thousands of people lost their lives in one singular, collective attack on American soil horrified him.

Air traffic control forced the pilot of Bianchi’s plane to turn around, and for the next 45 minutes, the young father only thought about one thing: his family.

Having been in the military his entire adult life, the shock eventually wore off and Bianchi’s strategic thinking kicked in.

“While you’re overseas, you’re more keenly aware of that threat to national interest and a dislike for our way of life. But when you come back to the states, and have it come back here — it was shocking to us. It was shocking to me.”

In 2008, Bianchi was deployed to Afghanistan with a transition team, where he helped host, train and mentor soldiers in the Afghan army. He is currently the department chair of the ROTC program at SU.

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Lauren Kleinberg remembers everything about being in her grandma’s car that day: The taste of the slice of pizza she was eating and the cold drink she had right before. She remembers her grandma’s expression when she told Kleinberg and her older brother Jacob the news.

Kleinberg’s father worked as a stock trader on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. No one in her family had heard from him or been able to contact him.

“I just immediately started freaking out and not really understanding,” she said. “We just all sat in the car and hugged one another.”

After hearing the news of the World Trade Center’s collapse, she and he brother tried to do everything to find their dad. They went online. They started calling hospitals. Doing anything possible to help find him.

Kleinberg and her family would later learn that her father had died. She was 7 years old, Jacob was 10 and her baby brother Sam was 2.

When she looks back on Sept. 11, Kleinberg, a sophomore inclusive early childhood special education and child and family studies major, sees one thing: the look on her grandma’s face.

“At that moment we just knew something was off.”

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Buzz Shaw’s day began as any typical Monday would. He was working on a draft of a speech and preparing for the week when he heard the news, which sent him into a flurry of decision making.

When the media revealed it was an act of terrorism, he knew the university needed to step in to support the students, faculty and staff on campus that would undoubtedly be affected.

Shaw had various departments gather at Hendricks Chapel to figure out how best to help the grieving community. Students began to mobilize, providing support for their peers who had been affected.

“Students came together to not only share their misery, but their concern for one another,” he said.

When the students came together and began supporting one another, Shaw wasn’t surprised.

“It was heartwarming, and I was really impressed. I didn’t know what to expect. But I would think that’s what Syracuse (students) would do.”

—

Maj. Paul White will always remember crossing the bridge on his way to class.

That’s where he was as a cadet beginning his last year at the U.S. Military Academy when he heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.

He continued on to his next class, international relations, where he learned more about what had happened.

Crossing the bridge that day will always stay with White.

It was where everything changed.

“I joined the army at a time of peace, without having to go to war. No one was looking for a war then.”

After graduating the following spring, White was stationed in Fort Drum and eventually deployed to Iraq. He is currently a senior military instructor for SU’s ROTC program.

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Sept. 11 is Julissa Wilson’s dad’s birthday. She woke up early that day to make a special birthday breakfast for him.

But as she ran down the stairs, hoping to surprise him, she saw the television was on. She sensed that something was wrong.

Wilson, who was 10 at the time, was living on a military base in Hawaii.

She was on the other side of the country, but when she watched the replays of the planes crashing into the towers — and their subsequent fall — Wilson knew her family’s home was vulnerable.

It would be just shy of 60 years since Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a day that guided the country into a world war. A day no American wanted to repeat.

Because of safety concerns, Wilson and her friends weren’t allowed to go to school for about a week. Families on the base weren’t allowed to leave, and several thorough security checks were conducted on the base.

“I just didn’t know what it all meant at the time — where it would lead us.”

—

“Professor, professor — we’re under attack.”

It was Brad Gorham’s third week teaching as a communications professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Gorham and some of his students were talking after his COM 107: “Communications and Society” class when a student ran back to tell them the news.

Twitter hadn’t been invented yet, and the 24-hour news cycle was a term that had yet to be coined. All Gorham and those around him had was a small television.

“You’re watching people get killed. And you know it’s real,” he said.

But it’s being in Newhouse when the first tower fell that he will remember forever. Students frantically called their loved ones around him as Gorham took in the image of a newscaster saying: “I don’t know that I can see the building behind the smoke” and the collective “Oh my God” of those around him.

“For me, there are principally two times in my life where we’ve had those ‘Do you remember where you were?’ moments. For my generation, I can tell you exactly where I was when the Challenger exploded. And this was the second.”

Published on September 11, 2013 at 2:45 am

Contact Meredith: mhnewman@syr.edu | @MerNewman93