ROXANA ASTEMBORSKI/Art Director
SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant News Editor
“It’s important to remember that six years ago we had about 3,000 civilians attacked,” junior Ryan Sawtelle said Tuesday, tired after staying up all night paying tribute to the victims of September 11, 2001.
At 11 p.m. Monday, he and junior Chris Garcia began planting row after perfect row of miniature American flags near Heroes Garden. The patch of grass near the Graziadio Executive Center displayed 2,977 flags in all – at least one for every life lost that tragic day.
The project was jointly financed by the Pepperdine College Republicans, for which Sawtelle serves as club president and Garcia as vice president, and the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative activist group.
University Chaplains Shelly Cox and David Lemley also led the Sept. 11 morning prayer service at Heroes Garden, where campus leaders offered prayers for those affected by the tragedy.
“We wanted to provide an opportunity for people who wanted to commemorate the lives that were given and lost on Sept. 11… by offering prayer for the nation as we continue to mourn for the loss of that day,” Lemley said.
Though few students attended the service, the memory of that fateful morning six years ago was still on many of their minds as they went about their regular routines.
“I can remember exactly what I was doing and exactly what I was wearing” that day, said senior Quincy Wimbish. “ [This year] I just personally reflected on that day, just to remember, ‘Whoa, that was six years ago.’”
Senior Karin Sabin and her roommate went to Heroes Garden to spend a moment of silence remembering the tragedies.
“The moment I found out,” she recalled, “I was singing in a choir in my high school, and they just announced it over the loudspeaker.”
However, six years after the tragedies, memorial ceremonies have gotten smaller and some people think the nation has moved on.
“It didn’t feel like 9/11,” said freshman Jeff Rozman. “People didn’t seem sad, and it just kind of seems like people are starting to get over it.”
Sabin said she hadn’t heard as much “hype” about the sixth anniversary as about previous ones.
“I think people are starting to forget,” she said.
Sawtelle had heard about other universities organizing large-scale September 11 memorial services, and hoped to begin one at Pepperdine this year. However, he and Garcia weren’t able to raise the $25,000 required for a large ceremony in time for the sixth anniversary. Instead, they opted to build a miniature flag memorial this week, and plan to launch their large program next year.
For the 2008 anniversary, they intend to plant nearly 3,000 medium-sized flags atop 10-foot poles across lower Alumni Park. The display would be easily visible from Pacific Coast Highway, and they said it would likely coincide with a public prayer service in Alumni Park. Sawtelle said he hopes to enlist a military fly-over for the ceremony and to invite local and state officials to speak.
However, their big ideas could meet obstacles at Pepperdine.
SGA Vice President of Administration Austin Maness said he was supposed to organize a large-scale September 11 memorial for his fellowship with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
However, “when I approached the Chaplains’ office, they said it would be best if we just worked with the office and participated in the university’s planned and approved service,” Maness said. “I think the university would probably rather [Sawtelle and Garcia] just participate and help out the Chaplains’ memorial, especially if they are acting as the president and vice president of College Republicans. It was such a national tragedy, it’s not an event that should be used as political fodder.”
Sawtelle agrees, and said he doesn’t want the event to be too political.
“It’s about September 11; what it meant to our country and what it still means to our country,” Sawtelle said.
Lemley said he does not know what the university would do regarding Sawtelle’s proposed large-scale memorial service.
09-13-2007