Stansfield Turner, Former CIA Director (left); Sarim Baig, Muslim Student (middle); James Yates, Army ROTC Candidate (right).

Five years ago, the events of Sept. 11 stirred a wave of emotion among Americans, inspiring them to commit; some to a war soldiers are waging abroad, others to a religious conviction.

Feelings of patriotism and pride swept the country, spurring hundreds of young adults with a sense of duty to join the military in its quest to defend America’s freedom. At the same time, countless Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans found themselves victims of prejudice and ignorance, targeted not only for their head scarves and beards but also for the religious beliefs and ideologies they held dear.

Now, five anniversaries and a “war on terror” later, university students still bear the weight of the commitments – either to the military or to their Islamic faith – that define the way they view Sept. 11.

Yearning to save the world

Senior English language and literature major Stephen Fancey was late for a quiz in his algebra class the morning of Sept. 11 when he stumbled into a room of muted and awestruck 16-year-olds, staring at live television footage of a burning, crumbling World Trade Center. Even then, only seconds after learning of the attacks by 19 members of the terrorist organization al-Qaida, Fancey knew he could not just sit and watch the world he knew shatter before his eyes.

“I was really anxious about us doing something about it,” he said.

For Fancey, “doing something about it” meant joining the military, a career goal he had fostered since his grade-school years during the First Gulf War.

Now an Army ROTC cadet at the university, Fancey remembers being glued to the television in the days following Sept. 11. Similarly, James Yates, a senior linguistics major and fellow cadet, obsessively read newspapers to learn more about the plane that smashed into the Pentagon – an attack whose smoke he could see in the skies above his high school, Fairmont Heights, that afternoon.

“How could they hate someone so much?” Yates remembers wondering.

In the weeks following Sept. 11, Yates – who, years before, had distantly thought about joining the military – sought out recruiters, met with them often and committed himself to the military path.

“I felt like I should do my part,” he said. “I live here everyday.”

A similar sense of personal responsibility was born in junior chemistry major Caitlyn Holahan, who said she never thought the United States could be susceptible to any kind of violent attack.

“This was my home – you never thought it would happen.”

After joining the Army ROTC, Holahan will be the fourth officer in her family in as many generations, she said.

“Not everyone gets to go to Iraq, take a stand and help save other people’s lives,” she said.

This Superman-like yearning to save the world is what drives young cadets, said Kalem Campbell, a sophomore government and politics major, who wanted to join the military at 14 – his age when the attacks happened.

“If I could have, I would have joined the military the day those terrorists attacked our country,” he said.

An ambassador of the Muslim world

While some students surrendered their lives to careers in the military, others spent the past five years defending their core beliefs. In the months following Sept. 11, attacks toward the American Muslim community abounded, ranging from defaced mosques to violent assaults.

For senior criminology and criminal justice and government and politics major Fasiha Khan, the suspicion directed toward her came almost immediately.

“I had to direct more energy [to] defending Islam and my choice to be Muslim than having an opportunity to say, ‘I, too, grieve for the victims. I, too, share in the anger as an American,'” Khan said.

In the past five years, Khan has been called a “Taliban princess,” has been accused of growing anthrax, and has been told by random students on the campus that she’s oppressed for wearing a traditional head scarf. Nevertheless, Khan refuses to stop wearing her religious beliefs on her sleeve.

“When 9/11 occurred, I saw a lot of people retreat into themselves and try to make themselves as un-Muslim as possible,” she said. “Something in me really rebelled at that idea … I made a choice to be Muslim and was not willing to give that up so people might or might not treat me better.”

In the time after Sept. 11, many Muslim students find themselves defending their beliefs from mostly curious, sometimes offensive peers and strangers, junior chemical engineering major Abbas Rashid said.

“[In class] I was kind of being an ambassador of the whole Muslim world, so when I would be put on the spot, I would learn how to respond better,” Rashid said. “I re-affirmed my identity because I had to explain who I was.”

Being in tune with Islam was exactly what happened to Justin Valanzola, a graduate student and a former Catholic who became a Muslim on the last day of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, in 2001. After researching the religion during his studies for Catholic priesthood and reading the Quran cover to cover, Valanzola decided to convert – despite his father’s urgings that he wait until the world calmed down after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite not being Middle Eastern, Valanzola has still experienced prejudice.

“If I’m by myself, I’m a hippie,” he said, of the reaction he receives from those who see his long beard, a common tradition among Muslim men. “But if I’m with my wife who wears a head scarf, I’m an extremist. Things are repeating themselves: You had Pearl Harbor and the internment of Japanese, and you had 9/11 and the treatment of Muslims, almost like a worldwide internment camp.”

The only way to shoulder the changes Sept. 11 has wrought in young Americans is with patience, knowledge and time, said both the cadets and the Muslim students. The only way to continue healing the wounds of Sept. 11 is through unity, Rashid added.

“We must bond on our commonality,” he said.

Contact reporter Roxana Hadadi at roxanadbk@gmail.com.

This is one of three articles under the title “9/11 HOW WE’VE CHANGED”. The other two articles are: “9/11 HOW WE’VE CHANGED_Academics” and “9/11 HOW WE’VE CHANGED_Psyche“