It’s important to remember how young today’s college students were on 9/11. Still, it’s good to see so many observances of the day.

Dominic Lynch of the College Fix reported.

College Students Nationwide Mark 9/11 In Somber Campus Observances

The University of Michigan has been home to bitter campus disputes among several groups of students in recent years, but today it will be different, predicts student Derek Draplin.

“There’s not a lot of things that bring students of all stripes together,” Draplin told The College Fix, adding that a 9/11 observance last year that allowed students to place memorial flags in a grassy area at the campus flagpole did just that.

“Students didn’t really care who funded it, or the background of the organization putting it on,” Draplin said. “They put politics aside, and placed flags in remembrance for our country.”

This year will likely be the same, as today at the University of Michigan as well as at hundreds of other campuses across the nation, Sept. 11 observances will forge students together in somber, patriotic unity. In campus ceremonies, they will honor the lives lost in the terrorist attacks 13 years ago today, as well as the many others lost in the battlefront fighting terrorism ever since.

“With radical Islam continuing to terrorize the world, it is crucial that our young people and our schools remember the American lives lost and understand the challenges we face today,” according to Ashley Pratte, spokeswoman for Young America’s Foundation, which helps organize observances at more than 200 colleges today with its “9/11 Never Forget Project.”

Often, it’s the College Republicans, Young America’s Foundation chapters, and campus liberty groups that lead the charge in organizing such observances. Such is the case at the University of Michigan, as well as Pepperdine University, where an observance launched in 2008 grows larger each year.

“Since that time, the display has come to be a focal point in the Malibu community to gather in remembrance and meditation,” Pepperdine student Chris Garcia told The College Fix.

Among the fallen to be recalled today will be Tom Burnett, alumnus of Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management. Burnett was aboard United Airlines Flight 93 and was one of the passengers to storm the cockpit and disrupt the attack planned for that flight.

Like at the University of Michigan, the Pepperdine campus has struggled over the years with unity. Garcia said the observance always brings students and the campus community together, providing a place to mourn and heal. Today, even the campus officially provides the flags.

At the nearby University of Southern California, a 9/11 memorial ceremony will unveil a 100 pound I-beam from the World Trade Center, a powerful symbol that will remain on the campus as a permanent reminder of the lives lost in the name of freedom.


 
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