On Sept. 11, 2001, a series of four attacks were issued on the United States by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.

Nearly 3,000 people died as a result of these attacks and over 25,000 others were injured.

9/11 is known as the single most deadly attack in American history.

As it nears 20 years since the terrorist attack, many young adults were not alive during the incident or too young to comprehend the gravity of the attack at the time.

Jeremiah Goodman, a freshman journalism major said he learned about the event in school and from his family.

“I just remembered how important it was as a kid growing up in school. We’d be in school on that day and I just remember how, like, I don’t know, how it was really dramatic and really sad,” Goodman said. “I remember how my family used to talk about it, seeing it on the news, and the stories they heard from people who were there or had family that were there, and it was just really heartfelt.”

Goodman said 9/11 is something hard to comprehend.

“It makes me wonder if something like that will happen again or how something like that could even be allowed to take place,” Goodman said. “It’s really crazy, and not to say that I wish I was there to witness it, but I wish, I’m pretty sure every kid wishes there was a position to, like, help or, you know, a way that they could stop something so drastic from happening.”

Freshman computer science major, Brendan Zeitlin, says 9/11 was very unfortunate.

“There were people who didn’t deserve to die that day in that building,” Zeitlin said. “I don’t have any relatives that I know of that died in that building, but all 3,000 of those people did not deserve what they got.”

Students have varying opinions on the portrayal of 9/11 in schools.

Noah McCammon, a sophomore political science major, says, for the most part, the school system accurately portrays 9/11.

”But it’s always going to be one-sided because history is always told in the eyes of the victors,” McCammon said. “I mean, not always the victors, but, like, from the side of the story you want to tell it from.”

A sophomore neuroscience major, Rashad Oliver, also said school system’s portrayal of 9/11 is too one-sided.

“It doesn’t go into how the American government, like, messed up a lot of the Middle East, like Desert Storm and all that other stuff during the Bush administration,” Oliver said.

Many schools around the U.S. still recognize 9/11 and honor the event in some manner.

Mary Kate Drufke, a sophomore communication disorders and sciences major, said her high school showed videos over the announcements and performed a moment of silence.

“In sophomore year, I think, I know one of the teachers at my high school put something together. I think he showed, like, a montage of, like, the events happening that day,” Drufke said. “Then, I think, him and I think he had some other teachers, like, send in videos of them talking about it and giving their perspective on what happened that day.”

Goodman said his middle school did something different for 9/11 one year.

“I remember I was in 6th grade, and our school made everyone in the entire building, all grades, everyone got a single name and we walked around the school in a moment of silence, basically in parading of their lives. I remember we all just had a different name, like, we might not of known the person at all, but, you know, just to show our support from that day,” Goodman said. “Some of our teachers were alive and they remember how terrible it was to see such a thing, so I remember a few times in school where we would have moments silence, we would all stand, you know, the sports teams might do something for it, there would be posters all over the walls, and they’d try to do their best at educating us on the event.”

Goodman said that as he continued his education, people started to do less for 9/11.

“As a kid, every year on 9/11 there was something we did, but, like, as I’ve gotten older, middle school to high school, less and less was done,” Goodman said. “We started to forget it rather than remember it.”

Heather Vosburgh can be reached at 581-2812 or at hmvosburgh@eiu.edu.