The Veterans Resource Center invited the El Camino College community to have a moment of reflection on Monday to observe the 22nd anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Many college-age students were not yet born or were too young to remember the weight of the events. But there are members of the El Camino community, including veterans, who have memories about 9/11.
“I was part of that invasion of Iraq,” Tony Zapata, academic counselor for veterans at the Veterans Resource Center, said.
Zapata said he trained for two years to go to Iraq.
“I had a security role, and I had a policing role as well as a [reconnaissance] role and essentially, I was on the ground in the invasion in 2003,” he said.
Now 42, Zapata remembers being a young adult when he saw the 9/11 news at a busy UPS facility.
“It was really weird because everything kind of shut down,” Zapata said. “People shut down their machines to go look at the TV and what was going on.”
Accompanied by his therapy dog, Frida, Zapata’s current office is designed to keep himself and stressed students calm with a relaxing aroma and a miniature indoor water fountain.
Zapata said it is important to be “observant of sensitive events, such as 9/11,” and to keep the first responders, military and innocent civilians of the day in mind.
Kinesiology major Ace Reyes is in his mid 20s and a member of the Boxing Club. His father was a wrestler and joined the military because of the 9/11 attacks.
“[Wrestling] was my father’s sport. He was a former athlete and didn’t know what to do with his life until 9/11 happened,” Reyes said.
The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon spurred his father into action.
“He had that sense of urgency and patriotism to join the United States Navy,” he said.
Reyes’s father served as a Navy Damage Controlman to defend the U.S. Navy against fires.
Navy Damage Controlmen are stationed aboard ships, submarines and aircraft and “are the first responders who are critical to preventing accidents,” according to the Navy website.
Reyes also said he lost an uncle he’s never met during 9/11.
“He’s my dad’s cousin, and he was in one of the Twin Towers,” Reyes said.
Research librarian Catherine Bueno said her memories of the Sept. 11 attacks were scarring. Bueno said she experienced “complete disbelief, shock and fear” while watching the TV screen.
“I remember seeing the news and the first building went down,” Bueno said. “When the airplane crashed into the second building, I never thought those buildings would ever come down.”
Major Brenda Threatt is the assistant director of the veterans program at El Camino and reiterates the college’s request for the 22nd anniversary of the historic date.
“[I wish] that everyone would read, reflect and remember the victims and heroes of that day,” Threatt said.
