Bit of Ivory

At about this time last year, I was watching my TV in the living room
of my apartment, gaping in horror as the second tower fell. My roommate
had woken me up about a half-hour before, saying, “Emily, I think World
War Three just started.” I wanted to believe it was all a horrible
joke; but of course, it was undeniably real. I watched CNN, MSNBC, and
all the other news channels continually that morning, as I didn’t have
class until noon. We were supposed to be have our first devotional of
the year; instead, it turned into a prayer service. I almost couldn’t
bring myself to go to class; but I went anyway. None of us felt much
like talking about our assigned reading, but we made the most of it; we
were reading Emily Dickinson, and many of the poems we had studied
related to death and tragedy anyway, so there were some eerie
parallels. Class got out early, and I spent the rest of the afternoon
glued to the television.
Now, a year later, have I really changed? I think I have; the stories
my grandfathers tell me about their experiences in World War II (one
was a tailgunner in a B-24 liberator–life expectancy in battle 30
seconds, the other was a Seaman first class on the U.S.S. Saratoga, the
third aircraft carrier ever built) have a lot more meaning now. My best
friends’ husband just joined the Army ROTC, to study as a nurse. He’ll
be serving for four years after his schooling is over; who knows where
he’ll end up? I think I have a better focus now; the things that were
always important to me, like family and relationships, are that much
more important, and the things that aren’t so important, like a lot of
money or a spectacular career, have faded into the background.
Yesterday President Bateman gave the first devotional of the year. He
said that we, the younger generation, now knows what it’s like to live
in a world of terror and war and tyranny, and why it is necessary, and
has always been necessary, to fight against it. I think he’s right. I
think we finally learned for ourselves what everyone’s been telling us
for years– that freedom isn’t free, and we’ve got to win it again in
each generation. Well, my fellow generation-Y members, now’s our turn.
What are we going to do with it?