Indeed, I don’t even know who they are, or why they acted in the inhumane way that they did. The only similarity between World War II, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, 2001 is the fraternity I feel growing among me and my classmates. Tuesday evening hundreds of people gathered in Harvard Yard for a vigil for the dead and their friends and family. The last time I have seen so many people gather so silently was when Nelson Mandela addressed the University in 1998. Yesterday evening, we stood together listening to the Memorial Church bell toll, and prayed in our own, personal ways for the same goal: peace. This gives me a renewed hope that we can gather together, not to wage war, but to grapple with our new, unsettling reality.
And time will help. Tomorrow, I hope, I will know the fate of my New York friends. And maybe someday I will understand.
Erin B. Ashwell ’02 is a government concentrator in Eliot House.