ROTC remembers 9/11: ‘It’s very personal to me’

Bright and early Monday morning, dozens of members from the USC ROTC ran up and down Webb Tower to commemorate the first responders who ran head-first into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The participants climbed the 14-story landmark eight times for a total of 110 flights of stairs.

Jonathan Brahim, a senior studying neuroscience, said that the climbing hit close to home.

“I hope to sacrifice and give up things that I love to serve the country,” Brahim said before ascending the stairs. “It’s giving back so much to me. In this small way, I feel like I can experience somewhat of what those first responders experienced on 9/11.”

On this day 22 years ago, members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda shocked the nation by hijacking four planes. Two crashed into the World Center Center in New York, while a third crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane downed the aircraft in a field in Pennsylvania. 2,996 people died in the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, including 343 New York firefighters.

The Joint Assembly for Military-Associated Students (JAMS) organized the stair-climbing commemorative event for the second year in a row. Bella Sanchez, co-executive director of JAMS, recalled visiting the 9/11 Memorial.

“I was looking at the names of each person that was engraved, and I thought, ‘How do you even begin to quantify a person’s life?’” said Sanchez, a senior who is studying international relations. “And one part specifically that really got me was there was a woman’s name and next to her name was her unborn [child’s name].”

The participants assembled at the Physical Education Building before walking to Webb Tower. Once they began their ascent, some members stopped at the roof to take pictures of the view. The event was a bonding experience for the different ROTC branches, according to Jared Park, a sophomore studying economics and mathematics.

“It’s a cool opportunity for all the Air Force branches, and everyone else to get together and collaborate on something because we rarely ever see the Army or Air Force when we do our Navy stuff,” Park said.

Kimberly Riley, a senior studying political science, says that there is one clear message with this event: never forget.

“To me, it’s a way to honor the ultimate sacrifice paid by the firefighters and other first responders on 9/11,” said Riley, a co-executive director of JAMS. “We organized this so that we may never forget what happened 22 years ago.”