College Republican’s 9/11 Memorial

From a press release sent by the Marquette College Republicans:

This morning the College Republicans of Marquette placed 3,000 flags outside the Alumni Memorial Union as a memorial to every life lost ten years ago. Over 20 members of the club worked early to remember the lives and to place a temporary memorial for the Marquette Community to pay their respects to the victims. Passers by commended the club on their willingness to remember the anniversary in a big way.

In addition to the flag display, the College Republicans posted a memorial flag inside the Union. The flag consists of 3x5 pieces of construction paper with memories and thoughts,of the Marquette Community. Marquette’s Republicans collected the handwritten memories last week from both political parties at tables in the Union.

“We had some shocking memories,” said the clubs Chairman Ethan Hollenberger, “several people lost family members ten years ago. While the students at Marquette were only 8,9,10, and 11, the memories and the effects are strong. I think we have effectively recreated the patriotism spurred from ten years ago; however, nothing will replace the pain suffered by those who lost loved ones. The College Republicans are praying for the families of the 2,977 victims.”

The flag display will remain today until 9pm while the Memorial Flag will be up all week inside the Union. Those who have not placed a memory on the flag are encouraged to find an empty space.

Interestingly, events commemorating 9/11 have been pretty scarce on campus. This, in fact is the only one we know of.

(One program — not exactly a memorial but certainly related — is the speech at the Law School of Gordon Haberman, the father of a 9/11 victim.)

It seems odd that such a watershed event would not be the subject of multiple memorials, forums, speeches and discussions.

Is this the result of political correctness, since it is a hard sell to paint America as anything other than the victim of fanatical Muslim extremists? Some people at Marquette try, but it’s not convincing.

Of course, it’s early in the semester, and departments, schools and student organizations may simply not have gotten “up to speed” in programming.

Probably some of both factors are operating.

But kudos to the College Republicans for getting this organized.



[Update]

A couple of commenters have pointed out a worthy event held by the Communications College.

Kudos to the Communications College for that. But the video is a collection of inspiring personal stories, and not any sort of hard-edged political or geopolitical analysis. More of the latter was clearly called for on campus.