Remember —
Memories of terror attacks affect today's life

ABOVE: Bluewater Elementary second-grader Jordan Blevens walks with other students at his school chanting "USA" during a 9/11 Memorial Parade in Bluewater on Thursday. The school honors the World Trade Center Attack every year with a walk around the small village. BELOW: Brandon Wilson, an Iraqi War veteran that served one tour of duty, holds a flag as he walks with students from Bluewater Elementary on Thursday in a 9/11 Memorial Parade. Wilson spoke to the students about his experiences in the war before the start of the parade. The school honors the World Trade Center Attack every year with a walk around the small village. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Bluewater Elementary kindergartner Sharisse Leyba watches as a fire truck rolls up while waiting for a parade to start in Bluewater on Thursday. The school honors the World Trade Center Attack every year with a walk around the small village. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Like most children in school on that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, Greg Mariano and Odessa Yazzie learned that their world had changed forever by an announcement on the school’s intercom.

Mariano was a fifth-grader at Window Rock Elementary, and Yazzie was in the same grade but at Tohatchi Elementary. Both now are seniors at Gallup Catholic High School.

Yazzie remembers being confused.

“The announcement said that the twin towers were attacked, and I didn’t know what the twin towers were,” she said.

Most adults that day were riveted to their television screens watching repeat after repeat of the two towers collapsing, but the two students only heard about the events second-hand. Mariano finally got to see a repeat when he got home, but Yazzie said it was about a week before she saw the tragedy played out in a taped repeat.

“I was scared,” said Mariano, “just thinking that our country was under attack.”

Like millions of other school-age children after that fateful day, the two wondered what was in store for their country. Who would the terrorists hit next and was their community or their family in danger?

Now, seven years later, that fear has faded, said Yazzie, in part because there have been no other attacks. Life has gone on for her family and her. The thoughts of 9/11 has receded in her memory, only to be stirred up when her school holds a memorial service, as it did on Thursday, asking the students to offer up a prayer on behalf of those who died on that day.

Mariano said he is less scared now because “we have the technology and weaponry” to fight back. “We’re better prepared now,” he added.

A lot was written in 2001 after 9/11 about the effect the media’s attention would have on the nation’s youth. Many said that young people would suffer because of the repeated showing of the twin towers crumbling into dust and think that it was happening over and over again, but recent studies have said that America’s young people have coped well with their fears.

Part of that may be because the American government did as Mariano said — start preparing in case another attack came. Billions were spent annually to make sure that New York and other major American cities were prepared if another attack occurred on American soil, and every community — no matter how small — saw federal dollars to allow them to respond to a terrorism attack.

The Navajo Nation has received millions to improve law enforcement capabilities, and McKinley County has gotten its share as well.

Mark Diaz, who has been head of the county’s emergency management office since 2003, said that just during his tenure, the county has received between $1.5 million and $2 million.

This federal funding has helped pay a portion of his salary, and the federal government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide the county with haz-mat equipment and provide local emergency personnel with the training they needed to respond to anything from a terrorism attack to a chemical spill on the interstate.

What the funds have also done, he said, is make this area a lot safer for any kind of emergency by providing the money necessary to make sure that law enforcement officers could communicate from any part of the county. This was done by putting in the equipment to do away with the many communication dead spots that used to exist in remote areas of the county.

But with all of this money coming to one of the most isolated counties in the country, the question has to be asked — does anyone really think that a terrorist would choose a remote place like McKinley County to attack when their are so many other areas that would provide more publicity?
“Yes, this area could be a target,” Diaz said.

The reason is that McKinley County has within it vital infrastructure that if destroyed would create major problems throughout the Western portion of the United States. One of the prime railroad tracks goes through McKinley County as does one of the most traveled interstates highways in the country.

This area also has pipelines, and the lines that carry natural gas and electricity to many Western states as well.

For those reasons, Diaz said, McKinley County needs to be prepared and thanks to the federal dollars that have been coming in steadily since 9/11, the county is much more prepared than it was before the twin towers came down.