IU students worked through Pentagon crash

The television inside Katie Flege's home will remain quiet today. She won't watch the hours of special programming and footage dedicated to the Day Our Nation Saw Terror. She says she can't. Her own memories are vivid enough. \n"It's important to honor the victims, but I don't want to watch the whole thing on TV," Flege says. "It would depress me too much. I just feel lucky to be here and alive."\nOne year ago Flege was working in the nation's capitol as an intern with the SPEA Washington Leadership Program, just blocks from where at 9:37 a.m. a 757-jet deliberately slammed head-on into the west side of the Pentagon. \nShe was one of 35 IU students working in Washington that day.\nFlege and her co-workers attempted to keep working even as they watched the twin towers burning on TV. But when the Pentagon was hit, everyone evacuated.\n "I had only been in D.C. for a week or two," she said. "So when it happened, I felt very scared and isolated. People were confused. It was scary. I wanted to get home so bad."\nThe scariest moments came when Flege heard that a fourth plane was somewhere in the air. Someone shouted that it had just been spotted above the Potomac River. \n"That feeling of fear that I had, I can still conjure up so clearly," she said. "Not knowing what was going on, not knowing where that plane was."\nSo instead of turning on the TV today, Flege plans to call her mom. \nMaurina Roberts feels the same way. She too was interning with the SPEA program on Sept. 11, in the policy department of the Wilderness Society, just a six-minute walk from the White House. She won't be watching the TV today, either. In fact, she hasn't watched the news in a year. \n"I no longer watch the news," Roberts said. "I avoid it because TV news is too depressing."\nIn the year since the attacks, Roberts said she has developed a new perspective.\n"It changed me, in a nonspecific way," she said. "My life after Sept. 11 has been altered."\nShe has gained a new appreciation for different cultures.\n"It was a slap in the face reminder that we are not the only people on the planet," she said. "I have a stronger empathy with people who live in places like the west bank where things of this nature happen every day of their lives."\nShe also reevaluated the direction of her life. \n"I pondered if it was worth it to continue my education and achieve my goals professionally," she said. "Is it worth it to keep fighting, if it could be all wiped out?"\nFlege has felt some of the same stirrings inside her.\nIn the days after the attacks, she went to volunteer with the Salvation Army in D.C. and was amazed by the spirit of charity. She said her reaction to Sept. 11 has made her more patriotic. \n"I felt better when I saw how our country had come together," she said. "I've felt more lucky to be an American. It was something I took for granted."\nFlege said she'll never forget that evanescent feeling of unity.\n"Everyone came together," she said. "We were all going through the same thing, even though we came from different backgrounds."\nMatt Light, now a graduate student at IU Law School, was in D.C. too. In the year since, he has drawn reassurance from his experience that day.\n"Everyone on that morning had the exact same look in their eyes," he said. "I didn't notice it at the time. They wanted to get to a safe place, they wanted to know that their families were all right. It reinforced the fact that we are all from different areas, but we are all from the same country."\nHe reminds himself of that to deal with his memories.\n"Sometimes you are rational and other times, you think of retribution," he said. "I had a hard time figuring it all out. You go through different moods."\nMarc Lame, a professor at SPEA who led the program, had the stressful task of trying to account for all 35 interns immediately following the attacks. By 4 p.m., he had contacted everyone.\nHe said all but two interns finished their jobs. \n"Brave young men and women," he said.