By Matt Phifer
The pile of presents sat on the table untouched. No special dinner was served. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t come over to celebrate. That’s what Lauren Nugent remembers about her twelfth birthday, which happened to be on September 11, 2001.
“My birthday ceased to exist,” Nugent said as she reflected in an edit suite in 30 Rock.
Nugent, a native of Babylon, New York, is one of a group of Americans who experienced 9/11 in a unique way. As a middle school student she was old enough to realize something terrible had happened, yet was too young to fully comprehend the concepts and magnitude of the day.
But 9/11 has become an important part in the lives of young Americans such as Nugent, who will turn 24 on September 11th. For many of these young men and women their life and career choices have been influenced by that day. For Nugent, 9/11 has made her put things like family first.
September 11th has had a major impact on many young people, influencing their life and career decisions. (Photo by Matt Phifer)
“On my 21st birthday, I was a senior in college and my friends were trying to throw this huge [party],” Nugent recalled, “and I said ‘no’, I’m going to visit my dad in the hospital.”
Nugent’s father, who was recovering from knee surgery, resisted, telling his daughter to go out with her friends and have the fun she never got to have on her birthday.
“I was like ‘nope’, going into the city. I was like, ‘I’m coming to see you.’ In the back of my mind I was a little bit like, ‘if there ever were an anniversary attack and my dad was in the city and he couldn’t walk I’d want to be there,” Nugent said.
That day Nugent’s father went into cardiac arrest. She and her sister, who were the only other people in the hospital room, screamed for help. Their quick action helped save their father’s life.
“My mom said ‘had you not had those values that seeing your father is more important than going out to party on your 21st birthday, your father wouldn’t be alive.”
Andrew Catalano remembers 9/11 as one of his first days in middle school in Roslyn, New York. At the time his immediate feelings were that of confusion.
“I didn’t understand the hatred. I wasn’t able to put things into context. I didn’t understand why people would hate America. I didn’t realize what separated us from other people. I was just an 11-year-old kid,” Catalano recalled. “My biggest challenge was figuring out where my locker was and how to negotiate a day-to-day schedule let alone comprehend the biggest terrorist attack in mankind.”
Catalano remembers being told about the attack on the World Trade Center in class, then being called to the office to be told that his parents were ok.
“When I went into the office I saw through a doorway a couple of teachers watching a TV and those looks,” Catalano remembers, “It was just like this open mouth, jaw on the floor, eyes can’t believe what you’re seeing look.”
When school was let out both of Catalano’s parents met him at the bus stop, a rare occurrence since both worked fulltime. He said the rest of the night was spent watching TV coverage of the attacks with his family and various friends who visited.
“It really did change the course of my life,” Catalano says, “because I went around thinking I’m not invincible. My country is not invincible. We were susceptible to attack like anybody else. Nothing had ever happened on American soil. This was like, the first time something had happened on American soil, in New York City, that was just a few miles down the Long Island Expressway. So it definitely made me more conscious of who I am and how people perceive me and then just realizing how fragile life is that you can leave home that day. You can get hit by a car. You can get struck by lightning. Anything can happen on any day.”
Since that day Catalano has made an effort to always treat people like he will never see them again.
“I don’t want to leave on bad terms with somebody because you can really set yourself up to feel immense amounts of guilt,” Catalano says, “You’ve got to live every day like it’s your last day on Earth. And you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘am I making a positive impact on the people around me? Am I doing something that if I were to die today would I be happy with the way I lived my life?’ And if your answer to that is ‘no’, then you’re doing something wrong.”
Tyler Limeberry, a native of Easton, Pennsylvania, who was also in his first weeks of sixth grade on 9/11 answered the call to public service in response to the attack. In the years after 9/11 Limeberry became a volunteer firefighter in order to help people who have experienced catastrophic events.
“That point in time is probably that person’s worst life event,” Limeberry explains, “I like being the person that’s there to help them through that situation.”
Limeberry pursued a criminal justice degree in college and is now awaiting openings in several police departments. In January he also joined the Pennsylvania National Guard, a decision he says is a direct result of 9/11 and the wars that followed.
“I want to protect this country from enemies both foreign and domestic,” Limeberry says, “I don’t want that [9/11] to ever happen to my family.”
Andrew Hardgrove was a seventh grader in Delaware County, Ohio, who watched the first tower fall on television during study hall. Hardgrove remembers thinking “how could this happen in New York?”
“My grandma, she’s from Germany. She would tell stories about war and World War II and you know growing up in this time we had no wars,” Hardgrove recalls, “It was pretty surreal when you found out this was an attack on our nation as big as, bigger than what Pearl Harbor was.”
Hardgrove’s parents have owned a fire protection business since 1997 that provides services such as cleaning hoods and grease traps in restaurants and servicing fire extinguishers. Hardgrove says 9/11 had a big effect on his decision to join the family business aimed at preventing fires and saving lives.
“It’s the next best thing from joining the army, in my opinion,” says Hardgrove, “to kind of be able to help and prevent things from happening.”
Hardgrove admits that the fire protection industry can do nothing to prevent a terrorist attack, but he gets satisfaction knowing that he is helping others.
“What happened on that day kind of reinforced what I wanted to do,” Hardgrove says, “It’s not exactly a glamorous or money-making industry, but it’s that sense of accomplishment, that sense of help, that sense of you’re basically helping the community.”
These four young people all have had their lives changed by 9/11. None lost a direct relative, but the day impacted the decisions they’ve made and in some cases, even the careers they followed.
And as September 11 approaches again, so does another birthday for Lauren Nugent. But don’t look for her to be partying.
“I’ll just be going home for the night,” Nugent says admitting she’d feel guilty if she celebrated on the anniversary of the day that changed her life.
