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" &amp;quot;I NEVER WANT OTHER GRIEVING KIDS TO FEEL ALONE.&amp;quot;  When my mom first suggested that my brother and I go to America&amp;#039;s Camp, a one-week camp in Massachusetts set up for kids who&amp;#039;d lost a parent or sibling on September 11, it sounded depressing. My dad died working in Tower One of the World Trade Center when I was 8, and I worried that the camp would be all about death. But it turned out to be a place where I met my best friends \u2014 other guys who know how it feels to wake up as an 8-year-old asking yourself: Why me? Why my dad? It was a place where I was given the opportunity to move on from my loss, and it&amp;#039;s become the one week out of 52 that I look forward to most every year. This summer is my ninth year at camp, but this time I&amp;#039;m a counselor. It&amp;#039;s my chance to help other kids see that they&amp;#039;re not alone in their grief. I&amp;#039;ve always said that I don&amp;#039;t want 9/11 to define me, but America&amp;#039;s Camp helped me realize it can define me not by my loss, but by how I&amp;#039;ve grown from it. \u2014 JOHN BURKE  &amp;quot;MY UNCLE WAS A HERO; I WANT TO BE LIKE HIM.&amp;quot;  People say that when they look at me, they see my uncle, Brooklyn firefighter Keithroy Maynard, because we have the same eyes. I see it sometimes too \u2014 like when I wore one of his old uniforms to my graduation from the Fire Department of New York High School for Fire and Life Safety this spring. He died while helping people at the World Trade Center, and I wear his FDNY T-shirts under my clothes sometimes to feel closer to him and remind me of my goals. Even though his death tore a hole in my heart, it also made me more focused: He&amp;#039;s the reason I first signed up for the FDNY Explorers, a program where I not only learned how to put out fires but also did hundreds of hours of community service. Now I&amp;#039;m training to be an emergency medical technician.  My uncle was a hero like so many firefighters that day, and I wish he could see me now as I carry on his legacy. If he could have been there when I got my diploma, I know he would&amp;#039;ve looked into my eyes, the ones so much like his, and told me, &amp;quot;Welcome to the FDNY family.&amp;quot; \u2014 MALIK MAYNARD  &amp;quot;I KNOW I&amp;#039;M SO LUCKY TO STILL HAVE MY DAD.&amp;quot;  I love my mom and my little sister, Mia, but I feel especially glad to have my dad here with me. I wasn&amp;#039;t born yet, but I know my dad was working in the twin towers on September 11. He was trying to get out down the stairs when the building crashed down and he fell 22 floors. Firefighters found him and got him home to my mom so he could be there when I was born two months later. He&amp;#039;s the best dad. When my mom&amp;#039;s out of town, he gives us pancakes and ice cream for breakfast! I don&amp;#039;t know what it would be like not having him here, but I know a lot of kids weren&amp;#039;t as lucky. We haven&amp;#039;t learned about 9/11 in school, so I shared my dad&amp;#039;s story with my classmates last January to help them understand what happened. We should all remember the people who suffered. If I could change the world, I&amp;#039;d take everybody who does bad things to others and I&amp;#039;d make them understand that they should stop, because the world should only have peace. \u2014 HOPE BUZZELLI  &amp;quot;MY DAD WAS ON ONE OF THE HIJACKED PLANES.&amp;quot;  I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. I was in second grade and on my way to gym class when I was called to the principal&amp;#039;s office to go home early. I was so upset \u2014 I loved gym. When I got home, my mom gathered my brother, my sister, and me. With tears streaming down her face, she told us that our dad had died on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to hit the World Trade Center.  My dad and I had been so close: Almost every Sunday we&amp;#039;d go out for breakfast, just the two of us. I was the only one of my siblings who liked hiking the way he did, and we used to climb a trail near our house together. When I was 6, I picked out matching hiking shirts for us \u2014 they were pretty goofy, but my dad always wore his with pride.  About two years after he died, I took one of his coffee-stained sweatshirts, filled it with stuffing, and my mom and I sewed the neck, waist, and wrists shut. I called it a &amp;quot;daddy hug pillow,&amp;quot; and I squeezed it when I missed him. Now I focus on keeping his memory alive through the foundation my family started to help people in need because of a death or illness in their family. We want to pay forward all of the love we got from people in those early years. The truth is, I miss my dad just as much as I did 10 years ago, but I know he&amp;#039;d be so proud of the work I&amp;#039;m doing in his name. \u2014 JULIA COOMBS  &amp;quot;AFTER 9/11, I WAS STEREOTYPED.&amp;quot;  I couldn&amp;#039;t wait to wear it. Just like my classmates who stole their older sisters&amp;#039; lip gloss, I longed for the maturity and coolness I imagined would come with wearing the hijab, a traditional Muslim head scarf. I put it on with pride in 1998 even though I was only 9 and Muslim scripture doesn&amp;#039;t require it until girls reach adolescence. My classmates were fascinated by it and even helped me catch it when it blew off my head one windy day on the playground.  Who could imagine how that sense of sweet intrigue would change just days after September 11? There was the boy who asked if I was going to be one of Osama&amp;#039;s wives. Another called me a &amp;quot;rag head,&amp;quot; a racial epithet I&amp;#039;d never heard and had to look up online. Once when I was walking to the mall with a Muslim friend, a boy threw rocks at her. I felt so sad about 9/11 \u2014 but also rejected and betrayed by other students. From then on, I was determined to help spread a positive image of Islam. Now I&amp;#039;m president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Michigan, and I team up with other campus religious groups to host events, like our &amp;quot;A Walk in My Shoes&amp;quot; program, which matches Muslim students with non-Muslims to shadow each other. Islamophobic feelings still exist, but people seem to understand more that you can be proudly Muslim and American. That&amp;#039;s what I am. \u2014 EMAN ABDELHADI  &amp;quot;FLIGHT 93 WENT DOWN RIGHT NEXT TO MY SCHOOL.&amp;quot;  I was in fourth grade and had just come back from art class to find my teacher watching CNN, images of the World Trade Center in New York City flashing on the screen. Then, the building of my school in Shanksville, PA, shook so violently that some of the ceiling tiles fell to the floor. Through the windows, we saw a plume of black smoke rising above the tree line. &amp;quot;Everything&amp;#039;s okay,&amp;quot; our teacher assured us. &amp;quot;If there&amp;#039;s one place that&amp;#039;s safe, it&amp;#039;s Shanksville. This must be a coincidence.&amp;quot; But after my mom rushed to pick me up, we sat glued to the TV at home and learned that it was part of a bigger tragedy. Flight 93 had crashed just miles from my school. Suddenly, our safe little middle-of-nowhere town was flipped upside down. The rescue workers came; the reporters came; the FBI came. And for me, a switch inside my 9-year-old head went off. I didn&amp;#039;t have the words for it yet, but I was suddenly deeply patriotic. I started helping out with fire department fund-raisers, collecting supplies for rescue workers. And in the 10 years since, I&amp;#039;ve devoted myself to organizing blood drives, sending care packages to our troops, speaking to tourists and schoolkids about my experience. I was even named my town&amp;#039;s Fire Queen \u2014 something that sounds silly to anyone who&amp;#039;s not from here but was my chance to regularly help the fire department. Now I&amp;#039;m planning to go to law school and focus on constitutional law, and pursue a career in public policy so I can protect the rights that make this country so great. Contrary to the news reports that drive many of us here crazy, Flight 93 did not just go down in &amp;quot;western Pennsylvania&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;in a rural area outside Pittsburgh.&amp;quot; It happened in Shanksville \u2014 and it changed us forever. \u2014 DIANNA BAKER  &amp;quot;AFTER DAD DIED, I TRIED TO BE A ROLE MODEL TO MY LITTLE BROTHERS.&amp;quot;  I don&amp;#039;t have many memories of my dad, who died in one of the World Trade Center towers when I was 6 years old. But the one thing I do remember vividly is playing kickball with him in our backyard the summer before 9/11. After the attacks, playing sports was one of the hardest things for me to do \u2014 I remember seeing other fathers coaching my Little League teams, and it made me upset that my dad couldn&amp;#039;t be there. I rarely talked about my feelings; instead, I tried to set an example for my two younger brothers, who were then just 3 and 1.  When my mom started dating Tony, who&amp;#039;s now our stepfather, I liked how happy he made her. But things got scary after they were married and my mom went into premature labor with Anthony. She had to be in the hospital for weeks \u2014 and I worried that I might lose her too. Anthony&amp;#039;s a healthy little boy and the relief that he and my mom were okay made me bond with him immediately. I&amp;#039;m glad that he&amp;#039;ll get to make memories with his dad that I didn&amp;#039;t have time to. I know it&amp;#039;s hard for kids to see their mom or dad remarry after losing a parent, but I&amp;#039;ve realized that my mom will always love my dad, just as much as I still do. \u2014 MICHAEL E. MCHUGH III  &amp;quot;IT&amp;#039;S SO IMPORTANT TO LEARN EACH OTHER&amp;#039;S CULTURES.&amp;quot;  High schoolers Marouane Oueslati and Adeli Block met through the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program, which was established by the State Department after 9/11 to help foster a better relationship between Muslims and Americans. Marouane is from Tunisia but spent last spring living with Adeli&amp;#039;s family while studying at the Robert E. Lee high school in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. &amp;quot;When I heard about this exchange program from my mom, I couldn&amp;#039;t believe that I&amp;#039;d get the chance to come to America. I had never left Tunisia, and my father was worried that, as an Arab Muslim, I wouldn&amp;#039;t fit in. When I arrived, I didn&amp;#039;t expect to see so much diversity here \u2014 while I was the only Tunisian at my new school, I wasn&amp;#039;t the only Muslim, and I never felt marginalized.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I want to share my experience with my family and friends back home and tell them that not all Americans are against Arabs or Islam. I did get some crazy questions from classmates, like, &amp;#039;Does your dad have four wives?&amp;#039; But these stereotypes gave me a chance to explain what Islam is all about. I still have to finish my last two years of high school in Tunisia, but I&amp;#039;m definitely applying to colleges in the United States, because it&amp;#039;s an amazing place where you can study whatever you want and follow your dreams.&amp;quot; \u2014 MAROUANE OUESLATI &amp;quot;My family has hosted exchange students for years now. When Marouane came to live with us, some mean kids would ask me, &amp;#039;How&amp;#039;s it living with a terrorist in your house?&amp;#039; I realized a lot of people are so closed-minded, but with Marouane&amp;#039;s help, I think we got our classmates to be more accepting of other cultures, because once they met him, they realized he&amp;#039;s a teenager just like us. I plan to major in Middle Eastern studies in college, and while Marouane was here, he helped me practice Arabic. After college, I want to join the Peace Corps and work in Arabic-speaking countries, continuing to create a better relationship between Muslims and Americans.&amp;quot; \u2014 ADELI BLOCK  &amp;quot;I WISH I WAS THE ONE WHO GOT OSAMA, MOM.&amp;quot;  Lauren Manning, author of the new book Unmeasured Strength, was gravely injured in the World Trade Center attacks. We asked her to share how her battle to live shaped her son Tyler&amp;#039;s life: On the morning of 9/11, I was entering Tower One right as the building was hit \u2014 and I was engulfed in a wall of fire that had been ignited by gallons of burning jet fuel. As I fled the building in flames, I prayed not to be taken away from my son, Tyler, then only 10 months old. I spent over six months in the hospital fighting burns that covered 80 percent of my body, and still continue regular rehab. We like to think that kids&amp;#039; nightmares are limited to imaginary monsters lurking in the closet, but Tyler grew up knowing that real bad guys exist. I&amp;#039;ll never forget the night we heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Tyler looked up at me and said, &amp;quot;I wish I was the one who got him for you, Mom.&amp;quot; Despite everything we&amp;#039;ve been through, he&amp;#039;s grown into such a wonderful, happy boy, but he&amp;#039;s very protective of me, and always asks if he can help me with things. He&amp;#039;s very self-assured for his age, but I know that it&amp;#039;s been tough for him at times. When you grow up like he&amp;#039;s had to, you&amp;#039;re forced to quickly learn a lot about real life \u2014 and what it means to love your family.  &amp;quot;MY MOM WAS LISTED AS &amp;#039;SAFE&amp;#039; \u2014 BUT SHE WASN&amp;#039;T.&amp;quot;  When my sixth-grade teacher asked me to go to the school&amp;#039;s main office on 9/11 to meet my dad, I knew something was wrong the minute I saw his face. He said, &amp;quot;The tower your mom works in was hit by a plane.&amp;quot; It all seemed unreal, and we just went home and hoped for good news. Later that day, we got an email from her company with a &amp;quot;safe list&amp;quot; \u2014 a list of people that had been seen alive by someone after the attacks. My mom&amp;#039;s name, Susan Clyne, was on it! We still didn&amp;#039;t know where she was, but we were so relieved \u2014 until we found out the next day it was a mistake. She was gone. To move past our grief, my dad, my three brothers, and I started going to classes put on by Tuesday&amp;#039;s Children, a charity that helps families affected by 9/11. The activities weren&amp;#039;t focused around our loss; instead they helped us look forward to our futures and brighter possibilities. I&amp;#039;m now an intern there, and I gather feedback on our events from families. It feels good to give back to an organization that helped my family so much. And I&amp;#039;m in college studying to be a psychologist so I can guide other people through tough times, like the therapist who helped me. \u2014 MARIE CLYNE  &amp;quot;MY MOM AND I HAD TO RUN FOR OUR LIVES.&amp;quot;  For many years after 9/11, I bottled up my feelings about that day. About having to be evacuated from my kindergarten class just four blocks from the World Trade Center. About watching people jump to their deaths from the burning towers. My mom picked me up from school just as the second tower was hit, and she literally ran for our lives with me over her shoulder as smoke and glass came down the street like a tidal wave behind us. Afterward, I talked to grief counselors supplied by my school and went to so many funerals with my mom.  As time went on, I shut out my feelings, assuming no one could really understand the confusion I felt. Then, about three years ago, after working with a children&amp;#039;s filmmaking group, I decided to make my own short documentary, The Second Day (theseconddayfilm.com), to find out how kids like me coped with the attacks. I interviewed students who&amp;#039;d been there, teachers who evacuated more than 5,600 students, and heroic firefighters. I submitted my movie to the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in 2010, and they showed it this spring.  I never expected the film to take off like it did: Schools in Vietnam, Australia, Japan, and China have all asked to see it. But the most meaningful feedback has been from my peers. One of the teen students I interviewed told me he&amp;#039;d never talked about 9/11 \u2014 not even with his parents \u2014 and that being a part of it lifted a huge weight off his chest. I know it&amp;#039;s hard for people to think about that day, but if you don&amp;#039;t remember it, you can&amp;#039;t move on from it either. I hope my film fills in the gaps for kids my age and younger, and shows them that people really do have the power and resilience within themselves to overcome anything. \u2014 BROOK PETERS  HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN ABOUT 9/11 We asked Pat Carney \u2014 a veteran elementary school teacher at P.S. 234, a public school three blocks from the site of the World Trade Center \u2014 how she tackles this tough topic with her students. Hands down, the hardest question I get asked, year after year, when the subject of 9/11 comes up is, Can it happen again? I still answer the same way I did back in 2001: honestly. I never lied to my students then, whether I had to explain why we weren&amp;#039;t allowed back to our ash-covered school for five months or why recess had moved indoors because the air quality was too poor. With each passing year, 9/11 is just another part of history, and my students still want to know about it.  This year, I&amp;#039;ll approach the 10th anniversary the same way I talk about any controversial or scary subject with my students, like the killing of Osama bin Laden:    I START WITH A QUESTION. &amp;quot;Does anyone know what today is and why it&amp;#039;s important?&amp;quot; is something I ask to gauge how much my students &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; versus how much is over their heads. I allow the children to drive the discussion and intervene only for clarification or correction.   I AVOID GOING INTO GRAPHIC DETAIL ABOUT THE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. Instead, we talk about memorials and why we have them. We talk about generosity \u2014 how, in 2001, other schools shared their classrooms with us, and how children in Japan sent our school 11,000 delicate paper cranes, symbolizing peace, that hang outside of the school&amp;#039;s library.   FINALLY, I TELL THEM THE TRUTH. I acknowledge that an attack could happen again, but explain that our government and police officers know so much more now and are better able to do everything they can to protect all of us. That comment can shift the conversation away from death, and kids start sharing what they know about how their communities are working to make them safer. That&amp;#039;s exactly what we want: more discussion to help them feel as secure as possible.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/charity/a12419/september-11-children/>