The faces said it all that afternoon: shock, pain, uncertainty, tears. On Sept. 11, students and other members of the Duke community packed the Sanford Institute for an open forum.
The one thing we knew even then was that the events of that day were not just today's headlines, fading out after a news cycle or two. The world--our world, our students' world--was profoundly and enduringly changed.
My son, a junior at Columbia, described what it was like to go down to the World Trade Center site. It was a full sensory experience, he said; the smoke in your eyes, the smells in your nose, the crud crawling on your skin, the sheer enormity of the rubble that you feel in ways not possible on television.
Amidst the rubble, though, are rays of hope, however hard to discern.
As a native New Yorker, I used to have no more prized possession than my Yankees cap. Now it's my FDNY hat. The 300 plus firemen, policemen and emergency rescue workers who died when the Twin Towers collapsed gave their lives in public service. For that we will forever respect them. They did so because public service gave meaning to their lives--and in that way we must emulate them.
I think back to President John F. Kennedy's challenge to my generation, in his 1961 inaugural address, to "ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country."
We must reissue this call, to this generation of Duke students and their peers, to rekindle the spirit of public service as a personally fulfilling and societally meaningful career.
The war on terrorism may be more metaphorical than classical, but it nevertheless requires a sustained and broad-based effort. It needs the very best of this generation: doctors and nurses for the public health challenges, language specialists to give us the human intelligence we need, lawyers to strike the balance between national security and civil liberties, economists to develop more effective policies to alleviate global poverty, public safety professionals, and yes, public policy leaders and others with the skills and aspiration to make a difference.
For those who don't choose public service as their primary career path, let the public spiritedness that has infused so many volunteers, so many businesses, so many individuals who have given time, money and expertise to the Sept. 11 rescue and recovery efforts be captured and carried forward even once the sense of crisis subsides. The private sector, working with the non-profit and public sectors, can do much to meet the new challenges of safety and security, even while also pursuing prosperity and opportunity.
Whatever our profession, we also must strengthen our sense of national community. The attacks of Sept. 11 were against all of us as Americans. Virtually every state in the United States lost a native son or daughter; virtually every racial and ethnic and religious group lost a member. So too with our international community: More than 80 countries from around the world lost citizens.
JFK's "ask not" challenge was posed to everyone, but especially to the youth of that generation. Once again, the call must go out. We must challenge our students and others in their generation to respond.
Let this be Generation TT, the generation that emerged from the rubble of the Twin Towers with a commitment to public service, public-spiritedness and national community that will help us regain our sense of security and safety, and accomplish much else here at home and in the world.
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