by G. Clay Whittaker ‘09

Members of the Hampden-Sydney College community gathered on the morning of September 11, 2008, around the flagpole to consider together the events now seven years passed.

Students, faculty, and staff, notably President Walter M. Bortz III and Rucker Snead, who was working in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, paused on a cloudy day to reflect on and to remember a day now passed by the better part of a decade that changed our way of life so much.

The Rev. Dr. William E. Thompson, who has returned to Hampden-Sydney as interim College Chaplain, began with a reading from the 27th Psalm:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident."

Thompson explained, “Those confident assumptions were immediately challenged on this morning seven years ago when we realized that everything and everyone was something to be afraid of because wars and rumors of wars and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune were now no longer comfortably put aside and defined and delineated to definite battle fronts with uniformed soldiers and clearly identified weaponry.”

On September 11, 2001, Thompson was the College Chaplain.  For many faculty and staff, his memories of the day were shared experiences.  Yet Thompson’s address appealed to the broader base of gatherers, which also included students, community members, and notably members of the H-SC ROTC program: “We remember that this was the morning where everything that was comfortable and confident and reasonably predictable was forever changed so that 9/11/2001 and it’s recurrent days of annual memory become for all of us one of those indelible mileposts on our common journeys where you will always remember exactly where you were, with whom you were talking, and what you then wanted immediately to do.”

Thompson then began to recount the names and stories of those Hampden-Sydney family members who were affected, and those who perished in the attacks. Among those who were killed were Ken Lewis ’74 and his wife Jennifer, who were working together as flight staff on the plane that struck the Pentagon.

Shelley Marshall, wife of Don Marshall ’86, was working in the Pentagon that morning when the plane struck her side of the building. Don proposed to Shelley on the lawn of Venable Hall in 1993, and has since endowed an annual writing award named in her honor.

Mark Finelli ’98 escaped the South Tower from his 61st-story office that morning and soon after volunteered for military service.

After sharing such close-to-home stories of tragedy and hope, Thompson called upon those gathered with a charge of acceptance: “We’re all in this together, and while we may unashamedly stand in one faith tradition, we need to work at understanding the faith traditions of those who differ from us, for we all only see in a glass darkly.”

Thompson asked that those gathered in remembrance “Never let the sun set on your own anger. If you are in some estranged relationship with a friend or some unaddressed matters with someone in your family, please talk to that person; talk to them even if you can’t always, right away, say, "I love you"…because in a world without technological barriers and without battle fronts and uniform soldiers and known weaponry, September 11 reminds us that any day in a safe place could be your last one.”