University of Colorado graduate student Denise Wojdyla was 16 and living in Bergen County, N.J., on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when planes struck the World Trade Center towers just 30 miles away.

She came out of gym class and saw two teachers working to set up a 13-inch, black-and-white TV.

"It was the first shot coming out of the north tower at 9 a.m. We had no information," she says.

That lack of knowledge persisted, as administrators sent students to their homerooms, where there were no Internet connections. Students, half of whom had parents working in Manhattan, tried desperately to reach them, but cell phone service was out.

One student played with a radio trying to find news; but the downing of the twin towers knocked out much of the area's radio reception as transmitters died when the buildings pancaked to the ground.

"I was just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that something that big had happened," Wojdyla says.

In some ways, for Wojdyla and the rest of her generation, that's still true 10 years later.

A new generation

For the generation dubbed the Millennials, who are now 18 to 29 years old, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks served as a generational crucible in the same way that other historical events such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the political assassinations of the 1960s were seared into the consciousness of the World War II generation and baby boomers.

"(A generation) is nothing more than an age group that shares similar core values from the times and teachings of their formative years," says Chuck Underwood, founder and principal of the Generational Imperative, a Cincinnati-based firm that consults with companies on generational issues. "9/11 was a generation-shaping event," he says, adding that Generation X -- generally understood to those born from the early 1960s to the mid- to late 1970s -- did not have the same type of formative historical experience.

He sees Millennials as similar to their baby-boomer parents with traits such as social activism and engagement. He cites a National Public Radio story from 2005 that interviewed Millennials graduating from college.

"(They asked) did 9/11 change your college curriculum?" Underwood says. "Overwhelmingly, they said 'yes, from international business to social work, from Wall Street to schoolteacher, in other words from pursuing money to helping others in need."

He says younger Millennials with a less clear memory of Sept. 11 were further nudged in a similar direction by Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Ohio State student Kyle Jones holds up a U.S. flag as he and other students celebrate the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden.
Ohio State student Kyle Jones holds up a U.S. flag as he and other students celebrate the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden. (Victor Huang)

Underwood describes Millennials' core values, as contrasted with Gen-Xers, thusly: "I can make a difference. ... I will not be a spectator."

Talk to a few Millennials, though, and most are less likely to state their values so boldly -- although the characteristics Underwood describes often are quietly present. Ten years of war and an economy that doesn't produce work for many who want it overlay the fear and pain of Sept. 11. For Millennials, as for much of the country, the events of the last decade remain somewhat like undissolved globs of oil at the bottom of the ocean.

Wojdyla, who is getting her master's degree in religious studies, says a book comparing the rhetoric of President George W. Bush with that of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda and Sept. 11 mastermind who was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in May, as well as the 10th anniversary of the attacks have made a big impression on her.

"I didn't realize how much emotion was still there," she says. "Even though it's been 10 years, it's blowing my mind right now."

Yet she says she can't speak for anyone else. The experience was so different depending on where they were and how old they were on Sept. 11, 2001.

Once upon a time

An activist is born: Travis Moe, who now lives in Maine, was a 14-year-old freshman at Boulder High School. He describes the terror attacks as a "game inaugurator" rather than a game changer.

"It was like reading peacefully in a cozy warm cabin while a blizzard rages outside and then suddenly someone opens the door," he writes in an editorial essay for the Camera. "The cold wind that entered the cabin stands out in my mind as the dawning of a global consciousness, the beginning of a recognition that we are part of an entire world and our actions within it have very real repercussions."

Moe says that while much of the world has not changed for the better since Sept. 11, many of his generation have worked to make their own lives comport with their values.

"Many kids I know in my generation have risen to the call. We aren't consuming and polluting in the ways that we did when we were children. We're asking ourselves what we can do for the world instead of what we can do for our own comforts."

A soldier's story: Jordan Estes, 26, was in high school in Brookfield, Pa. At age 15, he doesn't remember feeling much as he watched the events unfold on television at school.

"I watched as the updates came," he says. "I didn't know what was going on. It was weird."

Estes, who now lives in Colorado, comes from a military family. He had decided even before the attacks that he would enlist in the Marine Corps. He says Sept. 11 doesn't resonate with him in the same way that it does with some other people.

"My service in Iraq is a little more personal to me ... 9/11 didn't really change anything other than a lot of people died and it sucked."

Seeing a world outside: Rachel Suby-Long, 21, was in the sixth grade. She was at her home in Highlands Ranch, getting ready for school when her aunt called and told her mother to turn on the TV.

She went to school, and the teachers mentioned the attacks, but didn't dwell on them. Televisions were not on, and school went on pretty much as usual. Suby-Long says it was reminiscent of the shootings that killed 13 at Denver's Columbine High School in 1999, when she was in the first grade.

"I remember the principal telling the teacher to close and lock the windows," she says. "They didn't tell us what was going on."

However, it was obvious the adults were shaken, just as it was on Sept 11.

She remembers feeling confused about the attacks.

"I was not sure how to feel. I knew it was a really big deal," she says. "How do you react (to something so unfamiliar)?"

In retrospect, she says it made her see the world as a potentially dangerous place.

"I was seeing the world was not as good and happy and perfect as it seemed before that," she says. "I was realizing that a lot of stuff is going on, things in other countries that affect the United States."

In an American University survey of 1,000 18- to 29-year-olds, 67 percent said they were more likely to keep up with the news because of 9/11.

Suby-Long says she's not sure if that's true of everyone she knows. It might be that awareness of news has more to do with social media connectivity than actual interest, she says.

"It's hard to say. It depends on the person. The way I hear about stuff going on is (often) on Facebook."

Living history: Tyler Durland, a 21-year-old communications major at CU, watched events unfold at his school in Yuma, Colo.

"I had choir first. The choir teacher was flipping out about something and crying. In the library, we were watching the news that showed the towers burning. Being 11 years old, I didn't understand what was going on, but I could tell by the way everyone was reacting that it wasn't good," he says.

That night, he slept on the floor in his parents' room.

"I was scared. Everyone was talking about buying guns and war and stuff," he says. "It was a dark day."

Durland says Sept. 11 is so significant to people his age because it's something they remember rather than reading about it in a book.

"I've read about Pearl Harbor, World War II, and the Civil War. Being alive (on Sept. 11), even at a young age, kind of puts things in perspective," he says.

If a similar attack happened again, Durland says he might join the Army.

"I try to not take each day for granted, to be thankful for each day I have," he says. "You never know when something like that is going to happen, can happen."

Change on a small scale: Blayne Kelly, then in the eighth grade, remembers what she was wearing on Sept. 11: Silver jeans, a light yellow PacSun sweatshirt with blue flowers and the white tennis shoes she always wore.

She remembers because one of her teachers in Edina, Minn., told students to remember the historic day down to what they were wearing.

"When you're that young, you don't really get it," she says. "I remember going to my mom and dad's room, talking about Osama bin Laden ... talking about what are we going to do about that guy. It was almost like a movie."

When bin Laden was killed, Kelly was in Guatemala, where she was working at a non-profit organization.

"I was sitting at my friend's house, a native Guatemalan friend, and one other American girl was there. Initially, I took it as kind of a victory, but I'm a Christian. (We are taught) that we should never celebrate anyone's death," she says.

Kelly, who majored in international studies at CU, and is now working on a master's in clinical mental health at Denver Seminary, says Sept. 11 and subsequent events have made many people in her generation feel apathetic about government and its lack of transparency.

"I've let go of caring about what kind of power my generation can have. I feel like we're along for the ride," she says. "It's increased this culture of skepticism that has been there for a while."

During her internship in Guatemala, she worked in an after care facility for sexually abused children.

"(I'm working) on a micro-scale," she says. "I think that's where my heart is."

Ten years later: Although she lived in Bergen County, N.J. when the attacks occurred, Wojdyla is careful not to say she experienced any real trauma on Sept. 11. She was lucky. No one close to her died.

On 9/11, her dad went to the local blood bank, the only thing he could think of to do to help. So many people had the same idea that the facility had to turn people away. All the towns in Wojdyla's county had lists of victims. And the familiar New York skyline, visible from parts of her town, suddenly had a chunk missing out of it.

"It was right there, like the Flatirons," she says. It took years to get used to it being gone.

Wojdyla majored in political science, a field she says most likely wouldn't have chosen if not for Sept. 11. Ditto for her graduate work in religious studies. She says the attacks are not something she and her friends talk about much, but that day is still very much with them.

"It's definitely unspoken and buried," she says. "(But) it's definitely a part of life."