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-Editorial
Imperial Valley College held its annual 9/11 Memorial Ceremony, coordinated by the IVC Associated Student Government, at 8:40 a.m. on Monday at the flagpole in front of the main administration building on Aten Road in Imperial.
The ceremony began with a flyover by a Reach helicopter at the time that the first plane struck the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.
The brief ceremony involved remarks by Lennor Johnson, Ed.D, Superintendent/President of IVC, Imperial County Sheriff, Fred Miramontes, representing first responders, and Ens. Scott Torres, USN, from the Naval Air Facility El Centro, representing the military.
The Naval Air Facility Color Guard also participated, as did fire departments and law enforcement representatives from around the Valley, as well as IVC students.
The Day That the World Stood Still
The first impact was that of American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan at 08:46. Sixteen minutes later, at 09:03, the World Trade Center’s South Tower was hit by United Airlines Flight 175. Both 110-story skyscrapers collapsed within an hour and forty-one minutes, bringing about the destruction of the remaining five structures in the WTC complex, as well as damaging or destroying various other buildings surrounding the towers. A third flight, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the Pentagon at 09:37, causing a partial collapse. The fourth and final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, flew in the direction of the capital.
Within hours of the attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency determined that al-Qaeda was responsible. The United States formally responded by launching the war on terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, which rejected the conditions of U.S. terms to expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and extradite its leaders.
