Ohio University Army ROTC students clad in full uniform and several plain-clothed students filed in to the Baker University Center Ballroom yesterday, a projector and a podium set up in front of them.
The students sat for a screening of 9/12: From Chaos to Community. Susanna Styron, the film's director, visited OU for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 to share her story and her documentary.
“We do multiple lectures to promote and discuss values based on leadership and citizenship,” said Lt. Col. Terry St. Peter, a professor of military science. “This was one of the events to help open (the Army ROTC students’) eyes … to show them they are a part of something larger than life, and bigger than (themselves).”
Styron’s documentary focused on the way the residents of New York City worked together after the 9/11 attacks. The film told the story of the newfound love, friendships and bonds people made by volunteering together in an otherwise large and busy city.
Styron worked for nine months at ground zero with “people who probably wouldn’t be friends under any other circumstance,” she said. However, they were brought together by their shared experiences.
“There was such a sense of the line between life and death,” she said. “We shared this world that people outside of (ground zero) didn’t. There was sort of an emotional disconnect between me and the outside world because of that.”
Styron and her small production team documented these relationships during the time she spent volunteering in New York after the attacks.
“This is the (side of the) story that’s not told,” she said. “I decided I wanted to tell this story.”
Students who attended said the message of the film was a good reminder 10 years after 9/11.
“I felt like it was really important to show this side ,” said Brittany Hake, a freshman whose major is undecided. “In a time with so much evil, (the documentary) showed the good hearts of American people.”
After the film, which was about an hour in length, the floor was open to questions from students, and St. Peter presented Styrun with a wooden box inscribed with a thank-you on behalf of the Army ROTC program.
“These people (in the documentary) were the epitome of selfless. You find the same thing in the military,” St. Peter said.
