Today at Benedictine College, students will gather around the “B.”
Small American flags will mark the ground. ROTC cadets and first responders will stand with them. There will be a firetruck and police cruiser. They will pray, sing the National Anthem, hear from a retired Air Force officer who was in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, and finally stand together as Taps is played.
For the students in today’s ROOK, there is something different about September 11.
They weren’t there.
“I know what happened.”
“But I don’t remember it.”
None of them do.
They were born into a world already changed by that morning.
But among them are people who do remember—people who can tell them where they were, what they saw, whom they lost, and what happened in the hours and days that followed.
That may be one reason remembrance matters.
Memory can be handed from one generation to the next.
At the end of today’s strip, there isn’t a joke. There isn’t much to say at all.
Just a flag.
A few students standing together.
And two quiet lines:
“So we remember.”
“Yeah.”
Today’s ROOK is dedicated to those who were lost on September 11, 2001, to the first responders who ran toward danger, and to those who continue to carry their stories.
ROOK
Different adventures. Same journey.