Utahns look back on 9/11

Erin Moreno wants her young sons to better understand what the nation lost two years ago. So today, her husband will take time out from his New York City business trip to call the family from ground zero.

"Their dad is going to be there at the spot, so I think that's definitely going to hit them," the Sandy homemaker, 33, said. "He's going to describe the whole area, and he's going to describe how people are feeling. . . . That's very important to me. I want my kids to know how it feels for the people who are there."

The couple's four boys, ranging in age from 4 to 10 years old, know little about the day terrorists crashed jet airliners filled with passengers into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania.

"We didn't really push it on them the day of. I felt they were too young to appreciate what was happening. I felt that they would be scared, they would wonder if it was going to happen to them," Moreno said.

They learned a little more about the aftermath of terrorism earlier this year when the United States went to war against Iraq. Still, Moreno said she worries that for her children and others, the horror of 9/11 is "just something that happened on TV."

Moreno, a member of a panel of Utahns assembled in November 2001 by the Deseret Morning News, KSL-TV and KSL 1160 Newsradio, said in the two years since the tragedy, her family is focused not on fear but on getting the most out of every day.

"I don't want to say I have a sense of peace, because I don't. I have a sense of sorrow for what happened, but you know what? It woke us up to a better way of living," she said. "Those people didn't die in vain because they helped millions of other people to realize that."

Another panelist, Pastor Kristian Erickson of Christ Lutheran Church in Murray, would probably be heartened to hear Moreno's assessment of life after the attack on America. Last year, he observed the positive changes many people professed to have made might not last.

"The crisis of it sparked people for a while, but just for a while," Erickson, 44, said. "It's not a hot topic any more in my experience. It's not good, but I'm not surprised. Because it's a life-or-death matter, I think it says something about our attention span on crucial matters."

His parishioners, Erickson said, are no different. Every Sunday, they pray for the nation and for the soldiers sent overseas. A banner on the wall of the church lists names of troops with ties to the congregation.

And yet, he said, they don't discuss 9/11 unless prompted.