On Wednesday night, the Washington University College Republicans led students in planting 2,977 flags in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, with each flag representing one life lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols committed a grievous act of terror, the devastating bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City. One hundred sixty eight people were killed and many more were injured. I hadn’t even heard about this bombing until the summer of 2010 when I went to the memorial in Oklahoma City. On Sept.

This year, Washington University didn’t have a remembrance service for Sept. 11. Why, you might ask? Was this not a tragic event? Was this not a period of grief completely unmatched by any other in our short lifetimes? Yes, it was that and so much more, but Wash. U.

What compels someone to destroy? How do we respond to violence, and how does the tragedy shape us? Following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the country was asking itself these questions, and it did not take long for filmmakers to join in the discussion.

While a miscommunication forced organizers to create an event from scratch in two weeks and thus led to a significantly decreased turnout from last year, students said they still found this year’s Sept. 11 memorial valuable and hope it will continue in future years.

To commemorate the Sept. 11 attacks, several campus organizations and students have planned memorial events for the coming week. Student Union, the American Culture Studies program and various students have joined forces to organize an exhibit in Olin Library featuring 9/11 memorabilia and create a last-minute memorial service.

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Obviously, in more ways than one, that national catastrophe has been a defining event for our generation. The greater majority of us weren’t even teenagers in 2001, most undergraduate seniors being just 11 years old, and each of us has a memory of where they were on that day.

“Instead of the broken people our enemies anticipated, we became as close to being one as a people can become,” American Culture Studies professor Wayne Fields told an audience of 400 students and faculty gathered in Edison Theatre Sunday afternoon to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

I find it curious that people would want to burn Qurans, whether they agree with Islam, disagree with it, or are simply hateful in light of Sept. 11. Whatever the reason, to me the decision to burn a Quran is wrong. It also is curiously ironic.

Various campus groups will come together on Saturday for a memorial event in Bowles Plaza to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Flyers posted around campus advertise “An Evening of Remembrance and a Celebration of Community.