ST. LOUIS — The September 11th attacks made their marks on the nation in many ways. Not only can people remember where they were during the attacks, but they can also name some of the ripple effects, as many were inspired to serve their communities.
Austin Medlin lives in High Ridge but remembers leaving his driver's ed class in Rockledge, Florida when he heard the news. A lot of his classmates had connections to New York, and he recalls his teachers getting phone call after phone call from parents telling their students they needed to come home.
"At the time, it was scary," said Medlin. "A lot of friends I grew up with, they were just called out of class. They didn't know if their families were still alive, so it was obviously terrifying."
Thankfully, Austin says none of his friends lost family members, but the day certainly left a lasting impression.
"I was at the age where I understood what was going on," said Medlin. "I was always planning on going in the military, but it really changed my perspective on everything."
Medlin joined the Army when he was 17 and still in high school, which required special permission. His dad signed papers for him to be in the split option program, which meant he would go to basic training in Fort Leonard Wood after his junior year and return to finish his senior year of high school in Florida.
"It was wild being 17 years old and being in basic training," said Medlin. "I came back my senior year and they're like, 'Oh my gosh, what did you do during the summer?' And I said, 'Well, I blew up tanks with grenades, and I shot all kinds of guns.'"
Medlin trained to shoot down airplanes, but he worked as a military police officer during his first and only deployment to Iraq. He was a jack of all trades, doing dangerous work while dodging sniper fire and improvised explosive devices. He says he was lucky because every one of his friends made it home alive.
"It was a really deadly year from 2005 to 2006," recalled Medlin. "Thank God, miraculously, my unit came back with everybody. I came back and after that, I was like, 'I think I'm done, you know?' So I came back, and I finished another year or two. I didn't get deployed again."
Medlin then served the St. Louis community as a county police officer up until last year. He made a career change for his wife and young son and seems to enjoy the transition of a quieter work life.
Just as Medlin was inspired by the events of September 11th, so was a proud St. Louisan junior high student named Lawzieh "Lizzie" Sedlmayr. She recalls sitting in a class at Al Salam Day School, an Islamic school in West County when planes struck the Twin Towers.
"I vividly remember the SWAT team, police officers, and I'm pretty sure the FBI, swarmed our hallways, and we were told we had to go home," recalled Sedlmayr. "We couldn't be at school. To this day, I don't remember -- were they there to protect us, or were they there because they were afraid that we were part of the organization that was blamed for what happened?"
Sedlmayr says she and her classmates were not able to return for two or three weeks because the building had been vandalized, and it wasn't safe to go back. She also recalls a Buddhist temple down the road being vandalized because people thought the temple was a mosque, showing how little they knew about their Muslim neighbors.
Sedlmayr was born in Brooklyn, New York, but her Pakistan-born parents moved to St. Louis for new opportunities when she was a young girl. Her mother was covered, meaning she wore a headscarf called a hijab. This made her family a target of misunderstanding and discrimination.
"It was weird," recalled Sedlmayr. "For me, that changed forever. I think the biggest influence 9/11 had on me was that I had to defend myself and my family against ignorance. I wanted people to truly see that we are good people and that we also have sympathy and empathy for what happened."
Sedlmayr gets emotional thinking about being so young and not fully understanding how the world changed around her. She says she knew she was different but not in a way that was negative until strangers mistook Muslims for terrorists.
"I didn't feel that people were on my side until years later after they truly understood that Islam did not preach what happened," said Sedlmayr. "We do not believe that what happened is right. Muslim people also died in the Twin Towers, and that's not okay, no matter what religion you are."
Over time, she found herself advocating for people who shared her experiences. She also became a teacher. These days, she teaches first graders in the Parkway School District, and she often spends the first day explaining to her young kids why she may dress differently than most of their parents. She says kids seem curious at first but quickly move on.
"It's funny because on the first day of school, they all kind of look at me, like pointing out that thing on [my] head," she says. "So I teach them what it's called. I teach them why I wear it. And then, I almost always have two or three kids in my classroom who are Muslim whose families also cover, so I make that connection. It gives me that chance to build that community within my classroom. Hopefully, it sticks with them as they grow, and they can teach it to others. I've had parents say to me, 'My kid came home and told me, why you cover. I never knew why, but now I know why!'"
Both Sedlmayr and Medlin are now parents of young kids themselves. Sedlmayr has a toddler girl with one on the way before year's end. Medlin has a young son. They both say looking back at their 9/11 experiences through a parental lens has given them new perspectives.
When Medlin signed up for the Army, it meant his dad signed off on sending his only child to a war zone. Would he do the same for his only child?
"That's such a good question," said Medlin. "I think it was a lot different 20 years ago when my dad did it for me, but wars were going on at that point. I don't know. It would be very tough. I would support my son and whatever he wanted to do, but it would be tough to sign paperwork for him to go in right now."
Sedlmayr looks at her 18-month-old daughter and thinks about the worry her mom used to carry as a Muslim in America right after the terrorist attacks.
"It makes me very emotional to think now as an adult I completely understand what my parents were feeling, especially now as a parent," said Sedlmayr. "I think back at that age and how lucky I was that nothing horrific happened to me and that I did have people who cared about me."
They both hope the 20th anniversary of 9/11 helps people remember those lives lost and keep an open mind to others.
For Medlin, he hopes the country can come back to a time when people felt united. "I think a lot of us reflect on how America came together after that," he said. "We all sing the national anthem together. We all went to the baseball games. It was just America first, and I really hope that at some point we can get back to that."
Sedlmayr hopes for a united America, too.
"Accept people for who they are," Sedlmayr said. "I promise once you do this, the fear goes away because you begin to understand, and you begin to learn. Let's just be open, and be curious, and ask questions."