On Tuesday, November 11, 2025, I walked through Lick-Wilmerding High School’s hallways mulling over the lack of community acknowledgment I’ve noticed every Veterans Day and 9/11 since my freshman year: no email, no assembly, no prominent display of the American flag and what feels like very little American pride.
Why not honor the millions of veterans who have put their lives on the line to protect the very freedoms we enjoy today? Why not acknowledge the nearly 3,000 first responders and American civilians who lost their lives on September 11, 2001? Why not display a symbol that was designed to unite us?
Roseanne Barry, parent of Lizzi Barry ’26, was born and raised in New York City and worked on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center up until August 2001. When the North and South towers were struck and collapsed just one month later, Barry was on a trip visiting Morocco. “We just desperately wanted to go home,” she said.
When she returned to the city a week after the attacks, Barry said she felt a deep sense of national unity. “It was a very somber time, and yet so many people from other states came to help…there was this sense of resilience…that we were a part of this larger country,” she said.
On October 30, 2001, the Yankees hoisted a tattered American flag—recovered from the Twin Towers wreckage—at Yankee Stadium. The flag flew for the remainder of their postseason run in the 2001 World Series. “It was wrecked, but it was such a powerful image…to remember those we’d lost and who we are,” Barry said.
Hugo Balta, a senior producer at WNBC in New York City during 9/11, said he recalled the flag being a uniting symbol. “When I went home, the first thing I saw on my block was that every house had an American flag…I felt really compelled that the first thing that I needed to do, before even seeing my family, was hang the flag outside of my house too,” he said.
In recent years, Barry said she has noticed a shift in American unity and pride. “In today’s climate, it’s like being patriotic has almost a negative connotation,” she said.
In conversations that I’ve had while preparing this opinion piece, I’ve learned that some members of the LWHS community do not consider themselves proud Americans. Those feelings are, of course, valid. As Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate and longtime New York Times columnist, wrote in a recent Substack post, “It’s important to admit that America has often failed to live up to its own ideals.”
“It’s complicated because of the history, the way that our country came to be, and the current politics of our country,” Maggie Buchholz ’26 said. “At the same time, I grew up in the United States and have lived here my whole life…I’m so lucky to be American and to have all of the rights that I have…but not all Americans have all of those same privileges,” she said.
And yet, I believe that there should be community-wide space made for—and attention given to—the things that have the potential and intention to unite us.
The flag was originally crafted as a powerful symbol to represent our independent nation, and in part, embody the nation’s founding ideals. According to the Library of Congress, those ideals include “fundamental rights, such as liberty, free speech, freedom of religion, due process of law, and freedom of assembly.” The American flag doesn’t belong to one political party, nor does it represent one event in our history. It is who we have been, who we are and who we aspire to be.
The only place the American flag has a presence on our campus—that I’ve been able to find—is in the top right corner of one wall in the gymnasium. It is one of over forty equivalent-sized banners hung on the wall, appearing faded and with a significant-sized tear across it.
“It’s a symbol of our larger community…we all are a part of it, and we shouldn’t feel like we have to hide who we are,” Spencer Turley ’27 said. Spencer Turley’s older brother, Stuart Turley ’25, is currently studying at the United States Air Force Academy.
During my four years at LWHS, there has been routine recognition—in the eTiger or subject matter communication during assemblies—of almost every heritage month, as well as many religious holidays and cultural celebrations. It’s one of the things I love about LWHS. And yet, I haven’t noticed us embrace or acknowledge the very thing that unites every single one of us: being American.
“It felt like we focused so much on how we’re different, and we didn’t ever talk about how we’re similar,” one LWHS alum ’16 said.
At LWHS, in addition to being American, we share a commitment to public purpose—a core value that closely aligns with the service of veterans. Yet each year, Veterans Day—just like 9/11—passes without any community-wide recognition or even acknowledgement of the national holiday’s existence.
“The mission is a private school with a public purpose…it doesn’t say ‘public purpose that I agree with,’” Michael Morell, parent of Ces Morell ’26, said. “Regardless of whether or not you’re pro-military, veterans are members of the public and a part of our community.”
Morell attended the Rochester Institute of Technology on a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship immediately following high school. After transferring and earning an engineering degree from The Ohio State University, he was commissioned in ’93 and assigned to serve in Los Angeles as part of the United States Air Force.
“[Veterans Day] is to show respect and gratitude towards those who’ve served…all of the freedoms that everybody has are a result of somebody defending those freedoms,” Morell said.
I’m able to write this article, exercising my right to free speech, because I live in the U.S., where First Amendment rights are protected—a right that veterans have served to defend.
“They gave their life, their family sacrificed beyond ways that anybody can even comprehend,” Morell said. “You lose a father, you lose a brother, you lose a cousin…it’s just crazy to think that’s not recognized.”
Some community members believe the reason is simple: the veteran presence at LWHS is minimal. “I think maybe because there’s a relatively small population of veterans at LWHS, they don’t value it as highly,” Turley said.
But should that matter? Even if only a few veterans are part of our community, I believe their sacrifices and history deserve community-wide recognition.
“If you can’t show appreciation or thankfulness to that person [who puts their life on the line], I think there’s a bigger issue,” Morell said.
Our country has long promised to “never forget” the events of 9/11. “I don’t need to do anything to remember…because for those of us who were there, you will never forget,” Barry said. Yet, for the sake of students like me who were not there and did not live through it, I wish my school offered more to help us honor this important moment in our nation’s history.
Finally, I wish the American flag was prominently displayed on the LWHS campus. It’s our country’s most widely recognized symbol, designed to unite us in the ideals of freedom, liberty and justice.
I’m proud of so much of what our LWHS community does, especially the way we recognize and honor important and meaningful things. I just wish that America was one of them.
