Plainfield Writer Saw 9/11 as High School Senior

Mallory Whaley's most vivid memory of 9/11 is something that never happened.

Her father, Tony Medved, was a firefighter for the New Lenox Fire Department. Because he had been trained in collapsed building search and rescue, he and several co-workers were headed to New York to help with the World Trade Center aftermath.

Just before they were to leave, the Fire Department of New York said they had enough help and asked them not to come, said Whaley, who now lives in .

"I remember going, six months later, to a memorial service at Lincoln-Way East (High School) that he and a bunch of other firefighters had put together," Whaley said.

It says a lot about the time in which she grew up that the Columbine High School shootings took place when she was a high school freshman and the 9/11 terrorist attacks when she was a senior.

“I feel like that was kind of a defining moment for people my age,” she said. “We were seniors in high school and we were supposed to be going out into the world and we were realizing that the world wasn’t that safe for us.”

The events of 9/11 and the days that followed might be part of why she later became a journalist.

"I would say that (when) you sit at home you feel so helpless when bad things happen," Whaley said. "I would say being a journalist helps you to go in there and get information."

One of the things she did following the attacks was to create a collage of newspaper headlines.

“In the days after it happened, we were getting all the newspaper special editions,” she said. “I wanted to preserve them, but I wasn’t sure I would have the room to save all this stuff.

“I figured making this collage would be the best way to preserve the memories of that day and the day after without cluttering my room.”