NWHL’s Alex Carpenter on processing 9/11 at age 7

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2011, 97 percent of Americans age 8 or older on Sept. 11, 2001 remember where they were and what they were doing at the time of the attacks.

Alex Carpenter, a 2014 U.S. Olympian and the 2015 winner of the Patty Kazmaier Award as the top female college hockey player in the U.S., is about to begin her first pro season as a member of the NWHL’s Boston Pride. In September 2001, the then-7-year-old daughter of former NHLer and then-head coach of the Albany Devils, Bobby Carpenter, was just beginning third grade at the Montessori School (now the Woodland Hill Montessori School) in Albany, N.Y.

Despite her age, the memories of Sept. 11 are still vivid for Carpenter, from the ride to school with her younger brothers (Bobo was also at Montessori, Brendan was at a separate preschool) from their home in Glenmont, N.Y., to the confusion among her classmates to her first glimpse at a pair of planes crashing into the Twin Towers.

Here, Alex recounts how the day played out for her and her siblings:

Sept. 11, early morning

School started at 8:00 a.m. It was a normal day in our household. My mom drove all of us to school that day as usual; she did not work at the time. I remember that it was just like any other day, as cliché as that sounds.

My dad was at training camp for the New Jersey Devils at the South Mountain Arena. He was not with us that morning, as he was already in New Jersey getting ready for camp. He had left a few days before and was staying in New Jersey during the attacks.

The attack

I was in school when I first learned about the attack. I remember my teacher being approached by the principal, and then my teacher sat us all down after they had spoken, and she told us that school was going to end early that day. They didn’t tell us any specific reason as to why we were being let out early, only that we would be picked up shortly.

I remember most of us being upset that we had to leave all of our friends from class and none of us really wanted to go home. We were all sort of confused as to why we were leaving early.

We did not have any sort of big school assembly. My mom picked my brother Bobo and I up from school, and then we continued to pick our youngest brother, Brendan, up, and on the way home our mom explained to us what was happening.

We knew that our dad was OK because he was at the rink in New Jersey and not anywhere near the attacks.

I first saw the planes hitting the towers when I got home from school with my brothers after my mom picked us up. We had the television on the news channel and saw the repeated clip of the planes crashing into the towers.

Perception, fears

I think that we were so young at the time that my brothers and I didn’t really understand the full extent of what was happening, only that we knew it wasn’t normal. All we knew was that something bad had happened and that it affected our entire country.

I think that because I was so young, I didn’t really understand that some of the places my dad worked could be at a greater risk of being attacked. I never really had any conversations with him about any of this.

Reflecting

One thing that sticks with me is a story my mom told me a few years later. That day when she was driving to an appointment in town, she had the radio on and was listening to “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood before it cut to an emergency update, and they said that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. That song always reminds me of that day and how eerie it is thinking that she was listening to that song as such a terrible act of terrorism was happening.

Looking back on that day, I think that my teachers did their best to control the situation and keep such young kids at ease during such a time of distress. I remember my mom being patient and trying to explain to a 7-year-old, a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old what was going on, something that is not an easy feat. Overall, I think that even though I was so young at the time of the attacks, my parents were able to help my brothers and I understand the magnitude of the event, while at the same time keeping us composed about the situation.

I don’t think anything immediately changed for my family. Obviously, on a national landscape, things changed drastically. For my family, we tried our best to continue living life as we knew it, but obviously the attacks and the terrorism were always in the back of our minds.