MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Twenty-three years after the tragic events of 9/11, Middle Tennessee State University Police Chief Edwin “Ed” Kaup vividly remembers being part of a team from the Chicago Police Department “performing a number of duties, including building searches, traffic details for funerals and crowd/traffic control at the (New York City) morgue.”
One of two drivers licensed to transport people on “a passenger bus from a local (Chicago) church, we drove to the World Trade Center on the 12th (of September),” one day after four coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by the extremist group al-Qaida on U.S. landmarks killed almost 3,000 people that day and left a never-to-be-forgotten mark on the country.
Kaup spoke at the 10th annual 9/11 Remembrance on Wednesday, Sept. 11, in the MTSU Miller Education Center’s second-floor atrium. Normally held outdoors at the MTSU Veterans Memorial next to the Tom H. Jackson Building, organizers moved the event because of campus construction.
After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, “a group of us from Chicago Police Department Area 1 were able to reach out to some colleagues in the New York Police Department and developed a plan to assist,” said Kaup, who came to MTSU in 2022 to lead the department, but was a violent crimes detective 24 years ago.
“It was a very eerie time, a turning point for our country. … Our country was attacked,” said Kaup, who stopped several times to regain his composure while recalling the tragedy. “We’ve lost 5,300 first responders (through illness and cancer) since that day. Part of the feeling was, ‘we would never forget the people we lost that day.’”
Kaup spoke to 9/11 Remembrance attendees that included MTSU and Murfreesboro Police Department officers, MTSU staff and administrators led by President Sidney A. McPhee and Provost Mark Byrnes, MTSU ROTC cadets, alumni, first responders and others.
One of four Army and Air Force ROTC cadets who read the timeline of 9/11 events and shared about being born after the tragedy, MTSU senior Carlos Serrano, 19, of La Vergne, who is majoring in accounting and earning a military science minor, shared how his mother, Dora Serrano, was waiting on a visa renewal (she eventually gained U.S. citizenship) after coming from El Salvador, but 9/11 slowed the process.
“We decided to stay here (in the U.S.) because we felt safer in this country,” Carlos Serrano said.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith M. Huber, the MTSU senior advisor for veterans and leadership initiatives, shared how “there’s an unlimited supply of evil people wanting to steal our freedoms. The reality check of this ceremony is the human cost. It takes sacrifice, and I can’t thank the university enough for having this remembrance event.”
Coach Chuck Crawford and 26 MTSU volleyball team members, including sophomore leisure and sports management major Janae Edmondson of Smyrna, attended the 35-minute ceremony. Edmondson had both legs amputated after being stuck by a vehicle in St. Louis, Missouri, on Feb. 18, 2023.
Country music artist Rachel Lipsky sang the national anthem. Michael Swaenepoel performed taps.
— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)
COMMENTS ARE OFF THIS POST