By Laura Sposato and Connor Radnovich
When Nick Licalzi first heard about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he was eating lunch at his middle school in Long Island. His cousin ran into the cafeteria and told him the news.
“He told me what had just happened to the tower,” said Licalzi, a born-and-raised New Yorker. “My first thoughts ran to my best friend Matthew. I knew his father worked in the World Trade Center.”
Licalzi had been friends with Matthew Rosen from a young age. Matthew’s father, Mark, was working in the South Tower when the first plane hit.
“You know that best friend you have as a little kid? Where if you’re not always at his house, he is always at your house?” said Licalzi. “That’s the kind of relationship Matt and I had.”
Mark Rosen, Matthew’s dad, called home when the North Tower was struck to let his family know he was fine. Workers in the South Tower were given the option to leave, but Rosen decided to stay.
“That’s the kind of guy Mark was,” Licalzi said. “Even if they were forced to evacuate, he would have been the last guy in that building.”
That phone call was the last anyone heard from Mark Rosen.
Nick Licalzi is a Downtown student, a journalism senior and president of the Walter Cronkite Hockey Broadcasting Organization.
And he carries a piece of home with him at all times.
Licalzi’s back now bears the image of the Twin Towers, inked alongside the name of Mark Rosen and the date “9.11.01.”
As the anniversary of that date approaches, Licalzi wants to step back and distract himself.
“He wasn’t just my best friend’s dad. He was like a second father to me,” Licalzi said. “I always remember him being larger than life.”
Nearly a decade after the terrorist attacks that took so many lives and forever changed those left in its wake, the diverse downtown Phoenix community is reflecting and remembering in its own way.
Jeff Moloznik once lived and worked in New York, part of the city’s financial industry. He received news of the terror in his new home, Phoenix.
“I had friends who worked in the Towers at the time,” Moloznik said. “They all made it out OK.”
Now the development manager for RED Development, which oversees CityScape, Moloznik is involved with a 10-year anniversary tribute in downtown Phoenix.
“Downtown Phoenix is the closest thing (Arizona has) to New York,” Moloznik said. “We all share a common bond, whether we lived there, visit, or knew someone (who was a direct victim of the attack).”
Continuing previous years’ tradition, a stair climb at Chase Tower is planned for Sunday morning. CityScape, the Phoenix Police Department, and the Phoenix Fire Department are all active participants.
“It calls attention to what happened on 9/11 and brings it to people’s consciousness,” Moloznik said.
Following the climb, the Phoenix Fire Department will head a silent march from Central Avenue to Patriot Square. Pipes, drums and a brass bell will play significant roles in the procession and ceremony.
To some in the area, the 9/11 events represent more than just the lives of those lost that day but also the way things unfolded in its aftermath and the scars it left behind.
Rodney Faught was burning magnesium with a Bunsen burner 450 miles away in his Akron, Ohio, high school science class with his friends when the radio cracked with the news.
“My hands were shaking because I had to do something,” Faught said.
Faught, 24, was already planning on enlisting in the Air Force before the United States was attacked.
But 9/11 finalized the plan.
The attacks “really solidified it,” Faught said. “I wanted to help — I wanted to be a part of it.”
Faught enlisted straight out of high school and became an explosives technician, responsible for the assembly, distribution, storage and inspection of explosives.
He spent four months in Kuwait assisting bombers and cargo planes that went into combat along with spending time in Qatar and South Korea.
After earning a degree in kinesiology, Faught, a sophomore, said he wants to enlist in the Army and join the Rangers because he didn’t do enough in the Air Force.
“I feel there is still more I can do,” Faught said. The Rangers “are definitely in the fight all the time.”
Exercise and wellness freshman Sevance Rusley, 31, was working in a mailroom on a military base in Charleston, S.C., and listening to the radio when the music was cut short and he heard a plane had hit the first Tower. He had enlisted into the Navy seven months earlier.
“The mood went from joking … to dead silent and grim,” Rusley said. “There was a wave of disbelief that took over everything.”
Rusley — who was 21 at the time and training to be a mechanical nuclear operator — had three friends who were working in the Pentagon that day. All three survived, two remaining unscathed and one of his friends breaking her arm.
On the base, a shroud of bitterness, anger and nervousness about the future enveloped students and veterans alike. Rumors ranging from immediate deployment to the base being a future terrorist target flew around.
“I don’t think there was a single pleasant conversation that happened that whole day,” Rusley said.
The base was on lockdown for three days after the attack.
“The next two or three days seemed to drag together,” Rusley said. “It was just one long, drawn-out day.”
The mood on the base didn’t start returning to normal until the holiday season in December, Rusley said.
Rusley was one of many people from the base who volunteered to go north to New York and Washington D.C. to help clean up. Rusley was sent to the Pentagon and set up communication stations so work at the Pentagon could continue. He cleared rubble for five days.
Enlistments shot up after the attacks, Rusley said. Many people wanted to get to the front lines and fight, but there were also plenty of people who joined to help out.
“They wanted to do their part,” Rusley said.
Rusley was deployed to the Persian Gulf on the USS Theodore Roosevelt for four months as soon as his training was complete. He was part of a team that operated the aircraft carrier’s nuclear reactor.
Planes from his carrier would attack Afghanistan, but the ship never saw direct combat.
Downtown Phoenix will remember the attacks and honor those who died with various events on Sunday, including a memorial walk starting at Chase Tower at 7 a.m. Businesses and residences have been requested to turn off their lights at 6:30 p.m. in remembrance.
Contact the reporters at laura.sposato@asu.edu and connor.radnovich@asu.edu
