secretagent09OPNew Jersey Girl in, North Carolina USA7,229 posts
"I WANTED TO PLAY IN HONOR OF MY DAD"
Ronald Milam Jr. doesn't always tell his football and basketball teammates that there's a reason he wears the number 33. It's for his father, Army Maj. Ronald Milam, who was 33 when he was killed at the Pentagon on 9/11.
Ronald Jr. never met his father. His mother, then-Air Force Capt. Jacqueline Milam, was pregnant with him on 9/11. She safely escaped from the Pentagon.
Ronald Jr., now a 14-year-old high school freshman in San Antonio, is one of the more than 100 Sept. 11 victims' children who were born after the attacks.
He has his dad's features and unflappable personality. And his jersey number was a connection he could make with his father, a college player himself.
"I wanted to play in honor of my dad," he says. "So I picked that."
———
"I RECOGNIZED HARDSHIP IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIFE"
Sometimes, after refugees told her their stories of conflict and loss, Sonia Shah would let them know that she had one, too.
Explaining that her father died in 9/11 opened "a bonding moment," says the Baylor University social work student, who spent the summer volunteering with refugee aid organizations in Greece.
Her father, Jayesh "Jay" Shah, was killed at ground zero, where he was a financial trading technology executive. Sonia was 7.
His death fueled Sonia's impulse to try to help where others turn away.
"Because I had faced loss at such a young age and in such a different way than many other people, I recognized hardship in other people's life a lot more easily," says the 22-year-old senior, who took a year off from college for religious study. She says that without her faith, she "wouldn't be as whole and as healed."
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Ronald Milam Jr. doesn't always tell his football and basketball teammates that there's a reason he wears the number 33. It's for his father, Army Maj. Ronald Milam, who was 33 when he was killed at the Pentagon on 9/11.
Ronald Jr. never met his father. His mother, then-Air Force Capt. Jacqueline Milam, was pregnant with him on 9/11. She safely escaped from the Pentagon.
Ronald Jr., now a 14-year-old high school freshman in San Antonio, is one of the more than 100 Sept. 11 victims' children who were born after the attacks.
He has his dad's features and unflappable personality. And his jersey number was a connection he could make with his father, a college player himself.
"I wanted to play in honor of my dad," he says. "So I picked that."
———
"I RECOGNIZED HARDSHIP IN OTHER PEOPLE'S LIFE"
Sometimes, after refugees told her their stories of conflict and loss, Sonia Shah would let them know that she had one, too.
Explaining that her father died in 9/11 opened "a bonding moment," says the Baylor University social work student, who spent the summer volunteering with refugee aid organizations in Greece.
Her father, Jayesh "Jay" Shah, was killed at ground zero, where he was a financial trading technology executive. Sonia was 7.
His death fueled Sonia's impulse to try to help where others turn away.
"Because I had faced loss at such a young age and in such a different way than many other people, I recognized hardship in other people's life a lot more easily," says the 22-year-old senior, who took a year off from college for religious study. She says that without her faith, she "wouldn't be as whole and as healed."
———
Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @jennpeltz.