LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Texas Tech professors Ron Milam and Justin Hart say they set aside time each September to teach students about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p>\n
Milam, executive director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict, teaches military history at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop everything and talk about 9\/11. And talk about the impact of it then and the impact of it now,\u201d Milam said.<\/p>\n
On 9\/11, Milam said he discusses the significance of the day in American history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe start talking about how that impacts how we think today, not only about war, but about peace, and about allies, and about the whole Middle East,\u201d Milam said.<\/p>\n
A different approach<\/p>\n
Justin Hart, an associate professor of history at Texas Tech who teaches foreign relations, said he starts with what happened that day, then expands on the topic further.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal in teaching 9\/11 is to start with what they do know and then give a little bit broader context to understand maybe a little bit of the history that\u2019s been lost in and around 9\/11,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
Hart said his lessons include what led up to 9\/11 and what happened afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know the longer foreign policy story that leads up to 9\/11. They don\u2019t know very much about the way that the country responded to 9\/11 beyond the coming together,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
A personal connection<\/p>\n
For Hart, 9\/11 is not only a subject he teaches, it is an event that affected him directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is actually where I was on 9\/11, was in New Jersey, about 30 miles outside of New York City, lower Manhattan,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
Hart said that morning in 2001 started like normal. His wife had gone to work and left the television on, as she did every morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it was one of those moments where…reality sort of invades your dreams a little bit. Well, a building burning started going off in my dream. And I looked up and it was the North Tower, the World Trade Center,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
Hart said the moment continues to define history today.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see echoes of what came out of that moment into our politics at this very time today,\u201d Hart said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Texas Tech professors Ron Milam and Justin Hart say they set aside time each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-433171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}