Music Teacher Writes Song for 10th Anniversary of 9/11

Andy Shull remembers all-too-well the disaster left behind after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. 

Shull was part of a disaster relief team that helped clean apartments that were still covered in dust and debris a month after the attacks.

"These people hadn't been back to their apartments in over a month because they couldn't get back to their apartments because there was so much debris and damage done," Shull said. 

From the apartments he was cleaning, he could see a memorial near the Hudson River. Family members who lost their loved ones left stuffed animals, flowers and notes. 

"I remember actually breaking down when I read one from a school child to her dad, desperately wishing him to come home," Shull said. "I’ll never forget their pain.”

For this year's 10th anniversary, he wrote a song called "Let's Not Forget" in remembrance of the victims. 

He's sharing his song and his stories with students in his music classes at H.B. Rhame Elementary School. They're too young to remember the day the attacks happened, but Shull hopes that by sharing his experience, they won't forget either. 

He told his students about the mess left behind after the attacks.

"When the buildings went down, it threw dust everywhere over Lower Manhattan, but next door in the surrounding apartments, all this dust went into their apartments and it was all over their furniture, all over their blinds, all over everything," Shull said. 

He told them about how, for a week, he stayed in an old Naval brig, ate with volunteers, soldiers and policemen, and cleaned. 

"I got to sit at the table with firefighters and police men who had been working since the disaster," Shull said. "These guys were always working, working, working and never got exhausted because they just had so much emotion involved in this."

"And they would sit there and say, 'Thank you. Thank you for coming to New York and helping us.' I was like, 'These guys are thanking me? That isn't right. These guys are the heroes. I was just doing what I could.'" 

And before he performed his song for the class, he reminded them of its message:  

"Let's not forget about it because there are a lot of things we learned from this and a lot of memories we need to keep."