It seems predictable on September 11, 2008 to write a blog about September 11, 2001. I woke up this morning at 6am, drove the 45 minutes it takes me to get to FAU, all the while watching my gas gauge quickly pulled downwards. I sat in a sleepy Biology class all without thinking about it. At 8:46, my professor stopped and reminded us what the day was.
There aren’t many days, moments or occasions I can think back on and remember exactly what I was doing. 9-11 is an exception. I was walking from my first hour class to second hour, a portable towards the back of the school, AP History. As I was walking, people were running out of the surrounding portables, yelling “Something hit the Twin Towers!”
There was a weird mixture of panic and nonchalance. Most students kept walking, talking, laughing while a few kept trying to spread the news: the Twin Towers were hit. As ignorant as this might sound, I didn’t know what was going on. The Twin Towers? Hit where? I didn’t understand.
I walked into my second hour as one of the first. I immediately told my teacher what I had heard. His face turned ashen. He ran from his desk at the back of the portable to the old TV set towards the front. He turned it on, and playing with the set was able to get a grainy picture of the towers spewing smoke. It’s an image that’s engraved in the mind of this nation, I’m sure. After watching it for a few minutes, our principal got on the PA system and announced that we were NOT allowed to have the TV sets on. All teachers were to turn off the TV and resume teaching. It was too late. We were all a bit in shock and a little bit traumatized.
It wouldn’t be until the hours and days to follow that I would realize the magnitude of the moment. People I knew were in New York. People I didn’t know.
I tortured myself over the next few days, watching newscasts of crying people, desperately searching for their family. They hoped that the ruble would give back their loved ones, or that they were nameless but alive somewhere in the city. I cried with each of their stories, wondering what I would do. The uncertainty of the following days was hard. My 15th birthday was on September 12, 2001. My quince, traditionally a milestone, came and went, overshadowed by more important news.
The terrorist aboard one of the planes lived in my city for a while Miramar, FL. Turkey Point and Miami were put on a list of possible targets for more terrorist attacks. These were places that kept hitting closer and closer to home.
In remembering the terror of those days, of the way life was postponed, the way we came together as a nation, the way we all stood behind our leaders, behind the victims and their families, we are able to thank God for our current safety.
Most of us don’t live with 9-11 in our heads, though I’m sure there are many out there who still do. It’s a shame that to feel grateful for safety, we must be endangered; to feel grateful for our country, we must see it threatened; to fly a flag, we must see it lifted up above the rubble of a tragedy.
There was an article in the New York Times by Frank Rich, on September 14, 2002 saying that we could judge the success of “Bush’s war on terror” by whether or not we had another attack in the year 2003. He wrote, “Since major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough.”
No attack in 2003. None in 2004. None in 2005. None in 2006. None in 2007.
I don’t want to diminish the many lives sacrificed in war that history will have much to say about: the wrong war, in the wrong place. One thing, though, that same history teacher told me about recent generations and war stuck with me: we rarely have to see war in our backyards, like the revolutionary and civil wars were fought. On 9-11, we saw it. It’s easy to forget the feeling of safe when no dangers are in our backyard.
Today, at least, let’s not forget. I’m not trying to be emotional or cheesy, or say the clichéd things repeated on a thousand different blogs today. I just think we should realize that we don’t have to be in danger to appreciate safety.
Where were you on 9-11?
I was living on the West coast, so when it happened, I had just woken up. I went downstairs where my mom was watching the Today show. They kept saying there was trouble with the transmission and we could barely hear the announcers. I asked my mom what was going on, and she said a plane hit the twin towers. So I ate breakfast.
During the school day, the teachers kept the TV on and let us watch. We did not stop discussing it, not even in my girl scout troop, for the whole week and everything everyone told me seemed contradictory. I was 12 at the time, a few months away from my 13th birthday.
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I was in science class doing a lab. I remember when we went outside latter we could see the smoke and dust. I was so paranoid after that i practicly jumped out of my skin every time I heard a plane fly by.
Faith is like a glass of water. When you're young, the glass is small, and it's easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn't fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.
-Dogma
When it actually started, I was asleep in bed. When I heard about it, I was sitting in my freshman English class. An announcement came on the PA about a plane hitting the pentagon... no mention of the twin towers. They turned the TVs on in the last 5 minutes or so of class, and we watched the rest of the day. I felt a little too distant to really have it impact me. I mean, it was horrible and everything, but it wasn't personal then. Columbine affected me more, because it took place like 20 miles from where I was living, and it was on my sister's first birthday.
Then, I moved. I went out to the East Coast, and heard some of my friends talk about their experiences. Some were terrified that a plane was going to go down on the army post right down the street from school. It was one of my friends' birthday, and they were celebrating when they heard the news. My ex was actually in New York City when it happened... his mom was going to go shopping at the Macy's across the street, but got held up, and his dad was supposed to go into the towers that morning for something or another, but opted not to on the way to his job. Both he and his sister were scared to death about their parents, because their school wouldn't let them contact anyone.
~C
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I was 11 at the time, and my school district's teachers were striking, so I was with my mom and brother at my grandmother's house. She's old-fashioned and hates television, but somehow we got wind of what was going on and turned on the news to watch the aftermath of the first impact. A terrible tragedy, of course, but probably an accident, we thought. So, we went out to walk the dog on a long and leisurely stroll down by the river. Maybe I've made this detail up in retrospect, but I remember the popular trail being eerily empty.
I remember watching the news when we came back and a crying news anchor. To be honest, I can't remember if what I watched was live or just among the first of many, many replays of the attacks. The only emotion I can really recall is just a sense of total surrealism.
Where was I? I was asleep, blissfully unaware of the tragedy occuring! The tragedy that would shake the world!....I was awoken to the sound of the door buzzer, it was the plumber come to fix my sink. I threw on some clothes and buzzed him in...Hows it going?(i asked) A plane crashed into the trade tower in New York! .......wth?....and the punchline is??????....(I very confusedly asked). I'm serious a plane hit the trade tower.....still in a state of disbelief I turned on my tv....and watched in surreal disbelief when i saw the replay...wth??? How does a plane hit the tower?????? Immediately through my mind raced possibilities...pilot suffered heart attack....severe mechanical failure.....hacker screwed with computer...Never did i imagine that sick twisted terrorists planned it....never crossed my mind....I was watching tv when the second plane hit....holy crap!....1 plane is an incident of colossal proportions....2 planes is a deliberate act!....I switched channels....was I watching a special effects channel? every channel i turned to carried the same footage........I eventually had to turn the tv off....watching the planes slam into the towers or watching the towers come down shocked me to the core...watching it repeatedly scarred me for life!
I asked myself questions...why? how? why? the trade towers>? why? its not a military target! ...to this day I still ask these questions...what kind of disturbed mind attacks and kills thousands of innocent people? How mentally sick are these individuals? As time wore on we have seen that the evil use of religion has once again inspired horrendous acts in the name of a god! The weak minded and stupid have once again followed their beliefs down a path of evil.....in some ways i actually hope there is a god...so that he/she/it can make these truly evil bastards suffer for all eternity!
I was in the library watching the T.V screen. I asked someone what was going on and they told me. I did not understand at all. I thought it was some show or something. The principal announced it over the PA later that day. I was 14. I thought about it all day. But it did not affect me badly until many years later when I was 19. I actually forgot about 9-11 this year (at least I didn't remember until it was like 11 at night), but I frequently watch the honor videos on youtube almost weekly. I actually don't like greenday but someone made a video of 9-11 and paired it with the song wake me up when sept ends. They did a great job on it. This is a very sad loss..and there is not much more to say.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I am voting for Lewis Black.
DrifterDani~