Another Year Passes

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politics, September 11th, War

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There are times in our lives where no matter how far away an event is, it still remains fresh in our minds.  Some will talk about the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, their date of their wedding and a multitude of other personally historic days that just etch in our minds.

But those are much more personal.  It is something you can’t fully describe to people because its more “well, you had to be there” and hell, sometimes you can’t fully grasp that powerful moment and what it fully means.

Today though, we are all united in something very similar and a tragedy is what brings us together.  Being from the Northeast (New Jersey), I still felt the impact at ten years old even though I wasn’t directly affected by the initial event.  Over time however, it did wear on me.

Everyone talks about where they were that day.  Well, I was at home as I was sick that day and my Mother thought it would be a good idea to not go to school.  I remember waking up and walking down the stairs and saw my Mom watching TV (this had to be around 9am) from a very close distance.  I saw a building full of smoke and when I asked my Mom what she was watching, she responded with a quick “oh, nothing.” and told me to watch some TV in the backroom.

Well, I immediately turned on ESPN and noticed that it was ABC News and Linda Cohn was telling me that coverage would be halted today and games were cancelled as a result of the tragedy.

After the initial news breaking to me, I didn’t know what happened next.  All I remember from that day is Peter Jennings talking on ABC News about someone being discovered in the rubble.  I think I vaguely remember Aaron Brown on CNN too though I’m not sure if it was from that day or via recap.

9/11 shook me a bit later in life.  When you are ten, even though you have a firmer grasp on the world than you did at five; you still believe that the world is good.  You may believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy even and your parents are still able to solve nearly every problem whether big or small.

But how do you explain terrorism to children?  How do you explain Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, war and a largely unknown enemy?  How do you explain death and those who decided to jump instead of suffocate?

Well, I think I got my answers in due time but being from a politically aware family; I probably watched a bit too much TV for my own good in the months following.  I panicked when Osama bin Laden released a new video, I feared that we would enter more wars and that I would eventually get drafted into the military.  So much that I always told my family about my fears and they reassured me that 13 year old boys aren’t really the first people to enter the military.

Nonetheless, I realized now that I’m graduating college soon that the freshmen here may not even remember 9/11 at all.  That means that most of their active memory is filled with botched wars and constant threats.

I’ve always considered myself pro-military because I’m envious of those who had no fear and took the ultimate risk.  Life and death stuff.  I’m about as anti-war as I can get though because why should I bang the drumbeats of war when I’m too scared to go into battle myself?

I can never tell you how I felt that day though because it was probably a mixture of just youthful apathy and youthful fear.  I always do my best to catch the replay of the live coverage of it, not out of a sick pleasure but because I need to see it again to relive those feelings.  It never fails either.  The years that followed where we never quite knew what was going on is what always sticks in my mind.

On 9/11/2001, fear became reality.  Terror became present.  Hypotheticals happened in real-time.

To those who have lost loved ones, I offer my condolences and my remembrances.  I hate that is all I can do.  You didn’t deserve this, neither did they and I wish there was something I could say to make it better.

To those who have served, thank you.  You didn’t and shouldn’t have had to make the ultimate sacrifice.

But as another year passes, I just hope you stop and think.  The world is a small place and events like this pass by and really shrinks your perception of reality.

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Why We Must Not Forget September 11th

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9/11, America, Civilians, Pentagon, politics, September 11th, Terrorism, War, World Trade Center, World Trade Centers

Today is Tuesday, September 11th, 2012.  On this very day, eleven years ago; the United States of America was the victim of the worst terrorist attack on American soil in which hijackers crashed four planes into the World Trade Centers of New York City, the Pentagon in the nation’s capital as well as a crash in a small Western Pennsylvania town.

While the actual events of the day that will be forever known as 9/11 will never be forgotten, the actual atmosphere of that chaotic morning is something that can never be recreated.

Every year, I make a note to myself to watch as much September 11th coverage as I possibly can.  Not because I posses some macabre fascination of the murder of thousands of innocent people whose only “mistake” was going to work that day, but sometimes I feel you need to realize how horrendous that day truly was.

That morning, as every tribute article will tell you, seemed to be just like any other; in fact it was beautiful as temperatures were ideal across the Northeast.  However, a day that should’ve been filled with laughter and relaxation was instead filled with sirens, panic and shock.

I was only in 5th grade when the attacks occurred, but I was home from school that day.  I remember waking up, walking down the stairs and seeing the World Trade Center building.  I asked my mom what was on the television screen and she immediately brushed off my question as I’m quite sure she had no idea what to tell me.

But me being an avid viewer of ESPN, even at a young age, I later would see Linda Cohn telling me what exactly happened as my brain tried to process everything that was happening.  It just didn’t make sense though, why would innocent civilians be attacked?

To this day, even if we know the official events, it still doesn’t ring true.  On that day, our nation’s “innocence” was robbed but not in the sense that we weren’t used to death or destruction or even war.  I would argue that our innocence wasn’t stripped from us, but our sense of superiority was ripped from our grasp.  The potential of being impervious from all acts of war was gone.  America, long being the hero (or thinking to be the hero) of the world was for a day, it’s biggest victim.  Tributes from other nations poured in to rally around the battered champion as we all tried to make sense of the act together.

But while watching MSNBC’s coverage of September 11th as it happened, I was transported back in time in what has mostly became an annual occurrence.  Seeing not only the carnage, but witnessing the actual deaths of civilians; is something that will always stick with me.  People going on vacation, going to work, visiting family; these people were you and I in it’s truest sense.

As the day progressed and our nation’s bravest policemen and firefighters (as well as some volunteers, who shouldn’t be forgotten) battled the great unknown to try and save as many lives as humanly possible; our sense of paranoia took over.  There were rumors of a bomb in a high school that turned to be false, there was a fire at the Pentagon which turned out to be much worse and there was even the fear of more attacks happening throughout the day.

September 11th is a case study in which our imaginations were being trumped by reality.  No one could’ve fathomed the events that occurred, and the image of the World Trade Centers burning is something that can not be duplicated.

But even though the smoke cleared from Ground Zero, our sense of the world never seemed so hazy.  Our sense of paranoia was joined by an insatiable thirst for revenge.  We didn’t want to just fight those who were guilty, but were mistaken to believe that we should seek out those who we think could one day be crusaders against America.

Our thirst for revenge turned into hatred.  We turned our backs away from the victims and looked for heroes.  Our sense of vulnerability turned into full-throated American jingoism in which the phrase “Proud to be an American” turned from a simple statement of citizenship into a vociferous taunt towards other foreign nations.  “Support Our Troops” became an excuse to send our men & women to wars that would last far too long.  Every plane crash or catastrophic event is always looked at with a side-glance until we get the heads-up that “terrorism” wasn’t involved.

Yet those events were all foreign at the time.  We must not forget September 11th because it showed that the great unknown could always happen.  There’s no way that we can brace ourselves for the next attack, as we our always going to have to be playing defense as opposed to offense.  We just have to hope it doesn’t occur again.

We have to remember because that sense of fear that we had has never fully been replaced.  Our nation might have “moved on” from 9/11, but it has changed the ways we have looked at almost every single thing around us.  To understand what that day did to our psyche, look around you.  To further understand that day, try to read articles in the days and months following.

We mustn’t forget because while the buildings might’ve been repaired or on the way to being replaced, the families have not.  The memories haven’t vanished from our mind, even if the attitudes may have.

We mustn’t forget.

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Please also check out this website that highlights charities for September 11th.