story191.xml

story191.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-08

On September 11 I was on vacation traveling through Slovenia with my wife and in-laws. During the time of the attacks we were hiking in the mountains, blissfully unaware of what was going on in the U.S. In fact, we didn't know anything about it until the next day when the proprietor of the bed and breakfast that we had checked into late on the 11th realized that we didn't know, and told us. I should say, he told my in-laws in Serbo-Croation. I only recognized words like "New York" "Washington, DC" and "Pentagon" but from his tone, I knew the news couldn't be good. Over breakfast we saw a few clips from CNN, and heard the first snippets of the horrible story. But in the first translation I received, only one tower had collapsed. Pressed for time, we had to travel on. But we spent most of the 12th driving and talking and speculating in shock and disbelief with only the sketchiest of details. I for one was certain that it couldn't have been commercial jets, it must have been small planes with bombs. When we found it out that it was commercial jets, I was sure there must have been confederates on the ground that smuggled weapons aboard. The truth just seemed too impossible. Over the next few days we finally gathered most of the readily known details through hard to get English language copies of the International Herald Tribune, and German tabloids.
My mother-in-law, with only a passing knowledge of U.S. history voiced her desire for "a new era of McCarthyism" and a general desire to live in a police state. In the solemnity of the moment I refrained from arguing with her. But inside I felt fairly certain that this one awful event would set up rationalizations for new attacks on civil liberties.
Our mood on the rest of the vacation was rather subdued, though we were always in a quiet and pleasant atmosphere, and felt very removed from the turmoil at home. By the time we came back to the U.S in late September things had calmed down a bit. But I have developed the sense that I missed it, and know it mostly as a historical event, much the same way I know about Pearl Harbor, primarily through documentary materials, but not something that I really lived through, even though it continues to effect us daily.