story265.xml
Title
story265.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-03-17
911DA Story: Story
Great American Tragedy
It was a normal Tuesday morning. I arrived at work on the Hardin-Simmons campus in the maintenance department when I was informed of an airplane running into the World Trade Center in New York City. So I went to find a television to find out more information on what happened. I then heard of the second plane crashing into the second tower, the third crashing into the Pentagon, and the fourth going down near Pittsburgh before it could do any damage.
When I first heard of the attacks, I was shocked just like the rest of the nation. I could not understand how four American airplanes could be hijacked in one day, especially with the security that we have in our airports today. However, any nation can be attacked when they do not expect it. The greatest and most powerful nations, like the United States of America, can be vulnerable at times. For some reason, we were vulnerable on September 11, 2001.
The tragic event on September 11 is now associated with the sudden bombings of the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7,1951. However, many say that this is worse. For one reason, almost all of the fatalities were United States soldiers, unlike the World Trade Center event. Thousands of innocent people died because some terrorist decided to attack America where it would hurt us the most. And they did.
The United States will not be the same again. Right now we have people living in fear. They fear that they could be next to be hit by a terrorist attack. Security all over the nation will be increased and it will take a much longer time entering certain places such as airports, sporting events, or any other heavily crowded area. Even at those events people will be fearful of what may happen. So they won?t be able to enjoy the event as they have been in the past because of all of the security around them. This will definitely change our lives as American citizens in almost every aspect. At the same time, however, this event has made and will continue to make America a very stronger United States. All United States citizens have joined together in many ways. There have been tremendous amounts of people giving blood at their local blood donor centers, trying to help in any way possible. Others have offered their services in New York and Washington D. C. to the firefighters and rescue workers. Other United States citizens have donated large amounts of money in order to aid in the rescue process. The real heroes in this whole situation are the firefighters, policemen, paramedics, and other rescue workers who assisted. These people went above and beyond the call of duty for weeks trying to clear out the wreckage. They continuously tried to pull bodies, hopefully alive, out of the rubble.
However, some true heroes that need to be recognized as well are the passengers on the plane that went down just outside of Pittsburgh. Speculations have been made as to where the plane was headed for but no one knows for sure. The courageous passengers of that airplane should be commended for whatever they did aboard that plane to prevent yet another plane crashing and killing more Americans. They crew aboard this airplane saved an undetermined amount of lives while risking their lives. These passengers knew that they would more than likely not survive the flight. Many of them did not hesitate to act upon the terrorists. You could consider them kamikazes. They sacrificed their own lives for the good of our country and to save some people that they didn?t even know. I consider that very noble.
As for the rest of the world, I believe that they will be affected somewhat by these terrorist acts. The United States and all Allies will be more unified. All members of NATO have agreed to back the United States 100 percent. I believe that this will form an even greater bond of unity among those nations, just as it has done with the citizens of the U. S. However, affairs with nations such as Afghanistan will be affected directly, obviously. Although we will try to keep the war away from the citizens and the Afghanistan government and towards the Taliban, I believe the relationship between the countries will experience a drastic decline. Some citizens of Afghanistan will be affected by the U.S. retaliation, but hopefully very few will be directly experience any changes.
I have a cousin who was working near the Empire State Building when the attacks occurred. She was terrified by the situation. Nothing happened to her physically because she was so far from the World Trade Center. However, she did have to walk home fifty blocks because the subways were shut down, and all taxis were being used to escort casualties to hospitals. She got on the first plane she could and flew back to Louisiana were her parents live. She will not go back to New York City. She has asked to be transferred to a branch of her business in Dallas. If she can not get the transfer, she is going to quit and find another job. She does not want to go back to New York to live in fear.
There were some strange coincidences that were revealed by different people. A very odd coincidence was the date of the attack, September 11. September being the ninth month of the year, we would abbreviate that date as 9-11, a telephone number we use for emergencies. Coincidence or not, it is strange. There have also been millions of e-mails flying around the world about the bombings; some true, some suspect.
The bottom line is that we as Americans must join together as the United States and trust our government officials to do what they know is right. They are spending countless hours planning what to do next. We must pray for our country, our leaders, our allies, and our enemy. Let God deal with our persecutor. Do not let us judge them. We must remember our main goal is peace.
Travis Jones
Hardin-Simmons University
Abilene, TX
It was a normal Tuesday morning. I arrived at work on the Hardin-Simmons campus in the maintenance department when I was informed of an airplane running into the World Trade Center in New York City. So I went to find a television to find out more information on what happened. I then heard of the second plane crashing into the second tower, the third crashing into the Pentagon, and the fourth going down near Pittsburgh before it could do any damage.
When I first heard of the attacks, I was shocked just like the rest of the nation. I could not understand how four American airplanes could be hijacked in one day, especially with the security that we have in our airports today. However, any nation can be attacked when they do not expect it. The greatest and most powerful nations, like the United States of America, can be vulnerable at times. For some reason, we were vulnerable on September 11, 2001.
The tragic event on September 11 is now associated with the sudden bombings of the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7,1951. However, many say that this is worse. For one reason, almost all of the fatalities were United States soldiers, unlike the World Trade Center event. Thousands of innocent people died because some terrorist decided to attack America where it would hurt us the most. And they did.
The United States will not be the same again. Right now we have people living in fear. They fear that they could be next to be hit by a terrorist attack. Security all over the nation will be increased and it will take a much longer time entering certain places such as airports, sporting events, or any other heavily crowded area. Even at those events people will be fearful of what may happen. So they won?t be able to enjoy the event as they have been in the past because of all of the security around them. This will definitely change our lives as American citizens in almost every aspect. At the same time, however, this event has made and will continue to make America a very stronger United States. All United States citizens have joined together in many ways. There have been tremendous amounts of people giving blood at their local blood donor centers, trying to help in any way possible. Others have offered their services in New York and Washington D. C. to the firefighters and rescue workers. Other United States citizens have donated large amounts of money in order to aid in the rescue process. The real heroes in this whole situation are the firefighters, policemen, paramedics, and other rescue workers who assisted. These people went above and beyond the call of duty for weeks trying to clear out the wreckage. They continuously tried to pull bodies, hopefully alive, out of the rubble.
However, some true heroes that need to be recognized as well are the passengers on the plane that went down just outside of Pittsburgh. Speculations have been made as to where the plane was headed for but no one knows for sure. The courageous passengers of that airplane should be commended for whatever they did aboard that plane to prevent yet another plane crashing and killing more Americans. They crew aboard this airplane saved an undetermined amount of lives while risking their lives. These passengers knew that they would more than likely not survive the flight. Many of them did not hesitate to act upon the terrorists. You could consider them kamikazes. They sacrificed their own lives for the good of our country and to save some people that they didn?t even know. I consider that very noble.
As for the rest of the world, I believe that they will be affected somewhat by these terrorist acts. The United States and all Allies will be more unified. All members of NATO have agreed to back the United States 100 percent. I believe that this will form an even greater bond of unity among those nations, just as it has done with the citizens of the U. S. However, affairs with nations such as Afghanistan will be affected directly, obviously. Although we will try to keep the war away from the citizens and the Afghanistan government and towards the Taliban, I believe the relationship between the countries will experience a drastic decline. Some citizens of Afghanistan will be affected by the U.S. retaliation, but hopefully very few will be directly experience any changes.
I have a cousin who was working near the Empire State Building when the attacks occurred. She was terrified by the situation. Nothing happened to her physically because she was so far from the World Trade Center. However, she did have to walk home fifty blocks because the subways were shut down, and all taxis were being used to escort casualties to hospitals. She got on the first plane she could and flew back to Louisiana were her parents live. She will not go back to New York City. She has asked to be transferred to a branch of her business in Dallas. If she can not get the transfer, she is going to quit and find another job. She does not want to go back to New York to live in fear.
There were some strange coincidences that were revealed by different people. A very odd coincidence was the date of the attack, September 11. September being the ninth month of the year, we would abbreviate that date as 9-11, a telephone number we use for emergencies. Coincidence or not, it is strange. There have also been millions of e-mails flying around the world about the bombings; some true, some suspect.
The bottom line is that we as Americans must join together as the United States and trust our government officials to do what they know is right. They are spending countless hours planning what to do next. We must pray for our country, our leaders, our allies, and our enemy. Let God deal with our persecutor. Do not let us judge them. We must remember our main goal is peace.
Travis Jones
Hardin-Simmons University
Abilene, TX
Collection
Citation
“story265.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 1, 2026, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/14966.