story10933.xml

story10933.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-09-11

I was in my 8am government class in high school when my guidance counsellor, Ms. Burke, came into the classroom and announced that "a plane flew into the World Trade Center". None of us were really sure what to think of it, and since that was all the information we were given, we had no idea about the severity of the attack. Just a few days earlier, someone had flown a very small plane into a building (not as a terrorist thing or to cause harm to others) and my classmates and I began to assume this was something of that nature. Class continued, and throughout the day more and more people became worried. We were not allowed to listen to radios, watch TV, or leave school. By the time lunch was over and I headed to my chorus class, some people were in tears for fear that their loved ones attending NYU or visiting the city were hurt. I didn't really understand why they were so upset. I didn't understand the situation at all. We weren't told that more than one plane was involved, we weren't told that the towers had fallen, we weren't told about the incidents in PA or DC, and we weren't told that it was a deliberate act of terrorism. I arrived home around 3pm and turned on the news. I was absolutely shocked. All of the stations were replaying clips of the second plane hitting (the clip of the first plane hadn't been released yet), both towers falling, and the destruction at the Pentagon. Over and over I watched people jumping from a hundred stories off the ground, and grown men and women weeping on the streets feeling helpless and lost. Suddenly and with pangs of guilt I realized why so many people had been upset at my school. They knew. They knew everything and I knew nothing. So instead of receiving reports throughout the day at planes crashed and towers fell, it came to me all at once through pictures and visibly upset newscasters trying to keep up their stoic facades while reporting the deaths of thousands of husbands, wives, parents, children, siblings, and friends. I didn't know anyone in NYC or DC, and even though the planes came out of our nearest airport, Logan, I didn't know anyone travelling at the time. I didn't have one person to focus on. They were all strangers to me. But that didn't make it any easier. As I watched the news through the evening, I began to imagine what it must have been like for the people in the second tower who did not have time or did not think to evacuate. I imagined what it must have been like to see a plane headed straight for the building you were working in. Or to be on the top floor, unable to get out and knowing that you were going to die. I couldn't handle those thoughts, but I kept watching the news and all that footage, even though I spent much of the night crying too hard to be able to see. The next day at school we talked exclusively about the attacks of the previous morning, and it was cathartic to see my classmates just as upset and angry as I was. Our teachers described these events as "definitive moments in history". "Your children," they said, "will ask you where you were when it happened, and will have no knowledge of a pre-9/11 world." There's a very strong feeling of sadness I get when I think about that.