story494.xml

story494.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-02

Waking up on September 11, 2001 was just like waking up on any other day. Getting out of bed, gathering my things for the day, taking a shower, and finally checking my e-mail before classes began. It was all going smoothly until I signed online, and got an instant message from my best friend. He told me that the United States had been attacked. I thought he was just messing around with me. Since I live in the dorms, I have no access to cable, and we only get one television channel without all the fuzzy snow on the screen, so I was not able to look at the news like he kept begging me to do.
At this time, one plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York City. When I finally realized what had actually happened, I was completely shocked and filled with questions. How could our United States actually be attacked? Is it even possible? Why would someone do that to us? What have we done to anyone? Who did this?
I wanted to find out as much as possible about what had gone on, so I went downstairs to our television lounge to watch the news. I had not really absorbed the full impact of it all. For some reason, I was still thinking that this wasn?t a big deal that no one had gotten hurt. After seeing the footage of New York City, and all of the smoke billowing from the building, I had to hurry off to class, still not realizing the magnitude of this incident.
The walk to class was very odd. Walking through all the student areas I could hear everyone buzzing about the plane that had hit the building. Then I remember one person talking about a second plane. I didn?t know what they were talking about, so I went to the student commons and watched one of the televisions. They said that another plane had hit the other building of the World Trade Center. Shockingly, they had both collapsed as well.
People were running all over everywhere. There were signs everywhere about meetings that would be taking place to discuss what had happened, signs everywhere about vigils that would be going on, and I felt like I was stuck in the middle because I was so unsure about what had exactly gone on.
I went to one of these meetings, and everything began to sink in. Thousands of people have been hurt or killed. This attack was massive. What surprised me even more was how well planned it all was. I didn?t understand how that was possible, for this to have been so well planned, and no one knew what had been going on. No one was able to stop this.
But then there had been something done to stop it. There could have been a third plane that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. I was watching the television in the commons area, when I heard about this. Apparently this plane was supposed to do major damage, but the passengers did not allow this to happen. They stood up to the terrorists, and for this, they are true patriots. Risking his or her life, to save no one knows how many other lives.
I can remember watching specials on the television, with the family members who have lost a loved one, and actually feeling sorrow. It?s painful to have to see, know, and understand what these families have to go through now that they are without their fathers, mothers or anyone else that they know and love. It definitely gives me a greater appreciation for what I have, and whom I know.
These events help me to realize that when you leave for school in the morning, someone might not be there when you get home. So, you should make every moment count, with every person that you know. Throughout all the sad circumstances of 9-11, great things did happen. Our nation came together as one and stuck through this. I think it helped a lot of people learn not to take so many things for granted. Myself included, especially since I live far away from home and do not get to see my family as often as I would like. There are a lot of great lessons that we can take from this experience, and I hope that the general public did as well.