story7751.xml

story7751.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-17

As my mind flashes back to our ?new day of infamy?, the first emotion I feel is guilt. I started to walk into band and saw a TV sitting in the room, and immediately started giggling with my friend, commenting that ?man those people are crazy for wasting break on an old marching band video?. As we turned to corner our snickers faded into silent horror as I realized that the both of the World Trade Center towers were on fire.
Slowly but surely the rest of the class filed in having almost the same reaction and my friend and I did. The door to the room became a barrier; every time people went through the door, they stopped smiling and laughing and silently found seats around the TV. We all watched as the news anchors speculated about terrorism and why this horrible event had happened. Another teacher soon walked into our room and while he shook his head and looked confused, he said ?lets just hope that no from our area was up there today.? His words made us all turn and nod in agreement, but still, we didn?t make a sound. This was what truly made me realize that this was serious. An entire room of rambunctious teenagers was sitting in silence, total silence. Everyone was so shocked and bewildered that no one even knew what to say.
I remember saying a silent thank you in my head that my mom was in DC today instead of with her employees in New York. I know that everyone around me with parents in the government was doing the same thing, just as the awful news broke. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon. As the FOX 5 anchor broke the news, the room burst into sound. At least half the room started crying; I hadn?t realized how many people had military parents and suddenly I it hit me that this was going to affect most of the school in some way or another. I walked around to my friends and gave them hugs trying to assure them that their parents were going to be ok. I didn?t have a strong connection with anyone who had parents in the Pentagon I thought, and then it hit me--my best friend since first grade. Her father worked at the Pentagon; I had to find her to see if he was ok.
I walked around the corner, to find her standing by her locker crying she looked lost and like she need a friend. As we made eye contact she just fell into my arms sobbing. Between gasps she said that she hadn?t talked to her dad, and that the plane crashed into his office. We found a teachers cell phone to use, and she tried home to talk to her mom, and then her dad answered. He had left early because he felt sick, and had been on his way home when the plane hit.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, I wandered from class to class listening to the news and wondering why anyone could do this to us. I found out that my mom had to stay in the command center of her building for the afternoon, and that my brother had been on 95 across from the Pentagon when the plane hit. I sat for the night watching everything on TV, and I woke up the next morning thinking it was all a bad dream, but soon realizing that it wasn?t.
I was thankful that all of my family and friends were ok, but because of this I didn?t realize how much this tragedy would affect some people. My mom went to New York a week after the attacks and walked with her employees through the rubble of ground zero. They examined the piles of debris and talked to officers who had removed bodies from the rubble and heard their horror stories. She claimed that it didn?t affect her, but when she came home a week later she told me that she had nightmares for a week about what she saw. She dreamt she was walking through the street and had people reach up through the ground and try to pull her down. This made me truly realize that the sights and sounds from the attack sites would affect this country forever. Some people would only remember TV shows and others would need psychiatrists to help them forget. Either way this country was touched and changed forever.