lc_story83.xml

lc_story83.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-12-16

I was working as a short-order cook at the grill in the back of a Jersey Shore beach town. The season was winding down, the weather cooling off, and my outlook on life was muddled in that "do I really know anything at all," 20-year-old sort of way. Business was slower in the mornings since most of the tourists had left, so I was in the front of the store with my two bosses joking around when one of the locals walked in. He saw that we were in a jovial sort of mood, and after looking around asked us if we'd heard the news. Answering only with silence, he added that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center, that it was all over the news and causing a big mess everywhere. We had a TV between the kitchen and the store, so we rushed over to turn it on as most all Americans do anymore when they hear word of tragedy. And there they were: both towers in flames. Since the man had left his house on his way to our store, the second plane had crashed and made it apparent to people across the globe that this was no accident. I was in shock. We probably all were. I remember thinking as I walked to the back to make the man a breakfast sandwich or cheese steak or whatever it was he wanted in the face of this horrible wake-up call, How am I supposed to concentrate on work at a time like this? Here I am in South Jersey and planes are being flown into major centers of business a few short hours away. What was to stop me from thinking we would be next, that Atlantic City only twenty-some miles away wouldn't be hit, or that on these hijacked planes weren't some type of chemical or nuclear weapons? When I heard on the radio several minutes later that the Pentagon had also been hit, and that one had even gone down in Pennsylvania, it started to settle in that we were truly under attack and that it might not stop until all the major cities in the country had been plunged into devastation. When I walked back to the front, I stayed glued to the television for a while, leaving occasionally to do some bit of work half-heartedly. We watched as newscasters reported emergency workers had entered the building to see if they could locate survivors, only to be trapped themselves minutes later when both towers collapsed. I remember watching them fall, and thinking I could feel all of those poor souls crying out one last time before it was over.

I remember feeling that if there was some country or group in the world that could carry out such an attack against a country that surely had the ability to wipe it off the face of the Earth in retaliation, we must have done something very wrong to them. I thought that whoever had done this and for whatever reason...well, I just felt that maybe it was time for the United States to think twice about immediate military action, that maybe we should rethink our foreign policy first, that maybe we could turn the other cheek and lead the world to peace by example or at least die trying.

Many t-shirts and bumper stickers were sold in the wake of 9/11 expressing America's solidarity and that we would never forget. I know from experience that our country never pulled together and that many people have only become more racist, more impatient, and more intolerant toward views that do not agree with our government's. The terrorist attacks only made our country more arrogant than ever, and now we are like a blind floundering giant trying to crush all the enemy comabatants hiding in holes that we can not begin to navigate yet. I love this country for the freedom it affords me now more than ever, but since the reaction of our government and its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, I am utterly ashamed at our inability to co-exist with others who may not view our culture as the saving grace we often think it is.