nmah5346.xml

nmah5346.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-12-27

September 11, 2001, dawned brilliant and clear in Columbia, Missouri. I was in the fourth week of my junior year at the University of Missouri, and we had just started the seemingly interminable stretch of the semester between Labor Day and Thanksgiving break. I had gotten up early - probably about 7:20 Central time - to go running. When I got up, though, I thought, "Man, I should have gotten up earlier. It's so nice that the campus rec center's going to be crowded." I turned on NPR to listen to the news as I put my contacts in, washed my face, and got dressed to go run. At the half-hour news break, the reader announced that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. Details would follow as they came in.
My initial thoughts were that it must be a small plane, like a Cessna, and that it must be a really crappy day weather-wise in New York. Because, really, how do you run a plane into the World Trade Center? I hoped that there weren't any deaths or serious injuries, and kept getting ready. A few minutes later, though, I knew that something must be REALLY wrong. A long piece had started - one that would normally run about 3-5 minutes on Morning Edition - and Bob Edwards cut it off and started explaining what was going on in New York. In six years of listening to NPR, I had never heard them cut into a story. It was a big plane that had hit one of the towers - maybe even a passenger jet. That's when I gave up getting ready and turned on the TV.
I turned it to CNN, then to MSNBC. No one knew quite what was going on yet, so I watched in confusion as a news helicopter panned the scene overlooking the Hudson River from just in front of and above the Trade Center. And I was stunned and horrified a couple minutes later as a blur crossed from the right side of my screen and a huge orange and black fireball erupted from the other tower.
I was working as a peer advisor in a residence hall, a kind of RA position. I didn't know what to do - should I wake up my residents? Should I go to the lounge and turn on the TV? I decided to try and find another staff member to talk to, so I signed on to an internet messaging program and caught another PA. She had no idea what was happening, and she didn't know what to say when she turned on her TV. She thought that people were gathering in their floor's lounge, and told me that I was welcome to come up and watch. (I ended up joining them and watching with others as the towers collapsed - we all felt so numb and helpless, and we had no way of knowing that although many died, many, many others had made it out safely.)
Before I went up to the other floor, though, I remembered that both of my best friend's brothers lived in Manhattan. I thought she had probably left for her 8 AM class, so I sent her a quick e-mail: "Gwynne - are your brothers all right?" She hadn't left, though, and I got a quick response: "I think so - why?" That was followed a few minutes later by this: "HOLY SHIT!!!! I have no idea - I can't get through!" (Thankfully, both of her brothers made it okay.)
As the news poured in from NYC, Washington D.C., and then Pennsylvania, I remember wondering if this was the end of the world. I went to my 12:30 class in a daze, listening to the NPR coverage on my Walkman's radio. My psychology professor was shaken - she and her sons had just gotten back from New York, and when she picked up her roll of film from vacation that morning, there were pictures of them on the World Trade Center's observation deck.
I spent a lot of time curled up on my bottom bunk watching MSNBC and talking with friends. We wondered if this would spark a draft, and if our friends, brothers, boyfriends, and fiancés would go to war. Would our friends and relatives in the National Guard and reserves be called up? Especially that first night, the 11th-12th, I kept NPR on and laid awake in the top bunk, and wondered if that day's events had been it, or if there would be more to come. I don't think I slept.

I don't really think my daily routine has changed. If anything, I spend more time enjoying the little things, and talking with friends and family members.

How it touched the normal citizens in their day-to-day routines - it wasn't the soldiers from Pearl Harbor, nor the President, nor the astronauts from the Challenger. It was people like us - young, interns, newly graduated, visiting relatives. And it was people like our parents - brokers, salespeople, business travelers, with families.

I did put a flag in my window, but took it down after Thanksgiving break because it was so faded. After September 11th, like so many others, I have a definite appreciation for all that the flag stands for. However, I think that it's been exploited in some instances as an easy way to make money in the post-September 11th boom of patriotism. In its heightened symbolism, I think that it has also served as an object that can really drive the "you're either with us or against us" wedge further into the country. I don't know why, but I feel really uneasy about states, including Missouri, that have mandated saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. If you don't stand up and say the Pledge with gusto, are you non-patriotic? Or if you don't believe in _everything_ that the Pledge says, does that make you non-patriotic as well? The events of September 11th have definitely made me reconsider what traditional American symbols say to the rest of the world, and what being an American means.