story11210.xml

story11210.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-12-12

September 11, 2001. It was supposed to be an ordinary day at school for me. I was a junior in high school at the time, going to my second class. The time was around 10:15 and I noticed that the weather outside was particularly cloudy and gloomy. My next class was weight training, so I changed in the locker rooms into my gym uniform and headed over to the weight room. Once I entered the room I decided I would start my exercise session on the treadmill at the cardiovascular section, which had a television set where we could watch anything we wanted. I expected to see an ordinary movie when the T.V. turned on; however, the first thing I saw was not a movie but an emergency news report of a plane crashing into the Twin Towers. At that moment I knew something was wrong, but the news just did not quite sink in for me yet. Everyone else who was in the classroom was fixated on the coverage and had a look of shock on their faces. To me, it only felt like a scene from the movies, something that just doesn?t happen because I had never seen anything like this before in my life.

Class ended soon after and I began heading to my next one. It seemed that I was one of the first people in my school to hear about the event, since while I was walking to my next class no one that I passed in the hallways seemed to have mentioned anything related to the news. Oddly enough I wondered why the school had not at least made a public announcement yet; I?m sure that by now a few of the school administrators must have already been contacted about the news. After my next class started an announcement finally came. Our principal told the entire school that the Twin Towers were hit by two airplanes, but not much else was known yet. He tried to reassure everyone not to panic or be stressed, and reminded that one of the safest places to be was in the school. Once the announcement was over there was a sudden air of agitation that formed, and my English teacher turned on the television to show the news report that was still similar to the one I had already seen. She then told turned it off and said, ?I know we are all very worried and concerned but the only thing we can do at this very moment is to go on with class.? It would appear that that was the way most teachers and people dealt with the situation that day. Nothing else could be done. School continued until we finally got dismissed that day.

I remember school being cancelled the day after, and my parents did not have to go to work either. We ended up spending most of our day watching T.V., hungry for any kind of news update that was constantly being released. After I saw the clips of the Twin Towers crumbling and people who were screaming and desperately trying to evacuate, I finally fathomed what happened. A mass of innocent people who had done absolutely nothing wrong were killed, and many more had to put up with the loss of these loved ones. I had a sudden strike of guilt for taking so long to comprehend the tragedy, and feelings of resentment quickly developed for those responsible for such a horrific act. The worst feeling I had was not being able to do anything about the situation ? I felt helpless.

It is now three years later and words like Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and terrorism have never been the same since then. I realized that this is what it felt like to become a part of a history textbook, going through our own version of Pearl Harbor. Everyone I knew living in the United States before 9/11 was completely ignorant to these acts of terrorism that have been occurring around the world, especially those from my generation. Ever since we were born we have experienced nothing but peace, prosperity, and a sense of security; violence from another country was quite unfathomable especially since we thought we were an invincible country. September 11, 2001 changed all that.