story4476.xml

story4476.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I am a teacher; on 9-11-01, I was in my classroom at Biloxi
High School. It was a class of 10th graders; the subject
for them is World History. The end of the previous week,
I had been talking of the beginnings of Islam. A fellow
teacher came to my door to tell me that a plane had crashed
into one of the Twin Towers; my classroom TV suddenly came
on, and we saw the second plane hit.

Some of my students acted like this was a movie or TV show;
I said, "Folks, this is not something being done by some
kind of special effects. This is really happening now --
right now, people are dying up there in New York. Don't
think this is just for your entertainment -- this is real."

I had the TV turned off so they could take a short test.
When they finished, we turned it back on -- and I was so
shocked then -- I said "Oh, my goodness!! That doesn't
look like New York, it looks like the Pentagon.!" And a
voice started speaking, saying we were looking at one wing
of the Pentagon. A student teacher down the hall, who was
about to retire from the Air Force and begin teaching,
told us "I was most recently assigned, before coming to
Keesler (Air Force Base) to the Pentagon; that plane has
plowed into the area that is Army HQ. I have many friends
there." And he was, of course, very upset. Throughout the
day, both students and teachers were extremely upset, and
my idealistic teenagers kept saying: "But how can this be
happening? Here -- in the U.S. ?"

And we had no answers for them, for we wondered, too.