9/11

When my alarm went off that morning, there was a radio report about a plane hitting the WTC. I remember thinking "How the hell can the pilot of a small plane not see such a big building?" and hit the snooze. Woke up a few minutes later and didn't think about it, got ready for work like normal.
Got into the car and on NPR the host was saying they would have more about the attacks after a short break. Parked the car at work and waited. NPR came back on and gave a brief recap. I couldn't believe it. Kept checking news websites throughout the day for updates.
In those days we used film cameras, and I went to a neighboring town to get film developed. On the way back, I saw a guy standing by his Oldsmobile alongside the road, holding an American flag. Everyone was honking and giving him a thumbs up.
We didn't have a TV at work, so it wasn't until I came home that night that I finally saw the terrible video.
God bless those who died and their families, and God bless those who put their lives at risk to save others.
On a personal note, that was the middle of a tough week for our family. My mom told me two day earlier she had breast cancer, and three days after 9/11 she was told it was indeed terminal.

 

Exactly. Gotta have perspective.

In my 49 years on this planet, 9/11 is the worst "human" tragedy (excluding natural disasters) to happen on this country's soil. And for that we should pinch ourselves for being so extremely fortunate.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/leningrad.htm

 

I was really talking about Americans not getting it, not people from other countries. Yeah, somewhere that is ravaged by civil war or genocide, for them they see it every day. I'm talking about some knucklehead that lives in (pick any one of 49 other states) that thinks it's just New York that was attacked.

 

I was a junior in high school taking a geometry test in my second hour when another teacher came in and told our teacher. She told us to keep working, but it seemed as if a small commuter plane had hit the building. By third hour, every one was talking about multiple plane crashes, hijackings, and other things (much of it turned out to be misinformation).

Fourth hour was journalism class, and finally they let us see what was happening. By the afternoon, we were watching the replays in every class (this went on for weeks, except math, because or math teacher failed to see the social significance. But hey, I'm a journalist, I'm biased against math teachers).

Toward the end of the day things began to get awkward as the news reports were discussing muslim terrorists. About 30-40 percent of my school's population was muslim, and being high schoolers, many of us were ignorant about the culture. I remember people being scarred about retaliation against muslims. My mom worked at the only hospital in Dearborn, which has a notable muslim population --- the place was virtually on lockdown since it was also the second or third tallest building in Dearborn (first being Ford World Headquarters and second probably being a hotel).

They cancelled all of our after school events, so there was no cross country practice for us. Still, the entire team showed up after practice, including the coach who was a global studies teacher at the middle school. None of us, including coach, really knew what to do. We we're 14-18 year-olds and hadn't talked to our parents or anything about what happened. We talked for a bit and then went home.

That afternoon, when I returned home, my dad was home. He was sent home from work. After some more news clips, I left the house to do anything to get my mind of things. I was washing my car in the driveway. I wasn't even old enough to drive, but my parents wouldn't let me leave anywhere with friends who could. I couldn't concentrate on homework either (usually the case).

But even as I washed my car, the local rock and roll radio station had cancelled programming and was talking about the attacks. One of those small things we forget. (I think Nickelodeon was the only station that kept the normal shows). As I washed my car, I noticed no planes in the sky. It was creepily quiet. My whole life I had lived in a flight path and never heard such silence.

For many weeks things were awkward at school. They had special assemblies with counselors about how to be tolerant of other people's culture. There were interesting stories and anecdotes from the students around me. One muslim student told me in physics class "You guys deserved it."

I was aghast at his comment. This kid had been my classmate since 3rd grade. Second generation in the United States. Then there were other classmates, like this kid's friend, who had the FBI show up at his house just because his name was on some terror watch list. (Mohammed is the most common name in the world -- and he shared his first and last name with about five others at our school). Even so, can you imagine how scarry it would be to have the FBI at your house at age 16.

I also remember lots of patriotism, but people doing it in the wrong way. American car flags, flags being hung upside down, tattered flags, etc. I remember the newspapers having to remind people how to take care of the flag. My dad was in the army, so we knew these things at my house before. And we flew the flag regularly.

Within a few months of the attacks things got sort of back to normal at school, but for the first time since grade school they brought back the pledge of allegiance. Students were not required to stand, but they were required to keep silent if they chose not to say the pledge. Amazingly, there was no outcry. Also amazing was that for two years I stood for every pledge. Slowly but surely as time passed, fewer and fewer people stood. By senior year, I was one of only two people who stood for the pledge. The other person was Davidias, a Lithuanian-born friend of mine, who came to the United States 6 years earlier and lived under Communist rule for the first 6 years of his life.

 

I'm surprised the math teacher wasn't trying to measure the velocity of the people falling out of the windows. If it were legal to shoot math teachers, there would be lots of second-hand pocket protectors in my neck of the woods. A little levity, I guess.