I was in third grade on the day that "the world stopped turning." It began as a normal day for me- but then again, it began as a normal day for all of us, right?- and we lived in a modest home in New River, AZ. I walked down our hallway into the living room, and I noticed that the volume of the television was turned very low. Dad must not have been interested in the other news that day. I ate breakfast and found my backpack, and I was stuffing my lunch into it when Dad looked at the TV, squinted, reached for the volume, and turned it up, muttering something.
"What is it, Dad?"
He didn't answer me.
"Daddy, what is it?"
"The World Trade Center has been destroyed."
I had no idea what anything in that sentence meant except the concept of destruction, and even on that count I was a bit fuzzy.
"So is it really bad?" I asked.
"Yeah, Jessie, it's really bad."
I accepted this and drove to school. But what had happened on the TV had affected everybody at school. The principals put together an assembly that lasted for almost the entire morning, where we sang patriotic songs like "Proud to be an American" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." The flag was halfway down the flagpole, which we learned was in respect to those who were suffering. And since I attended a charter school, we had a prayer as well as a moment of siilence.
I wish I could say that when 9/11 occurred, I knew the full gravity of the disaster. I wish I had been older so that I could understand the situation.
Since every school I attended since 9/11 (both public and private) held a similar ceremony on its anniversary, I did not know what had happened except that the World Trade Centers had been hit by an airplane piloted by terrorists, that something had happened to the Pentagon, and that the plane landed in Pennsylvania.
I have one person to thank for finally insisting that my generation know the facts as well as the aftermath: my sophomore World History teacher. Our class had taken too much time presenting our projects, so we were already behind, but still we learned about 9/11. We learned that the terrorists were present on more than one plane, and that the passengers on one of them overpowered the terrorists and landed the plane in Pennsylvania. We learned that the entire collapse of the towers was a matter of hours, but that the ash cloud that resulted remained for weeks. We learned that the people in New York had no idea what was happening, and we watched a documentary with footage shot by firefighters who had been elsewhere on that day but had come to help. We learned that the terrorists' plan was much more extensive, involving the Pentagon and the White House.
All of this we learned, and when I remembered that day in third grade, it seemed like I was thinking of two different events. Physically, that is where I had been on 9/11. But mentally, I had not experienced it until Thursday, September 11, 2008.
Thank you, Ms. P, for making us attempt to comprehend the situation. It always seems to exhaust you to teach us about 9/11, but it is a service that I don't believe anyone else could provide as well as you do.
There is a reason that everybody remembers where they were, what they were doing, on 9/11. When something so catastrophic happens, we as Americans feel the need to be united. We remember the event because it made an unprecedented impact upon the way we live. Few events have changed our country and our globe as much as 9/11. Remember this today.
If you want to hear a very inspiring song about 9/11, below is a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj9Fa6IFM8Q&ob=av2e
