Ten Years After

Exactly ten years ago, right around 9:30 a.m., I woke up like any other Tuesday, ready for another busy day as a second-year law student.  My room was in the basement, and I went upstairs, through the kitchen and into the dining room.  Trashton, one of my roommates, was sitting on the couch in the living room, talking on his cell phone.  I didn't think anything of it, but it sounded like he was in a serious conversation, so I went back into the kitchen without going into the living room because I didn't want to bother him.  I poured a bowl of cereal and went back downstairs.  15 or 20 minutes later, I came back upstairs, still not knowing anything.  When I was in the kitchen, the phone rang.  I recognized the number as Jester's.  We were "on a break" at the time, so it was odd that she was calling me, much less on a Tuesday morning.  I answered, somewhat curious and annoyed, when she asked whether I had turned on a TV yet.  I said "no," and she said that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.  I didn't believe her.  It seemed like something so outlandish that it could only have been from a bad disaster movie.  Then again, she had no reason to lie, and practical joking was not really her style of humor.


After we hung up, I walked into the living room, where Trashton was still sitting on the couch, now done with his phone call.  I saw the TV, and was numb.  Trashton brought me up to speed, and then the towers collapsed.  It just didn't seem real.  Obviously, classes were cancelled.  The on-campus interviews I had that week were cancelled, not that I would have gotten the jobs anyway.  My roommates and I pretty much just sat on the couch all day watching the coverage in shocked silence.  I emailed The Weez, my only friend who was living in New York at the time, to make sure he was okay (he was).


There's nothing profound I can say about 9/11 that hasn't already been said. For Gen X and Gen Y, 9/11 was our JFK assassination. I will never forget where I was or how angry and helpless I felt.  It's still unfathomable to me that anyone would do such awful acts, fabricating a religious justification for the slaughter of innocent people simply because they disagree with our way of life.  It sounds cliche by now, but it really was an attack on America, not just in a physical sense.  They targeted symbols of American freedom -- the White House (which thankfully never came to fruition), the Pentagon, and the city that, more than any other, expemlifies the American melting pot ideal and has accepted so many different races, nationalities, and religions.  We'll never be the same as a country, which in a way is a good thing, because since 9/11, we have done everything we can to prevent another attack, from increased security to collaboration with other intelligence agencies to infiltration of terrorist cells.  If the international reaction to 9/11 results in the prevention of future attacks and lost lives, then I suppose the innocent people who died ten years ago didn't do so in vain.  That said, nothing will ever make it right, and things will never be the same as they were on September 10, 2001.  Be proud to be an American, don't take your freedom for granted, and, for the love of God (or whatever deity you might believe in), be nice to each other.