my 9/11 story

Ok so I don’t know exactly how long and rambling this is going to be but with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up I felt I had to finally write, in depth, about what that day did to me and how it changed my life forever. I don’t mean to be over-dramatic but in some sense part of me died that day (not literally, I didn’t know anyone that was killed, thank God) and my life has never been the same since. If you had known me before September 11th 2001 and met me now, you probably would be hard pressed to believe I am the same person. Let me start from the beginning, the day that changed me, and the world, forever.
I remember it as a bright sunny day, I had just quit being on my 9th grade soccer team because I was bitter about not getting the playing time I felt I deserved and I was still kind of reeling from a really embaressing game that the Vikings played on that previous Sunday, it was the first game I had attended in person since the 1998 season and we lost to the Carolina Panthers (it would be their only win that season). I remember my dad dropping me off, I was loving school at the time. I was just into my third week of high school and was enjoying not having to wear a uniform every freaking day, the freedom (and ok the way the girls dressed too) was awesome. I went to my first period class, Advanced Spanish I, and went to homeroom where I waited for the morning announcements. Keep in mind this was about 8:50am CST so at this point both planes had already hit the towers and I was totally clueless then. I still had some innocence left in me. The announcement came across the speakers that we were all dismissed to the cafeteria to watch what was going on. In retrospect it was amazing because my dad said that as he was leaving the parking lot where he dropped me off for school he heard about the first tower being hit. That minute changed my morning.
Anyway I remember that this past summer there was this show I was watching on CNN that said something about this terrorist group and how they might want to use planes to attack the USA. Apparently it had been plotted before but the plans were broken up. The first words out of my mouth after I saw this were, “I have three words for this, Osama Bin Laden” people looked at me weird but even back then I didn’t really care. At about 9:07am CST the bell rung for us to go to our next class. Right as we were leaving I thought I saw part of one tower collapsed but when I got to the next class I found out it had gone down completely. My IPS (Intro to Physical Science) teacher tried to get us to pay attention to our lesson plan, we were persistent about leaving the TV on so we agreed to leave it on but leave it on mute. I tried to look and concentrate on the problems but it was no use. A little while later, maybe about 15 minutes, I hear one of my classmates gasp. I look up and see the second tower in the middle of collapsing. I turned and saw the look of my classmates face who was sitting next to me and I cannot describe the look, but it will be burned into my memory until the day I die. Then reports come in about the Pentagon being hit and a plane and a plane crash somewhere in Pennslyvania. The next thing I remember was lunch and us discussing where they would hit next. I was convinced it wasn’t over but thank God it was. But obviously the damage was already done.
The rest of the day I was numb, hell I was numb for weeks even months. I remember coming home and not being sad but being pissed. I wanted to know who did this and I wanted to go and kill them myself (this would be important to me later on, but I’ll get to that later). I think I did some homework that night but I can’t be sure. Like I said I was numb. Of course the baseball games were going to be postponed that night but what came the next day I was really unprepared for. All football games that weekend, college and pro, were to be cancelled and all baseball games until at least Thursday (I believe they didn’t start playing until next Monday but I cannot remember exactly). This may not seem like a big deal to you or the average person but it was life-altering, literally, for me. I loved sports (I still do, but have dialed it back a lot) and little else. Sports was everything in my life I really had literally no other interests at that point in my life (except girls, like any other healthy 15 year old male). Watching and playing sports, that was pretty much it for me K-8 and for 3 weeks into 9th grade. Now I had nothing to watch. The Sports Illustrated the week after aptly put it ‘the week that sports stood still’. I later found out in some e-mails my mom wrote to her friend in NYC that she was getting pretty concerned about me in the weeks after but had no idea what to do. I was all consumed in this tragedy, I didn’t know what else to do, I felt I had to. Like it was my duty as an American to watch and learn as much as I could about this so I would know what to expect in the coming weeks and months as this was sure to happen again. We were going to become like Israel, expecting terrorist attacks a few times a year.
As I sit here and write this on September 1, 2011, if you had told me on September 12th 2001 that nearly 10 years to the day after the attacks that we would not have suffered another major terrorist attack on US soil I would have said you are not only nuts, but probably should be locked up. This was going to happen again (by the way I still believe that, it is only a matter of time, we can’t be perfect forever) and soon and frequently. In this aspect I had a very odd reaction to this, I found every book I could find about nuclear and bio terrorism and started reading them. Since this was the next logical step I figured I better read about the possibilities and prepare. By early 2002 I was what you could call an amateur “expert” on anything terror related. This also led to another inevitability, my venture into politics.
I remember bits and pieces about politics pre-9/11 mostly the Monica Lewinski scandel and the 2000 election mess. Other than that I didn’t give a damn about politics. Now I started to follow them. My loyalties still didn’t lie anywhere yet but this reaction to the tragedy and hearing what leaders from both parties said helped me decide. One side was saying that we needed to understand our new enemies and figure out why they hate us. This pissed me off to no end hearing that. We did not need to understand and figure out our enemies, they are our enemies, we need to go, find, and eliminate them. Needless to say I did become a fan of W after this. I know it sounds lame but he was a big part of helping me heal. I shutter to think about what President Gore would have done. But that’s alternate history and never happened.
As the date draws nearer I still haven’t recovered and I never will. I look at all the kids out there today, especially those under 10 and feel sorry for them. I had the honor of spending most of my years growing up in a decade of peace and prosperity, something that had not happened in this country since the 1920’s. From the fall of the USSR (1991) to 9/11 there were very little in actual attacks on the United States. It seems that may be part of what caused 9/11, we have become victims of our own success and I fear that it may be happening again. It is only a matter of time before terrorists have a major successful attack that could be much worse. Hopefully we won’t allow that to happen but we have been able to prevent attacks, unlike say Spain, Bali, London, so far so that gives me hope.
It seems that this will be a never-ending battle. What a lot of people in this country don’t understand is that a significant number of people in this world are indoctrinated into hating Jews, Americans, and Christians and no amount of talking to them will convince them otherwise. They need to be killed because you cannot talk any sense into these people and until these people are gone we, as a nation, remain at risk.
Finally as I write the close of this on September 11, 2011, I am sitting here watching the History Channel play a special that is literally just home movies of people capturing that day first hand. It is so much more dramatic and personal than the news accounts of that day because these are just everyday people reacting to the tragedy as it unfolded around them. Let us never forget those who were lost or the horror of that day. Anytime you think our overseas involvement isn’t worth it just watch a video of people jumping from either tower. That is why we are over there. We didn’t start this (I don’t care what people say) but we will end it. And if people think we are ‘islamophobic’ now just wait until the next attack. We are a tolerant people but remember what happened after Pearl Harbor? The internment camps? It could happen again. You piss us off enough and you will feel the wrath of the most powerful country in the world.