“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.”
I debated a lot about writing anything like this today. I was…am…hesitant to do so for a surprisingly long list of reasons. September 11, 2001 was…horrifying. World-shattering. Life-altering. It was a day of sorrow, of fear, and of death. But it was also a day in which a lot of average people displayed above average courage and ascended into heroism. I don’t know what I can possibly say about September 11 that hasn’t already been said more eloquently, more beautifully, by someone else.
This is a struggle I have every year. I have, in fact, sat down on several September 11th anniversaries to write down my thoughts, feelings, memories…and each time I have given up.
But today, I sat and I watched the memorial ceremonies, and I watched the flashback documentaries, and the interviews, and the recaps. I felt a little morbid doing it, a little reluctant even, because what I really wanted to do today, what I really wanted, was to ignore it all. To study or read or watch a movie and pretend it wasn’t the 10th anniversary of the most horrifying event in American history since Pearl Harbor. Because even after ten years, everything about that day just breaks my heart.
So I made myself watch it, and made myself remember and relive it a little, because those events and those people deserve to be remembered. Need to be remembered. And after all that, I feel the need to express what September 11, 2001 meant to me, and what it means to me now, ten years later.
All day today, my Facebook friends have been asking the question: Where were you when?
I was a senior in high school. Because it was not quite 6 in the morning here on the West coast when the first plane hit, I had been awake for all of 15minutes when it happened. I usually got up to get ready for school around 5:30 because I had a 7am zero period (before school) choir class and had to leave around a quarter til to make it to school on time. That day was pretty typical. I got up, did my usual grumpy morning stumble around with my eyes half shut thing, petted my cat. I remember the house was quiet, but then, it always was at that time; only Mom and I got up that early. At some point, I heard the TV click on and knew that Mom had turned on the news, like she did every morning while she was getting ready. I don’t remember if she said anything to me, but I remember walking into the living room right around six to see her staring at the TV. And something about it was weird. Maybe the look on her face, or the absolute attention she was giving it... It concerned me. So I shuffled around til I could see the screen too, and there was this giant skyscraper with a huge hole in it. The North Tower, burning.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A plane hit the World Trade Center.”
“How does a plane hit a building? Don’t they have navigation stuff?”
We’re both starting at the TV. I’m incredulous. What was wrong with that idiot pilot? Also, I’m wondering what the World Trade Center is. (It seems impossible to me now, not knowing what it was, but I had never heard of the World Trade Center before 9/11. I even remember looking at the screen and wondering if that was New York because it looked kind of like it)
Then, as we’re watching plane # 2 hits the South Tower.
My jaw dropped. Ok, one plane hitting a building I can maybe kinda see. Planes malfunction or people make mistakes; accidents happen. But two? Hitting the same building? What. The. Heck?!?
The newscasters went nuts. I remember the confusion in their voices changing to panic. But I still had to go to school, and by the time I finally pulled myself away from the television, I was running way late and no one at the news station was any closer to explaining what was going on.
I went to school. Talked quietly with the other Super Altos (oh yes, we named our section. Altos are overlooked in choirs, but not by the Altos), speculating about the news and explaining it to those who hadn’t heard yet.
It’s amazing to me how much can Go Wrong in 45 minutes. In the time between my tearing myself away from the TV and my getting to class, a plane hit the pentagon. The White House was evacuated. U.S. airspace was shut down. The South Tower collapsed!
I didn’t believe this last one at first. How could it have fallen? I only just saw a plane hit it a few minutes ago. Wouldn’t the tower that was hit first go down first? Clearly I wasn’t thinking super logically, but I just could not believe what I was hearing was true.
“I heard it on the radio on the way here,” my friend insisted. But no. It couldn’t be.
We wanted the TV turned on so we could verify. The choir director refused—this was his time, and while the accident was awful, we had a concert coming up. We were outraged, nervous. But he had a point, we conceded, and got out our music. You have to remember, at this point, no one had quite realized we were under attack.
So we sang for an hour, packed up our music, made our way to our first real class of the day. One of the other Super Altos was in my 2nd period class (we had block schedules; 9/11 was a 2-4-6 day, I remember, so 2nd period was first for 2 hours) so we walked to class together. Campus was quieter than usual, but we didn’t realize how bad it was until we got to class. Usually there was joking, talking, noise, before school started. Today, my honors English class was silent. The TV was on. Everyone was glued to the news.
I was horrified. Both towers had fallen by this point, not just one. Even aside from the shock that still made no sense to me at the time.
It’s weird what you think about when you’re in shock. I remember watching replays of the footage of it happening—both towers, all different angles, all that dust and debris—and I remember thinking there must be at least several hundred people dead. And that that mess would take forever to clean up.
I also remember hearing about the plane that had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, for some inexplicable reason, and wondering what madness was behind that.
I remember nationwide panic as newscasters talked about hijacked planes. They had realized that one of the planes that hit the WTC was a hijacked plane, and speculated about whether the other plane crashes had also been hijacked airliners. I remember the horror of that first hour of class as plane after plane was verified as missing, assumed to be the planes that crashed, and wondered how many were missing altogether, what their targets might be.
I remember speculation as to what happened to the plane that crashed in PA. Something clearly went wrong with the plan there. They also speculated about D.C. having been its target, and I remember the frisson of fear that went down my spine.
I remember being absolutely furious when we had a bomb threat. We were always having bomb threats, several times a year. Some were more serious (one almost lasted 2 hours and had us all out in the back field), and some were not (five minutes was hardly worth getting out of one’s desk for; certainly it wasn’t enough time to feel the campus had been safely searched). This one lasted awhile, but not more than an hour. I was angry, both because it was obviously a prank, and because it was a heinous thing to do on a day like that. I might have ranted to a friend or two about the insensitivity of whatever kid had called it in. I also worried about what was happening while we were cut off from the news.
The rest of the day I don’t really remember well. I remember feeling kind of numb, and watching the news all day in every class (we did NO work). I remember staying in at lunch to keep watching, and I remember how tight and anxious the campus felt.
I remember feeling sick as the speculation regarding the day’s death toll went up and up and up.
I remember thinking: who could do this? Who could purposely set out to kill so many innocent civilians? Who can possibly be so evil and full of hate?
I remember getting pulled out of school later in the week so that I could attend a prayer session at church with Mom for the victims of the attacks and for our country’s leaders.
I remember how amazed I was at the people on flight 93 when that story finally came out. I wondered if I could have done what they did, marveled at the bravery, teared up a little over their last minute phone calls home. I remember being proud of their bravery and the way ordinary people can become heroes.
I remember being proud of the way people who were supposed to be heroes came through. I remember Bush and Rudy Giuliani, and being impressed by both of them that first day, that first week.
I remember the pride and the patriotism that infused the country. That nationwide unity, it was amazing. There were American flags everywhere, on everything, including more than half the cars on the road. For awhile, you couldn’t find a store that carried them—they were all sold out.
I remember the sinking feeling as the days wore on and there were so few survivors rescued. That seemed impossible to me. With thousands of people under the rubble, how could there be no one, no one, left to pull out. And the more hopeless it seemed, the more it felt like we needed that, needed a big rescue, because there had to be a way to salvage this.
But it never happened.
I remember I was a naïve kid who thought she was invincible. We were America! The greatest nation in the world! I never wondered about war or being invaded because that would never happen. When we discussed Pearl Harbor in American History my Junior year, I remember thinking, ok, yeah, but that would never happen now. War wasn’t something that touched us here. We went away to help others, but we were far too big and powerful for the fight to ever come to us.
I was the epitome of “American Arrogance.” And, worse, I was 16. I was a teenager and all teenagers think they are invincible. 9/11 changed that for me. If America wasn’t untouchable, invincible, I certainly wasn’t. Something like that really changes your perspective.
It changes your world.
In this case, it literally changed the world. Terrorism became a truly frightening thing. It had never happened on such a scale in the Western World before. It had been a plan of frightening detail and efficiency. And it was a worldwide tragedy, not just an American one—not only were the losses massive, but the 2,977 victims included citizens of more than 90 countries.
Airport security…we complain about it these days. It’s a hassle, it’s inefficient. I remember flying before 9/11, so I can attest that this is true. And certainly the 9/11 plan could have been carried out in spite of it—the hijackers kept control of flight 93, for instance, partially through threat of a bomb. If someone said they had a bomb on a plane, I’d be more inclined to believe them than not, despite our current security measures. But who knows, maybe it has been effective in some ways. It’s definitely a deterrent. Will it stop someone really determined? Maybe not. But neither does a law against murder and the possibility of a death sentence stop a serial killer. It deters those who are likely to be deterred. And it makes me feel safer. I can get behind that.
As for me…I feel like 9/11 stripped a little bit of my innocence away. Like I was wearing blinders before and then suddenly they were gone: “Look kid, this is what the world is like. This is the evil that exists, this is what Satan does. This is the physical manifestation of spiritual warfare. This is what you’re fighting. Welcome to the war.” My biggest problems prior to 9/11 were choosing a college, getting decent grades; average kid stuff. After…
It was intimidating. It was also empowering. I learned what it was to be a prayer warrior that year. I studied the Word and deepened my relationship with my God. And while I learned a lot about people’s potential for evil, I also learned of their ability to be compassionate, and kind, and brave, and loving. It also shook me out of my safe little world and showed me there was injustice out there, and that ordinary people could fight against it. I think it was the very start of what eventually lead me to the law.
I don’t really feel like this particular view of these events will mean much to anyone else but me. But I feel like something that had such a huge impact on my life and on my view of almost everything in my life deserves some kind of recognition. Especially when it’s something that did exactly the same thing to so many people all over the world. It’s not much of a tribute—it’s just words on a page—but it’s what I have to give.
I will always remember, never forget.
Psalm 71:20-21
“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.”
“Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.”
