Never forget

It seems important today to reflect on the event that happened nine years ago.

Nine years ago I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in PE. It was the second week of school, so I was still trying to get the feel for my teachers and my new classmates. Looking back, I'm glad that I was in PE at the time. Unlike almost everyone else in the room, I'd had this PE teacher before (he usually only taught sophomores, but the class sizes the year before had been so large that he had to take on a freshmen class, and I was in it) so I knew him and he knew me. After the announcement was made, I looked at his reaction and got my first inclination that things weren't as nonchalant as it seemed. It was the end of class just a few minutes before the bell rang, when the intercom crackled to life and the principal came on. In my remaining years at Hylton, whenever the principal came on the loudspeaker my blood would run cold and for a minute or so I'd forget how to breathe; every time I'd be transferred back to 9/11 and his somber announcement.

The announcement was simple: two planes had flown into the WTC in New York, another had crashed into the Pentagon and another was still in the air. That, more or less, was it. After all, we were all high school students. The oldest students in the building were 18, the youngest 14... could we handle the fact that our nation was under attack?? In retrospect, it was probably insane that he didn't say anything else. We were left for the rest of the day to wonder around in complete numbness, watching the reactions of people around us.

Teachers were crying.

Students were pulled from classrooms without any explanation.

The hallways were silent. Even in between classes when the entire student body filled the tiny spaces. People spoke in whispers.

Teachers groped for information. They'd been strictly informed NOT to discuss the days' events with us. The few teachers that had cable in the classroom would turn their TV sets on to news channels in order to gain any glimmer of information between classes. Whenever students entered the classroom they'd switch them off. My math teacher was not fast enough turning off her TV set.

We watched the North Tower collapse live. The silence on the airwaves after the live footage still haunts me.

Even then, it didn't sink in for us what was going on. After all, we were America... no one could attack us. We're bordered by Mexico and Canada, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans... we were untouchable! There was no way someone could breech our security and intentionally harm us.

The rest of the school day passed in a blur. Teachers were still trying to teach their subjects as instructed by the school administration. On the bus ride home, everyone was a buzz. We were talking about students we knew who had parents that worked in the Pentagon. One of the planes had been hijacked from Dulles, and there was a rumor floating that a girl in our year had a father on one of the planes, headed somewhere for a business trip.

It still felt surreal.

I remember getting home and Mom telling me she couldn't get a hold of Dad. He works in DC, no where near the pentagon so there wasn't really any fear of him being injured... but the lack of information and a creative imagination works in the same way as a child trying to force two mismatched puzzle pieces together. It was later that we learned relatives from out of state were trying desperately to get through to us to make sure we were okay, but couldn't. I don't know how many people remember: The phone lines were pretty much jammed that day.

Mom took us to get haircuts. I think she wanted us out of the house and away from the TV, but we couldn't escape it. I had to put a CD in because the radio stations weren't playing music. The Hair Cuttery we went to had the radio turned up so the stylists could hear. The announcer kept calling the day's events "The attack on America." For the first time all day, I'm finally terrified.

After the fact, it's easy to look back and say what could have been done, what SHOULD have been done. But these ultimately don't matter. The only thing that matters is what was done. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I refuse to believe that an American leader would allow this to happen if informed about it. President Bush has been criticized several times for rejecting memos that tried to tell him about the growing threat. The same link has been made to FDR about Pearl Harbor. I don't believe it... and again, maybe I'm ignorant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks

(time line of the 9/11 attacks)