September 11, 2016
Fifteen years ago today, our world changed. The line of events passed through another inflection point — the first of the 21st century. The attacks on the United States of America in New York City, Washington D.C., and over Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001 became the great tragedy of our time.
The darkest days of our nation are evidenced by time as watershed moments. Events of such magnitude are recollected by the public consciousness for years to come but the personal experiences of that primary generation are what form the essence of the tragedy. Each individual’s personal experience is a single brush stroke painted onto the canvas of memory such that when viewed in its totality the full picture is formed. The following is my own brief personal experience.
Shortly before 6:00am my aunt, who lived in New York with her husband and two adult children, called my dad to tell us to turn on the TV. I was getting ready for school —at the time I was nearly eleven years old, a sixth grade student at The King’s Academy in Sunnyvale, CA.
I had gathered my backpack, put on my sweatshirt, and was eating my breakfast when images of a burning building flickered to life in our living room on that foggy morning. The news was reporting that an airplane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center and as the anchor described the smoke rising high out of the New York skyline, viewers could see helicopters hovering around the site like moths drawn to a flame.
As a kid standing in the living room of our rented duplex in Cupertino, I was aware that a big accident occurred in a city I had visited with my family just a few years prior. New York to me was that strange, vast place where my aunt lived, where Dick Clark counted down the New Year the week after Christmas, and where we’d seen the Statue of Liberty from a place called Battery Park.
My dad went to grab his keys to drop me off at school while I watched a large explosion infiltrate the TV screen. The camera jarred and quickly zoomed out as it struggled to contain the erupting fire and smoke in the frame. I recall an eerie sense of confusion in the presenter’s voice as he uttered the words that another large explosion seemed to have rocked the World Trade Center, this time in the other tower. As my parents gathered closer clutching my nine-month-old brother, I remember hearing my dad ask aloud to no one in particular whether we just watched a replay of the footage. We flipped from news channel to news channel to see that there was in fact a second explosion and all the reporters confirmed as much. We received another call from my aunt worried about her daughter who left on the subway to head downtown.
Shortly thereafter I heard the term “terrorist attack” for the first time in my life. To a middle schooler in 2001, it wasn’t just a foreign concept — it was a nonsensical utterance. What did terrorist mean? Was something wrong with the radar that two airplanes crashed into the tallest buildings in New York? What was going to happen to all the other planes and helicopters still in the sky?
The news coverage cut to another building on fire, except this one wasn’t a tall skyscraper. Another explosion had gone off at the Pentagon and news spread that it was yet again a crashed commercial jet.
I sat in silence in the car on the way to school as we listened to the radio describe what was unfolding on the East Coast. As my dad and I pulled into the parking lot, my mom was back at home with my little brother watching the collapse of the South Tower. I went to my locker and proceeded to my first class of the day, English with Ms. Wanger. On the way in, I remember walking alongside a friend trying to make sense of what was going on that morning. We walked into class and were met with a quiet room and an emotional teacher. We sat at our desks and Ms. Wanger addressed us with a shaky voice. I remember her saying that she knew we must have a lot of questions right now and that some of us may be confused or even scared. She told us that we were going to open the day with a prayer for the people in New York, for our country, and for our President. So we prayed.
The rest of the class was spent watching news reports on TV from our desks and when that got too graphic and Ms. Wanger started crying again she turned it off and put on the radio. Other teachers came in and out to talk to her in hushed, hurried whispers as we sat there listening to the horrific events happening that day. The twin towers had collapsed. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane was reported missing then said to have crashed. Some reports said the US Capitol building had been hit, others that more planes or missiles were on their way to crash into the White House. Fighter jets were scrambled. No one knew how many more plane crashes were coming since reports kept coming in that additional planes were supposedly out of contact with the radio towers. The President supposedly was on his own plane working on figuring out what was going on.
The rest of the day at school is a blur. That night and the following weeks at home consisted of watching footage and coverage of burning buildings, billowing mountains of smoke engulfing entire streets, figures falling to their deaths from 80 floors up, disoriented people covered head to toe in white ash wandering ground zero, tens of thousands of people being evacuated by foot over bridges, passport photos of sinister men. Back then these were the confusing images that played on screen and through my mind, the significance of which I did not grasp, but today they are the memories I see as I write about 9/11. I remember seeing President Bush stand with firefighters and give a speech on a megaphone like the President in Independence Day. Photos showing large, jagged edges of warped steel protruding into the sky on what was left of the towers. Three firefighters raising an American flag on the cover of the San Jose Mercury News (and countless other papers around the country).
Looking back now, I cannot find an endpoint to the memories of September 11th, 2001. The day came and went but I can find no mental bookend or full stop which signified the culmination of those events in the way that the flicker of the TV showing the first burning tower denoted the beginning. The events of that day flow into recollections of presidential speeches about terrorism, images of Bin Laden, Shock & Awe and embedded reporters, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, War. As my personal life moved on into high school and beyond, the world kept pace with its line of events.
Fifteen years later, our world has been indelibly shaped by the events of that dark day. As terrorism, conflicts, and tensions flare on it’s tempting to look back and think that we as a nation are on an unalterable course towards more tragedy. Looking back retrospectively before 9/11, I think of the 20th century. I think of the Gulf War, Vietnam, the assassinations of great American leaders in the 1960s, WWII, Pearl Harbor, the Great Depression, and World War I. I think of all the inflection points of our country’s history in the past centuries and try to put 9/11 into perspective as the first critical point of the 21st century. When I do, I am not beset with gloom but rather choose to see that despite the tragedies of the 1900s, our world was a better place in 2000 than it was in 1900. In the same way, significant and tragic events have happened since 2000 but I hold onto the hope that 2100 will be a better time. I hope that whatever good we may strive to do now will set the waypoint of that more positive future…
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words — Wait and Hope”— Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
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