Reflections on 9/11: Ten Years Later

I write this partly as a way to process and partly as a way to remember. I recount the events of 9/11 below not because we don’t know all of what happened but because this is the first time I am writing about it, and I just feel a need to include everything I can remember about that day for our nation and that day for me personally.

–Today, September 11, 2011, marks the ten-year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack ever to happen on U. S. soil. First, I write this post to remember all the fallen, the airplane passengers aboard all four high jacked aircrafts, especially those brave heroes on United flight 93, and I also remember the workers in the World Trade Center twin towers and the Pentagon as well as the firefighters and emergency workers who died while responding to the tragic events of that morning. Finally, I remember the families of those who died in the attack. God bless them extra special on this day, and my prayers are always with them.

Ten years ago, the United States awoke to any other average Tuesday morning in nearly mid-September. It was a beautiful sunny cloudless morning in much of the country, and folks were just beginning their day at the office, school, or boarding airplanes for business or personal travel purposes. However, we had no idea that beautiful ordinary morning was about to turn into a dark and tragic day that would change this nation forever. At around a quarter to nine that morning, a commercial jetliner slammed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing a huge gaping hole in the side of the building that people guessed to be about three floors wide, debris to fly everywhere and engulfing the top portion of the tower in flames. After that first plane crash, chaos and uncertainty ensued. News stations all over the country picked up the story immediately, and it was first described as an unconfirmed report that a plane may have crashed into the World Trade Center. Some just heard the noise and thought it was a bomb when they looked at the building. Some saw the airplane hit, but no one was really sure of what exactly happened. At first, it was thought that perhaps it was an accident, a horrible accident. The scream of sirens rang out as firefighters and other emergency workers rushed to the scene to help out however they could. As people watched television, or were live at the scene, the United States looked on in horror as another commercial jetliner slammed into the second tower just a couple minutes after nine. Everything was confirmed then. It was an airplane that hit the first tower, and our nation was definitely under attack. Meanwhile, another commercial aircraft was high jacked and made its way to Washington D. C. At around 9:37, this airplane slammed into one side of the Pentagon, causing fire, debris, and the deaths of 184 people. A decision was made that all commercial aircrafts were to land at the nearest airport, and the United States airspace would be closed to incoming and outgoing flights. Air traffic controllers got to work contacting aircrafts and directing them to land as soon as possible. It was also reported that yet another commercial aircraft was not accounted for by air traffic controllers. It had been high jacked in Cleveland airspace and was making its way toward Washington D. C. Military fighter jets were sent up to find the plane, however, the passengers aboard the flight heard about what was going on, and they overtook the high jackers and brought the plane down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Back in New York, emergency workers continued to rescue people from the burning towers, and people watched helplessly as fellow workers, neighbors, and friends jumped from high up in the burning buildings to their death. Chaos and carnage ensued, and then, the truly unexpected happened. At around 10:00 that morning, roughly 58 minutes after it had been hit, people watched in horror as the second tower to be hit crumbled to the ground, killing those who had not made it out in time and enveloping the surrounding area in a dark cloud of soot and debris. Even more chaos ensued as those in the first tower began to realize that the same would very likely happen to that tower. People ran from the scene, and others made their way out of tower one. Then, at around 10:30, that tower crumbled to the ground as well, creating yet another giant dust cloud and crushing those still inside who were trying to make their way out.

Meanwhile, air traffic controllers worked tirelessly to get all commercial aircrafts down and were able to successfully shut down the United States airspace in a couple of hours. No more aircrafts had been high jacked that day, and the attack was over. However, in the days and weeks following 9/11, the death toll kept rising as missing people did not return home and more and more human remains were found at the World Trade Center sight. Final reports estimated around 3,000 total deaths, including all of those who were still in the World Trade Center, all those aboard the four high jacked planes, as well as those who had died in the Pentagon.

As for me, I can remember exactly where I was that September morning. I was a freshman in high school, about two weeks in, and I was in my Physical Education class. We were outside that day, so I did not hear about what was going on until I got to my third period U. S. History class, around the time when the third high jacked plane hit the Pentagon. For the rest of that day, we were glued to the television in every class. Nothing new was taught. We all just watched a national tragedy unfold before our very eyes, definitely the most monumental event of my generation thus far.

So how did 9/11 affect me personally? Well, I remember feeling as though it was just a terrible nightmare. I remember feeling as though I was just watching a movie, a horror film or something. I just couldn’t believe it and, in a way, I suppose it was easier for me not to. After all, I’m blind—out of sight out of mind, right? I think that made it harder to really understand the magnitude of the damage, especially at the World Trade Center. I knew the towers fell, but I had no idea how that was even possible or how massive those structures were. I hadn’t ever seen them before, except in the background of a scene in Home Alone II, and I didn’t even know that those were the twin towers at that time. It was only after 9/11 that I knew what they were and how tall they had been. It was impossible for me to wrap my head around the damage because I couldn’t see all that had happened. I can say this for sure though. If there was ever a day that I was happy about being blind, truly happy to not see anything at all, it was September 11, 2001. I’ve never really had a problem with being blind, except at sporadic moments when things are a bit harder because I don’t have sight, but I didn’t have to see all the destruction and death that day. I could only imagine, and I imagine it being bad, but I’m sure those images and the result is much worse than anything I could ever imagine. I think that my blindness made it a bit harder to believe, just in a different way than those who are sighted I think. I don’t really know. All I do know is that it took me a few days I think before it really sank in that it was real. It was no nightmare. It was no horror film. It was a living nightmare, a living horror film, if you will. I was scared, and I felt that nothing would ever be normal or happy again. Those first few days after 9/11, everything was so quiet—no airplanes in the skies, no television programs that didn’t have something to do with what had happened. It was as if the whole world just stopped, as the song by Alan Jackson says, the world stopped turning on that September day. How I longed for something normal. All NFL games had been postponed for awhile, and I’m not a football person. However, I just wanted to watch a football game or something… anything instead of constant 9/11 coverage. It was truly an awful time. Time went on of course, and life eventually got back to some kind of normalcy for me, even though it is definitely a new kind of normal, living post9/11.

Now, ten years later, I find that I can now write about that day, and I can see certain implications for me in it. I have found out, through 9/11 and other things too, that even when it feels like the whole world is crumbling right around you and there is nothing normal and constant anymore, God is constant. He is the solid foundation, the Rock of Ages who never changes and with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. It was a time in which absolutely everything changed—personally because I was in high school in a new building and had to make new friends. I was still getting adjusted to that when 9/11 happened. Nothing was the same… absolutely nothing. I think that is perhaps the biggest thing that 9/11 taught me, and it was confirmed about six years later in college when everything around me seemed to change once again. All I can say is that it certainly doesn’t seem that it has been ten years. I think it’s at least partly because 9/11 never leaves my mind. It is always there in the back of my mind. I think about it, at least to some degree, every single day. Even now, ten years later, the same feelings come back—shock, fear, sadness, anger, and all that comes with an attack like that, something our country never new until that day. Many people mentioned Pearl Harbor, in which the Japanese attacked from the air, killing many in our military and bringing the United States into World War II on December 7, 1941. That was “a day that will live in infamy”. Before 9/11, civilians had never been attacked, at least not to that capacity—commercial aircrafts and employees working in the World Trade Center. I think in many ways, our nation is still healing from that horrific day, especially those families who lost loved ones. My heart truly goes out to them, and I cannot even begin to imagine how deeply this day affects them. It affects me enough as it is, and I didn’t know anyone who was killed that day. I don’t think those feelings will ever really go away, so I remember. I remember 9/11 and wave a flag at half mass in respect for the fallen who we take time to remember this day. May God bless their families and friends, and may God bless America.

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