OCC Remembers 9/11/2001
I don't know how this entry is going to go. I don't think my thoughts will be in any particular order, so consider this some rambling rantings about 9/11/2001.
I don't have a dramatic 9/11 story. I mean I was no where near New York, or DC, or the Pentagon and didn't know anyone that lost their life in any of the attacks.
I was a college student in my third year at Northern State University in Aberdeen South Dakota.
I was asleep when the planes hit. Looking back, when I woke up it is probably smart that I didn't turn on my television set. It was probably smart because my class attendance was going to be horrible that semester when it was all said and done and had I turned on my TV before leaving for my 9:30 class I may have never left the room.
So I walked to history class with Dr. Ric Dias oblivious that there was anything wrong on my nice sunny day in South Dakota.
That all changed when I got to class and there was scattered talk of what had happened. At this point there was more rumor than actual fact. People were saying that the State Department had been bombed. People were saying that the White House was attacked....things were all over the map.
When Dr. Dias entered the room, I began to piece things together from his account. The United States had been attacked? How? By whom? Was there more to come? I honestly don't remember a single thing we talked about that morning in our History class, I think it was my cold war class, but I took so many courses from Dias that they all run together.
After history, I still really didn't think that I knew anything but I had another class to go, Russian history. I didn't want to go to Russian history, (although I never really wanted to go to Russian history) I wanted to go back to my dorm room and watch Television to see just what had happened, how and in what order. I did hear in the discussion before my 11:00 AM Russian history class that a group had taken responsibility for the attack. I can't remember if I had heard that the towers had collapsed yet or not, but I don't think I heard that until I finally got back to my dorm room.
I shot out of Russian quicker than I had ever left a class before (including college algebra) and headed for my dorm room. I blew passed a lot of people I knew and had a brief conversation with a friend in which I told her I was going to go see what I could learn as I still didn't know anything.
I made it to my room, turned on the TV and what was the first thing I saw? I saw the famous video of people dancing in the streets over what had happened. I have been a man of anger several times in my life, a great many to my own shame and resulting in making my own life actually worse. However, it is a lucky thing for all of those dancing that I was not in charge on that day. I have never been as outraged as I was when that footage was the first thing I saw on my television.
I don't remember much of the rest of the day. I believe I pulled myself out of the daze I was in long enough to run out to Wal-mart but I have no idea what I purchased.
I don't remember anything else other than the fact that I just kept watching TV. I don't think I returned to class the rest of that week. I wanted answers and I wasn't going to get them by heading outside. I hung on every speech from the President, I hoped for any news about survivors, waited to see what we knew about who was really responsible for the attacks.
I wanted justice. I still want justice. I think that to not pursue the guilty to the bitter end would be an affront to everything that this country has stood for. Now that doesn't mean that I think that everything has been handled the right way or anything of that nature. I am simply saying that we shouldn't just give up chasing down the guilty just because it is hard to find them. I take comfort in the fact that their lives are much more difficult now because of the fact that they are essentially being hunted. If they live the rest of their lives out and its simply that their life became more difficult, then as far as I'm concerned they got off easy.
A strong desire still burns in me to hope and pray and do what ever is necessary to keep this kind of thing from happening in the future. I already remember where I was on 9/11/2001, I don't need to add another horrifying date to that list. I don't fly often, I hear that security is getting tougher all of the time, I hope to fly in the not too distant future though I do not know when that will be or even necessarily where though I do have a goal. Anyway, I would rather people say about our security, "you know they really take that too far", as opposed to "they didn't take it far enough and we learned that the hard way." If ever I think that things have gone a bit too far I think about all the people that jumped to their deaths from the upper stories of the tower because of the horror of what was inside. I think about all of the rescue workers that ran in to the building when our instincts tell us to run away. I think of all of the broken families and I think of a plane full of people that decided they weren't going to do nothing.
It is a mistake to believe that this was an American tragedy. 9/11/2001 exists on a world wide stage. People from all walks of life, all cultures, and from all over the world were in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on those flights out of Boston. 9/11/2001 didn't just change America it changed the whole world.
I hope that the legacy of 9/11/2001 is not that it was the beginning of the war on terrorism. I hope that 50 years from now people look back and see that 9/11 was what it took for people to see to it that there would never be another 9/11. Its just too bad that we had to experience 1 to make us want to avoid a second.
I don't know how to remember 9/11. I don't want it to be a sad day although it is certainly that. I think if we don't try to live our lives as close to the way they were on 9/10/2001 then the terrorists have achieved a measure of victory. They didn't just attack a random group of people, they attacked a way of life. A way of life that they do not know but that they find offensive. A sign of strength is to show that our way of life, the things that we value, the things that we do are stronger now than they were before is not what they were hoping was the outcome of their attack. Maybe we have to be a little more careful than before, maybe it takes a little longer in the airports and maybe we can't bring certain things onto airplanes. But, if we all decided to stay home and hide in fear for what could happen next, then the terrorists would have been effective in their mission. For the sake of all the lives lost 5 years ago today, we can't let that happen.
I guess those are my thoughts, recorded for all-time. I don't have much else to say about 9/11. The loss of life, the scale of the attack and its impact on the world are all such massive things to consider that I don't think I can express in words just how deep all of those things run. This is just my feeble attempt to record my thoughts from then and now on the subject.
I don't have a dramatic 9/11 story. I mean I was no where near New York, or DC, or the Pentagon and didn't know anyone that lost their life in any of the attacks.
I was a college student in my third year at Northern State University in Aberdeen South Dakota.
I was asleep when the planes hit. Looking back, when I woke up it is probably smart that I didn't turn on my television set. It was probably smart because my class attendance was going to be horrible that semester when it was all said and done and had I turned on my TV before leaving for my 9:30 class I may have never left the room.
So I walked to history class with Dr. Ric Dias oblivious that there was anything wrong on my nice sunny day in South Dakota.
That all changed when I got to class and there was scattered talk of what had happened. At this point there was more rumor than actual fact. People were saying that the State Department had been bombed. People were saying that the White House was attacked....things were all over the map.
When Dr. Dias entered the room, I began to piece things together from his account. The United States had been attacked? How? By whom? Was there more to come? I honestly don't remember a single thing we talked about that morning in our History class, I think it was my cold war class, but I took so many courses from Dias that they all run together.
After history, I still really didn't think that I knew anything but I had another class to go, Russian history. I didn't want to go to Russian history, (although I never really wanted to go to Russian history) I wanted to go back to my dorm room and watch Television to see just what had happened, how and in what order. I did hear in the discussion before my 11:00 AM Russian history class that a group had taken responsibility for the attack. I can't remember if I had heard that the towers had collapsed yet or not, but I don't think I heard that until I finally got back to my dorm room.
I shot out of Russian quicker than I had ever left a class before (including college algebra) and headed for my dorm room. I blew passed a lot of people I knew and had a brief conversation with a friend in which I told her I was going to go see what I could learn as I still didn't know anything.
I made it to my room, turned on the TV and what was the first thing I saw? I saw the famous video of people dancing in the streets over what had happened. I have been a man of anger several times in my life, a great many to my own shame and resulting in making my own life actually worse. However, it is a lucky thing for all of those dancing that I was not in charge on that day. I have never been as outraged as I was when that footage was the first thing I saw on my television.
I don't remember much of the rest of the day. I believe I pulled myself out of the daze I was in long enough to run out to Wal-mart but I have no idea what I purchased.
I don't remember anything else other than the fact that I just kept watching TV. I don't think I returned to class the rest of that week. I wanted answers and I wasn't going to get them by heading outside. I hung on every speech from the President, I hoped for any news about survivors, waited to see what we knew about who was really responsible for the attacks.
I wanted justice. I still want justice. I think that to not pursue the guilty to the bitter end would be an affront to everything that this country has stood for. Now that doesn't mean that I think that everything has been handled the right way or anything of that nature. I am simply saying that we shouldn't just give up chasing down the guilty just because it is hard to find them. I take comfort in the fact that their lives are much more difficult now because of the fact that they are essentially being hunted. If they live the rest of their lives out and its simply that their life became more difficult, then as far as I'm concerned they got off easy.
A strong desire still burns in me to hope and pray and do what ever is necessary to keep this kind of thing from happening in the future. I already remember where I was on 9/11/2001, I don't need to add another horrifying date to that list. I don't fly often, I hear that security is getting tougher all of the time, I hope to fly in the not too distant future though I do not know when that will be or even necessarily where though I do have a goal. Anyway, I would rather people say about our security, "you know they really take that too far", as opposed to "they didn't take it far enough and we learned that the hard way." If ever I think that things have gone a bit too far I think about all the people that jumped to their deaths from the upper stories of the tower because of the horror of what was inside. I think about all of the rescue workers that ran in to the building when our instincts tell us to run away. I think of all of the broken families and I think of a plane full of people that decided they weren't going to do nothing.
It is a mistake to believe that this was an American tragedy. 9/11/2001 exists on a world wide stage. People from all walks of life, all cultures, and from all over the world were in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on those flights out of Boston. 9/11/2001 didn't just change America it changed the whole world.
I hope that the legacy of 9/11/2001 is not that it was the beginning of the war on terrorism. I hope that 50 years from now people look back and see that 9/11 was what it took for people to see to it that there would never be another 9/11. Its just too bad that we had to experience 1 to make us want to avoid a second.
I don't know how to remember 9/11. I don't want it to be a sad day although it is certainly that. I think if we don't try to live our lives as close to the way they were on 9/10/2001 then the terrorists have achieved a measure of victory. They didn't just attack a random group of people, they attacked a way of life. A way of life that they do not know but that they find offensive. A sign of strength is to show that our way of life, the things that we value, the things that we do are stronger now than they were before is not what they were hoping was the outcome of their attack. Maybe we have to be a little more careful than before, maybe it takes a little longer in the airports and maybe we can't bring certain things onto airplanes. But, if we all decided to stay home and hide in fear for what could happen next, then the terrorists would have been effective in their mission. For the sake of all the lives lost 5 years ago today, we can't let that happen.
I guess those are my thoughts, recorded for all-time. I don't have much else to say about 9/11. The loss of life, the scale of the attack and its impact on the world are all such massive things to consider that I don't think I can express in words just how deep all of those things run. This is just my feeble attempt to record my thoughts from then and now on the subject.
posted by Casey Trowbridge at 9/11/2006 10:43:00 AM
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