My Experience on September 11, 2001
On the morning of September 11,
2001, three days before my eighth birthday, I sat in my second grade classroom
just like every other morning. Several
students’ parents came to pick them up early, but this was not that
unusual. I just assumed they had
doctors’ appointments to be at or something.
It was not until I was picked up from school that I realized something
was wrong. When I got in to car, my mom
was listening to the news instead of music on the radio. She seemed quite upset and angry for no
reason that was apparent to me. We then
took my younger sister to her art class where only two people showed up. I thought this was extremely odd, but I still
did not understand what was going on. I also
remember my dad talking later at home about how he had been listening to the
radio when the reporters still thought this was an accident, before the second
plane crashed and they realized it was a coordinated attack, but I was too
young to understand what that meant.
It
was not until years later that I was old enough to fully understand what
happened that day and could comprehend the magnitude of the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. As an eight year old, I was too
young to understand why everyone was angry and I was not old enough to have
anyone explain to me what had happened.
However, I still believe it is important for me to remember where I was
that day and how I found out about these horrible occurrences. The events of that day had a huge impact on
the world and have affected my life in many tangible ways. I have heard countless stories of people who
lost loved ones or were in New York on 9/11.
Having no significant personal connection to the event, I feel that it
is the least I can do to always remember where I was when it happened and how I
felt about it that day. The events of
September 11, 2001 will forever be remembered by people throughout the world
both as a day of tragedy and a day of American solidarity. It is my goal, by remembering my experience
on the day of the attacks, to always remember how our country stood together as
one and never let the people who were lost be forgotten.
I had the same reaction on that day. On that day, I was celebrating my fifth birthday. I was putting on my pants to get ready for school when it was blowing up on the news. Of course my parents understood what was going on, but I never really grasped the extremity of the situation. When I was at school, the teachers stopped class and instead had the news on. The whole time I was thinking to myself that this is awesome that we aren't doing any school work that day. However as I got older, I too reached the point where I grasped the extremity of the situation. I feel that by remembering this disaster, we honor and give respect to those who died during this dark day. It's crazy that sometimes humans need a dark and painful event to occur in order for unification to occur.
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