Today - right now, actually - is the tenth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/2001. I was at work on a bright Tuesday morning when the first plane hit, and a coworker rushed over with the news, wondering if we could get reception on the TV we kept for students' use. You could still get analog signals then, and we were able to pull in one local news channel, even if it was a bit fuzzy. I saw the second plane hit the towers.
The city began to evacuate. Then, the reports came in about the plane that went down in Shanksville, about 90 minutes from Pittsburgh. Did it miss us? Was it aimed for the USX Tower? Mass confusion and gridlock on the streets reigned. I went to the Student Union - there was no point in trying to get out onto the streets. We waited inside, all of us wondering what would happen next. Some were scared, and others panicky, and some just went about their day, almost oblivious. I stayed on the bottom floor, underground. For the only time in my life, I felt a little like a refugee, trying to make sense of the world and what was happening, but knowing I was powerless to do anything about it right now.
It's ten years later, now. We gather together in NYC, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, PA today to remember those we lost. And it hurts. An old wound that might not ever heal re-opened. I wonder what our future holds. Will we, as we did back on December 7th, 1941, become a nation that puts aside our differences, and finally unites? It's been ten years. Those in 1941 didn't need even five years to join a war effort, and finish that war as the victors. I can see how, with our advances in medical science, in social thought, and in civil behavior, we see ourselves as having progressed. And then I see how we remain divided, and I think that perhaps for all our advancements, we've lost sight of what is important. Yes, our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers smoked, drank too much, worked too hard, punished severely, had strong gender-specific roles that we find abhorrant now. But, they were able to do what was necessary when they were pushed too far. I wonder how far we will have to be pushed to do what is necessary, and if we are lesser sons and daughters of better generations.
Thanks for reading,
The Fat Kid
1 comment:
I was a Pitt student then too. I remember walking into Burger King and there was no one in there. A Chinese student I knew walked in and I told her about school being cancelled. She said but I had class this morning. I told her about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville and what happened after. She said "what is the Pentagon?"
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