Originally written September 11, 2006
It has been five years since that day then. That morning began just as the last year and a half had begun, in that small basement apartment in Lawrence. In the third week of my junior year of college, my life had begun anew. Gone were the days of old, and for the first time it dawned upon me that it was time to move on to what things may come if I just opened my eyes and accepted what I was capable of.
In that basement apartment. I woke to the sounds of Rush playing on the classic rock station. I made my way to the kitchen and put two breakfast strudels in the toaster. Popped open a pepsi and turned on fox news. The same routine I had followed every day for months on end. Because of how apartment was located, I would get some direct sun light through one of the windows early in the morning, and I remember just the slightest glare on the television as I turned it on. I sat at my computer and checked my email, maybe the fantasy baseball league as well. That is when I started listening to the news, hearing the words attack, terrorist, world trade center.
At first I just did not know what to think. Several weeks before, I had awoken in the same fashion to a news report that a skydiver had landed on the statue of liberty. My first thought was something stupid like that. Only the south tower had been hit at that point. The reporters weren’t sure what had happen, only that a plane had hit, and no one knew whether it was an accident or a terrorist. I took my breakfast from the desk into the front room, sat on the couch. And there it was, live on television, the second plane flying right into the north tower. As if you’re watching a movie, from one side of the screen to the other, without any warning, a plane, a building, the explosion. Instead of leaning forward at the edge of my seat, I just sat back with my arms behind my head, shocked. I remember the reporters went silent and there was nothing they could say to make sense of what everyone had just seen. When they came back, they finally said what must have been on the minds of so many people, these were attacks and not accidents, that America was under attack.
I left my apartment and went to my early morning class. In all of college, I only had one class that began before eight a.m., and that was this morning’s international politics course. Class began just as normal, and it was obvious the professor had not heard what was going on. After a few minutes a teaching assistant came out from the back room and whispered in his ear, and the professor excused himself. When he came back he canceled class and told everyone to go home and turn on the news.
It was just past 8am when I got back to the apartment. I’ll never forget that moment, as I rushed to remote and turned on the television. I stood there, backpack on, little bit of sunlight still shining in on my right, reflecting off that screen as I watched the south tower fall. As floor collapsed upon floor, as the smoke and dust shot off into the air, as the screams of the reporters crying out fell deaf in Kansas, I fell to my knees in tears. I couldn’t think. There was nothing I could say, nothing I could do. I just knew there were thousands of people dead. Thousands of lives, people, going about their morning routines, doing what they always did. Gone. Just like that, nothing left of them, nothing left of the tower.
Maybe an hour later I was sitting there at my computer, trying to find out anything else I wasn’t seeing on the news. That’s when Jen came online not knowing anything of what had happened, and I told her to turn on the news right now. There wasn’t much to say at that point.
After the second tower fell, the Pentagon, the field in Pennsylvania, I felt nothing, just numb watching these events unfold. Every 9/11 since I’ve watched whatever documentary had made in the prior year, and this year was no different. At school today, all of these Chinese kids, adults, our age, they would ask me about 9/11, what it was like, what I had felt. And it was tough to explain to them, both because the people here have a very limited grasp on English, and the fact I can’t put it into words. Every time I see those pictures, every time I watch the day unfold, listen to stories and recounts of what happened, I fall to my knees and weep for those souls just as I did that day in that little basement apartment, sun stretched before me.
I hate them. Those responsible, their allies, their supporters, their believers. I don’t hate them like I toss around the term as I refer to white sox fans or feminists. I wish nothing less than a drawn out, terribly painful death upon them. Maybe they think the same of us, that the world would be a better place without the United States setting the gold standard of the civilized world. I don’t care what those barbarians think. My sister Kasey is Army. My closest friend and brother in arms Peter Sweers is Air Force. My boys from the college republicans, Josh and Zack, are marines in Iraq today. My cousin Lynn is a border guard in Detroit. Crystal is Army. Kelli’s dad and brother-in-law, Army. Mandy’s husband, Nicole, Jimmy McGhee. These are my heroes, these are the people that make a difference in my world.
Until that day then, we shall never forget, we shall never forgive.
No comments:
Post a Comment