Vintage

Five Years

I was sitting in my second class of the day, WAHG II with Beddall, when one of the other teachers opened the door and interruped the class with “a plane just hit the Trade Center!” That, of course, is one plane. The first. And none of us knew what to think–why would a plane hit the World Trade Center? Why was it flying so low? What happened to air traffic control? We sat there for a moment completely bewildered that such a thing had happened and a low roar of discussion could be heard.

We were dismissed from class early that day and we flocked to CNN’s live coverage. We weren’t in front of the television for more than ten minutes when the second plane hit. Unexpectedly. A reporter was talking to the cameras in front of the trade center. Behind her, a second plane. She ducked. There was a boom. The room got dead quiet. We didn’t know even what to think at this point–all we did know was that this was intentional. This was an attack. We were being attacked on our own soil. Innocents.

There were two planes in New York. One plane in Washington. One plane in Pennsylvania. We were surrounded by attacks, by terror, by fundamental challenges to our understanding of America. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the towers soon collapsed. I have never heard a more communal gasp in my life.

It was a quiet, quiet day. All people could do was watch, think, and pray that everyone they knew was safe. Speaking came second to comprehending the magnitude of the event. I remember all of us trying to act normal–like we weren’t truly scared, that we would get over this, that we could take it in stride. Truth be told, we were scared–as scared as we’d ever been. We didn’t know if we’d wake up to our own country the next morning. We didn’t know what was next–were we next?

It took a few days for America to talk again, but when we did, we became a country that was united without precedent. Party lines, racial divides, cultural differences, completely erased. We realized that this was an attack on all of us, regardless of our differences. This was an attack on an ideal–the American ideal. Freedom, liberty, justice–those were under attack. Those were shared values and so we shared resolve–the resolve to hunt and find the terrorists. The resolve to overcome, rebuild, and flip a big middle finger eastward.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I think it’s impossible to forget something that changes your entire world view. I remember every minute, every emotion. And truly, I remember being more scared at this faceless enemy than at any other thing in my life. This was my country, these were my friends, these were my fellow Americans under attack for merely being citizens. We were all the same–and we were all equally vulnerable.

That’s where I was, that’s what I remember.