It is the Kennedy assassination of my generation: no matter who you are, you remember what you were doing when you heard the news.
For me, I was 17. I had just started my senior year of high school and was getting ready for the day when I came downstairs and heard the TV on, which was very unusual. I was about to yell up to my mom to find out why it was on, but I looked at what was being reported, and I knew without any further confirmation. I didn't know how to take it.
My first period class was AP Spanish, and I remember that not a word of Spanish was spoken that morning. We watched footage of what was unfolding. By the time I got to school, because I was in CA, the first tower had already collapsed. I think the second tower fell during that class. Very little words were exchanged as we all sat in awe. I think it was at this point that the overwhelming feeling of doom began to sit over my head. What does this all mean? What is going to happen from here? Is our world, our country, coming to an end? Even being just 17, I don't think that my sentiments were far off from what most of the rest of the nation was feeling simultaneously.
Choir was a little bit of a break from the news since we didn't have a TV in our rehearsal room. Instead, we were handed an arrangement of "God Bless America" which we had to learn in the next 24 hours because we were having an impromptu rally, and the principal had requested that our choir open it with this song. Our director kept us focused. He knew that there was tragedy among the nation, but he also knew that we had to keep going because we had been given a job to do. We perfected the 4-part harmony to that arrangement within that class period.
At lunch, I sat there with very little to say. New York was so far away, but the impact of the morning's events wasn't. I wasn't even thinking about the victims or the first responders or anyone's families, I was just trying to wrap my consciousness around the event and where we were going from there.
Ten years later, that sentiment is still there but a little more mature. I've seen airport travel change and gotten used to saying goodbye to friends and family when they drop me off rather than having them watch the plane take off. I've adjusted to the knowledge that the Patriot Act opened doors to Big Brother in ways that made 1984 look a little less science fiction. I still can't wrap my head completely around the events of that morning. The entire world changed that day, whether for the better or worse is not my place to say right now, but it undoubtably is not the same as September 10, 2001.
As I prepare to move around the world to help serve those who have served our nation and sacrificed their well-being, in part, for the redemption of those events of 10 years ago, I have a different perspective. I can more personally acknowledge the sacrifices given on that day and in the months after by those who searched for survivors and who protected the community. I respect the men and women of the U.S. military on a level that I didn't foresee being possible. I simultaneously take pride in a nation that came together so tightly following such an event but express sorrow at the divisions that it created in its wake.
Today marks an anniversary of a dark day, but it is still my hope that we, as a nation, will remember our stories and our sentiments, just as I have today, and continue to open our minds and our hearts with the purpose of allowing this great nation to stand united, just like we did 10 years ago. This day is in our hearts, and so it will never be forgotten.
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