10 years. It's been 10 years (yeah I know I'm a few days late. Shoot me.) since the attack on the twin towers. I was only in first grade, so when it first happened I was too young to understand what was going on, and the impact it would have on our country. I remember that day though. I remember the announcement coming over the P.A. system "There has been a plane flown into tower one of the World Trade Center. Teachers please do not turn on your class room TVs, if you need or want more information please come to the office. Thank you." I remember it word for word because I had no clue what was going on. My teacher stopped dead in her tracks and just started shaking. She whispered to us that we weren't going to be doing anything else for the rest of the day. She told us to find something to do quietly in the room. I remember playing with a dry erase board, passing notes with one of my friends because we didn't want to say anything. The class was silent. The rest of the day we were just silent. A few kids got called to the office, their parents came to pick them up. Our teacher sat at her desk staring at her phone, waiting for a call from a family member she had in New York. We never knew if that call came through, and if it did, what it said. I knew nobody up there. I knew nobody in Pennsylvania. I knew nobody in the Pentagon. The only people I knew, were there in that classroom with me.
Every year, when 9/11 comes back around school days start the same. The principal comes over the system, says some nice words, and we have a moment of silence at the times the towers and the Pentagon were hit. Then when we have social studies class when we talk about what happened. This year it was different. We debated who was at fault. I blamed the US. I was on my own. I totally owned them.
Why do we bring it up every year? Yes, it was horrible what happened, but it already happened. We can't go back and change it, so why bring it up? Okay, maybe it's not all that bad that we bring it up, but can we bring up the Pentagon and what happened in Pennsylvania too? Those were just as horrible. Everybody on the plane in Pennsylvania died, but that gets over looked every year. Something like 189 people died at the Pentagon, and that gets over looked too. Those families were just as devastated as the families at the WTC. Yeah more people were affected at the WTC but the other deaths were just as devastating. How can we as a nation over look those deaths and only focus on two buildings?
What happened was inevitable. It was bound to happen, we were just waiting for it. We didn't know how severe it was going to be, and we didn't know when it would happen, and who would do it, but we knew it was going to happen. Why weren't we more prepared for something like that? The number of people that died could have been lower, if our country would have listened and reacted to the threats that we got on those days.
You might be thinking I'm too young to still understand what happened. I've heard stories supporting both sides, supporting it was our fault and supporting we had no way of knowing. I've heard the news stories and I've heard the first hand accounts of the people in those buildings on that day. I have a good understanding about the way the day played out. I know enough to form my own opinion, just like everybody else out there. Call me wrong, call me right. I know what I believe and I'm not going to let people tell me I'm wrong because I don't think the way they do. I'm going to prove my point, whether or not you agree with me is up to you and I accept that.
Feel free to comment about where you stand about those things. that would be awesome. :D
until next time
tootles(:
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