Beep...beep...beep
My alarm sounded, just as it had every morning. I got out of bed, went into the bathroom. Shower, brush teeth, get dressed. Just like every morning. I had breakfast, packed my bag, get ready to catch the bus, just like every morning.
I hopped on the bus, stared out the window. Great day for this sixth grade kid.
Get to school, go to my room. Sit through English, sit through Science, through French. We go to lunch, everyone is talking about something different.
"Bradd, did you hear that the white house exploded, the president is dead or missing!"
"Oh man Bradd, the statue of liberty got bombed!"
"We were in our room watching the Pentagon burning, the entire thing was up in flames, you could hardly even see it anymore, then the principal came in and turned it off."
Our school kept us in the dark about it. Everyone knew SOMETHING was up, but what? Our teachers wouldn't tell us, they weren't allowed to. It's 5-8 grade at this school, and all of us were clueless. All we were sure of was something was happening to our country.
I sit through the rest of the day, it was pretty unproductive. All we wanted to know what was going on, but we weren't mature enough for it yet, or so the school department said. Finally, when I boarded the bus, I knew what had happened.
The driver, who I had known since I was about five years old, (bear in mind this is a town with around 7,000 people, we all know each other.) announces that our nation had been attacked. No, the President isn't dead. Yes, the Pentagon had gotten attacked, but wasn't completely blown up. The World Trade Center had been attacked and now was completely destroyed.
Now, call me stupid if you want, but I had no clue what the World Trade Center was. I knew it by the name of The Twin Towers, luckily someone else on the bus that knew them by both names informed me of what they were. Traveling with my dad, I had plenty of chances to see them, go in them, check them out, and had frequently. Now they're gone? It didn't really register with me.
I got home and saw it for the first time. They had flown planes into them? The Pentagon as well? And to see the heroism of those on Flight 93, who knew their lives were over, and decided to save countless more, it all brought tears to my eyes. Seeing people leaping from the burning towers, seeing the towers fall with our brothers and sister inside. Seeing the towers collapse, and knowing those brave firefighters, those brave officers, had gone into the burning buildings with no regard for the safety of themselves, and had died doing what they do, saving countless others.
Then the death toll rolled in. How many?
Thousands?. Yet again, I was young. The numbers didn't mean as much to me then as they mean to me now, and even though they are lower, 2,975 American lives lost are 2,975 too many.*
I will never forget where I was on this day. I will never forget exactly what I was doing, and never forget the feeling of realizing that I had just seen the worse attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
Please, do not bash the war here. Do not bash the Islamic faith. Do not mock the deaths of Americans. No, instead, let us all simply remember. Remember the day when we were attacked, sucker punched from behind, and vow to never forget this day.
Always remember 9/11.
[*Death count was officially, 2,993 but I subtracted the 19 terrorists.]
