Obligatory September 11th Entry

I’ve been puzzling about what to write here for the last few days. And then I was going back through my old entries and wondered if I should write about it at all. What can I say now that I haven’t already said?

It was a Tuesday. When it happened I was in a 3-hour biology lab. I couldn’t tell you what exactly we were doing, but it couldn’t have been too involved, since it was probably only our second or third lab of the year. The lab ran from 8-11 AM and if we didn’t get out a few minutes early, I always had to haul ass to make it to my 11 AM Animal Science class. I don’t remember running that day and most of the class was still milling about and just sitting down when I got there. It was a big lecture hall and the news was playing on the projection screen. We all just sort of sat and watched, taking it all in. I don’t know if we actually had a class, but I definitely don’t remember going to any of my other classes that day. Of course, I don’t remember at this point what those classes were.

I’m more aware of the other things that happened to me that fall. I had had a really terrible experience at UConn so far, but the night before I had moved in with Mary. In the process I had broken my computer and my dad had come up that morning to help. We ended up just getting a new one because I couldn’t be without one for as long as it would take to fix it and the old one went to my dad when it finally did get fixed. So for me, September 11th marks the start of a pretty good time in my life. I’d been virtually alone for the previous two weeks and Mary and I got along great. I suppose it was also the beginning of the end with Dave. I must have realized it even then, because I commented how dependent I was on him and how awful he made me feel. Why I didn’t break up with him right then, I’ll never know. I should have and saved myself the drama.

I don’t remember crying. I don’t remember anyone else crying. I don’t remember being frightened either, or wondering if this was the start of a larger attack. Even then I said to myself that people who are attacking with hijacked planes have a fairly limited window of opportunity. And it was true. The country stopped flying within moments.

I remember wondering if my friends from home had parents who worked in the city and if they were all right. I remember wondering if you could see the smoke from Norwalk. But I don’t remember checking in with those people at UConn that I’d gone to high school with. It was like the world shrank to encompass only our building, our floor.

I remember being angry. Not at the terrorists, but at my own country. I despised every newscaster who called people "heroes" when all they had done was die tragically, simply because they went to work at their banks and the law firms. I hated George W. Bush for that blank look when he was told of the attacks. I hate him even more now for the interview he did on the National Geographic Channel. He’s had ten years to make himself look good and think of excuses for his paltry response. I loathed everyone who said "If you let this change your life, the terrorists win."

Even thinking about it now I get angry. Angry that we’re not more grateful. They targeted the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Forgive me for saying so, but those are really obvious symbols of American business and government, don’t you think? People in Europe deal with bombings in city streets, in train stations… the places that regular people go every single day. If you want to cause terror, start bombing random McDonald’s restaurants right around lunch time. It wasn’t even the first time terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center. Before 9/11, "World Trade Center Attack" referred to my 11th birthday. 

I wish I could say that something genuinely positive came out of the attacks, that we learned something from it somehow. But after 10 years, I don’t think we have. We haven’t even managed to take care of the people who risked their lives, unasked, to help in the rescue effort. We let them languish with lung disease, cancer… unable to work anymore, dying because their fellow Americans won’t help them.  Even the "patriotism" that resulted, the continual wearing to stupid little American flag lapel pins… it’s all so hollow and shabby. In moments it was turned to propaganda. If you opposed the bombing of a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, you were on the side of the terrorists.

We gave up our rights and our freedoms with both hands. I’m sorry, but I think that in a lot of ways, the terrorists have won.

~Liz

I’m going to share a video. Yes, it’s country music, but I think it means a lot more than any of other songs that came out of that time. It’s not patriotic. It’s not religious… or at least not obnoxiously so. It’s the kind of Christianity that doesn’t claim vengeance is the be all, end all of religion. It’s what we should have all done when it happened – turned to one another for comfort and strength – and sadly that’s not what we’ve done since.