Reflections on 9/11

I remember talking to a friend of mine one day about a writing contest. This contest had the prompt of writing about America’s heroes. While I don’t remember the exact name of it, I remember that a young girl had won the contest. She hadn’t written about Iron Man, or the X-Men, or Spider-man. She wrote about the men and women that give their lives daily, so that we can have the freedoms that we have today.

I have been thinking about that contest and that essay a lot during the past few days. I’ve also been thinking about where I was when 9/11 happened. I was 7, living in a small town at the time. My grandmother had turned on the TV, and she was watching the coverage. I remembered seeing the Towers burn, which they were now I don’t remember. My mother came in a few minutes later and dragged me out. She didn’t want me to see it and get scared.

We’ve kind of kept quiet about it since then. Not in a disrespecting sort of way, we just never really spoke of it. We watched the news and programs when the time came around, such as today, but I guess, in a way, I never fully understood the impact of it. My mom didn’t watch it, since I was homeschooled as a child and was never out of the house. Today, we both got a rather large dose of the reality of what happened.

Since this morning, we’ve both been watching the coverage of what happened on 9/11, what they always showed. Today was different though. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Flight 93 plane that crashed down in Shanksville. It being the 10th anniversary, they showed live accounts of survivors of the attack. They showed firefighters that were there, survivors of the Tower attacks, and relatives of loved ones that died, such as those on Flight 93.

It was profound. I still feel heaviness on my chest, even if I wasn’t directly involved. I could see their pain and the suffering. I could also see how grateful the survivors were to the countless firefighters that gave their lives to save them.

I knew what that little girl had meant then, who had won that contest. The heroes of America shouldn’t be cartoon characters, or even the characters we see in movies. They should be the men and women who give all that they have, and more, to ensure our safety. I’m not just talking about the people that died 10 years ago, I’m also talking about the people that die in the army, in the navy, even our own police forces. We should give thanks to them as well, because no one asked them to sacrifice, they do it willingly, and people don’t always remember that.

I don’t have a strong view of America; I have become jaded and don’t believe that we are as great as we view ourselves. But, as I was watching how people responded on 9/11, so selfless and brave, it helped to reinforce my hope that we, as a nation, are strong. People have called 9/11 the “Pearl Harbor of our generation.” I suppose in a way, it was our Pearl Harbor. But I can say with pride, that I am happy with how we handled the collapse of the Towers. We faced that day with as much courage as Japan did when the earthquake and tsunami hit the Eastern side of Japan.

I know that it probably doesn’t seem like much, all this self-reflection coming from an 17 year old girl, but I wanted to let those that died, and those still living, know that I share your pain. This day is not only important to America, but to the families that lost their loved ones in the attack. I’m not just talking about the Americans that lost their lives, but also to people in other nations. There were Fuji Bank employees in the Towers as well. 23 of them died, and some were Japanese. The world shares the pain and heartache that the families of 9/11 have endured, and continues to do so.

09//11/2001: United we stand. Forever will we remember.