Writer's Block: 9/11
Thursday, 11 September 2008 10:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
preussisch_blau[Error: unknown template qotd]
I was at school. 8th grade, I think. I'm not too sure, I've never been good with years. The only thing I really remember beyond it being a normal schoolday until we got the announcement of the plane hitting the first tower was watching the news until lunch and nearly punching a girl that afternoon in music class for making all these horrid, morbid jokes about the people who were dead and dying while one of my friends was slowly curling into a ball and sobbing because her mother, aunt, and some cousins worked in the towers and she had no way of knowing if they were even alive and that girl wouldn't shut up even after she asked her to stop because of that. She didn't find out until the end of the week that a cousin had died but everyone else was okay.
Past that, I'd be lying if I said they held any deep meaning for me. Yeah, it royally sucked that it happened, but, barring the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, it wasn't really my home and my territory. Maybe that makes me callous and cold, but those attacks are just never going to affect me the way they did someone who lost family, friends, or that childhood innocence that their home turf is safe from all harm. I didn't walk past the towers almost daily. I've only ever been to NYC twice. Once just three months before the attacks. That was the only time I ever saw the World Trade Center complex in person, the silhouette of the towers rising against the skyline in the sunrise.
I was honestly more upset about the plane crash in Pennsylvania because hey, if those passengers had waited just a few more minutes to make their move, then that plane could have ended up in MY back yard. Shanksville is just three hours due west from the town I used to live in, so it's VERY conceivable that United 93 might have crashed near my home. I had nightmares about that until Mum and Dad finally just stopped watching telly while I was awake until the programming returned to normal.
However, there's just a disconnect now. I understand the tragedy, but I can't sympathise with the people who actually suffered and lost people and that priceless intangible of security because the attack just didn't affect me personally.
If anyone who was so affected wishes to talk, I'll listen. I can't guarantee any more than just a ready ear, but I will give that much.
Edit: By the way, I'm sick of all the Pearl Harbour comparisons. Enough already, damnit. Pearl Harbour was an attack by a nation at war with our allies on a military installation that annihilated the Pacific Fleet, leaving military forces out in the Pacific stranded for slaughter with no reinforcement, which launched us into World War II because it prompted Germany to declare war on us. Pearl Harbour was not a terrorist attack, it was a tactical military strike on a military target.
Pearl Harbour =/= WTC and Pentagon
I was at school. 8th grade, I think. I'm not too sure, I've never been good with years. The only thing I really remember beyond it being a normal schoolday until we got the announcement of the plane hitting the first tower was watching the news until lunch and nearly punching a girl that afternoon in music class for making all these horrid, morbid jokes about the people who were dead and dying while one of my friends was slowly curling into a ball and sobbing because her mother, aunt, and some cousins worked in the towers and she had no way of knowing if they were even alive and that girl wouldn't shut up even after she asked her to stop because of that. She didn't find out until the end of the week that a cousin had died but everyone else was okay.
Past that, I'd be lying if I said they held any deep meaning for me. Yeah, it royally sucked that it happened, but, barring the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, it wasn't really my home and my territory. Maybe that makes me callous and cold, but those attacks are just never going to affect me the way they did someone who lost family, friends, or that childhood innocence that their home turf is safe from all harm. I didn't walk past the towers almost daily. I've only ever been to NYC twice. Once just three months before the attacks. That was the only time I ever saw the World Trade Center complex in person, the silhouette of the towers rising against the skyline in the sunrise.
I was honestly more upset about the plane crash in Pennsylvania because hey, if those passengers had waited just a few more minutes to make their move, then that plane could have ended up in MY back yard. Shanksville is just three hours due west from the town I used to live in, so it's VERY conceivable that United 93 might have crashed near my home. I had nightmares about that until Mum and Dad finally just stopped watching telly while I was awake until the programming returned to normal.
However, there's just a disconnect now. I understand the tragedy, but I can't sympathise with the people who actually suffered and lost people and that priceless intangible of security because the attack just didn't affect me personally.
If anyone who was so affected wishes to talk, I'll listen. I can't guarantee any more than just a ready ear, but I will give that much.
Edit: By the way, I'm sick of all the Pearl Harbour comparisons. Enough already, damnit. Pearl Harbour was an attack by a nation at war with our allies on a military installation that annihilated the Pacific Fleet, leaving military forces out in the Pacific stranded for slaughter with no reinforcement, which launched us into World War II because it prompted Germany to declare war on us. Pearl Harbour was not a terrorist attack, it was a tactical military strike on a military target.
Pearl Harbour =/= WTC and Pentagon
