Twenty years. I will, at least as long as I have all of my mental faculties, remember September 11, 2001, for the rest of my life. Over the course of time, some of the finer details of the day have slipped from my memory, but I remember I had just started my third year of law school. The prior summer had been particularly shitty for me as my first love broke my heart and I was glad to be getting back into a "normal" routine. I lived fairly close to my law school and would walk to class every day. On Tuesday mornings I had an 8 am class, so I would usually get up at about 7AM central time, take a shower, watch TV or listen to the radio for a bit, then walk to class. That day I was running late so I never did end up watching TV in the morning. And, this was long before smartphones that gave instant news alerts existed, so I had no idea what was going on that morning until I got into class and someone who had driven to school mentioned something about a bombing on the east coast. Of course, everything had just started to happen out east, so nobody really knew what was going on. The one thing I distinctly remember is that when I walked in the front door of the law school, I noticed a lot of people looking at the monitor that displayed school announcements. There was rarely anything important on them and I did not even bother to look at the screen, but I made a mental note to myself to check them out after class.
My professor ended up ending class early, I think about 20 minutes into the normally hour and fifteen-minute class. Since I did not have class again until afternoon, I was going to walk back home, and this time did look at the monitor in the hallway and saw both of the Twin Towers on fire. I did not even have to read the crawl on the screen to know it was terrorism. I quickly got back home and turned on the TV and watched for hours until finally meeting my mom for dinner later that night. I started watching the coverage right about the time the Pentagon was hit and was still trying to figure out what was going on from the coverage. I remember one of the anchors on whatever network I was watching saying something along the lines of approximately 50,000 people could be in the world trade center complex on any given day. It was not long after that the first tower fell, and I remember thinking to myself how many people did I just watch die on live TV? Since I really was still trying to put together when this all started I had no idea if people had yet been evacuated. Then, of course, everything went from bad to worse as the second tower fell, the side of the Pentagon collapsed, and we learned that another plane had crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
I am one who watches the 9/11 documentaries almost every year because I want to remember that day and the people who lost their lives, especially those who did so trying to save others. It saddens me to think that we are a more divided nation now than we were back then, and if a similar attack were to happen in 2021, the country would not come close to the unity that we had on September 12, 2001. While I was never in any danger that day watching everything play out from my living room and thankfully did not know anyone personally who died or had loved ones die that day, the stories of the people in the buildings and on the planes always gets to me, even two decades later. I am always especially touched by the story of the passengers on flight 93, who found out what was really happening with the hijacked planes and made a stand against the hijackers knowing that it would likely cost them their lives. I hope to never be in a position to have to make a decision like that but also hope that if I am I would be able to do the same kind of thing that they did.
So, this day, like every anniversary of 9/11 my heart goes out to the people who lost their lives and to the loved ones they left behind. Never forget.
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