September 11: The Day I Lost My innocence

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The the morning of September 11th, 2001 found me in my math class. While the morning had begun much like any other, it soon took a terrible turn with the news of the terrorist attacks. The world forever changed that day; as well as my view of the world. Until then Terrorism had been some abstract concept that never really affected my life. I would never forget the events of that morning.

The first sign that something was out of the ordinary was the head of a teacher, which popped in to our classroom and told our teacher to turn on the news, then hurriedly left without explanation. Our teacher complied with this mysterious request and switched on the TV. The class watched intently, curious about what was at the root of this request. The picture that developed on the screen was one that will stay with all of us forever. There was a skyscraper, the name unknown to me at the time, with smoke bleeding out of it. After a few minutes we learned it was the World Trade Center in New York, and that a plane had flown into it.

At this point no one knew why the plane had flown into the tower. I remember being pretty sure it must have been an accident. There was no reason in particular for my naïve confidence about this, just a refusal to accept that it could have been intentional. Soon though, as we watched the first tower burn, the second plane flew into the second tower. In the classroom, people were unsure of what we just saw. No footage of the first plane had been shown on the air yet, so this was the first time we saw either plane crash into one of the towers. At first it seemed perhaps the news found footage of the first plane crashing. That illusion didn't last long though; the news reporter made it clear we just sa...

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... would collapse. I was hopeful it would somehow remain standing. It had been burning longer than the second tower and hadn't fallen yet. Perhaps the damage was different; maybe the second tower was a freak accident. Soon though, the first tower fell as well. With the collapse of the first tower the main events of the day came to an end as well.

The rest of the day was spent wondering what all this would mean. Would we be going to war? Were we already at war with someone? Would there be more attacks tomorrow? The events were too much to absorb during one day. They needed several days to realize the full scope of what had happened. The following weeks were filled with inescapable images of the smoldering carnage. The emptiness created that day was more than just the absence of the Twin Towers. It was the loss of our blissful ignorance about the world.

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