I was officially in the Leadership class my senior year, which convened at 7am, an hour earlier than most classes. That meant I had to leave for school by 6:30 in the morning, which is hard to imagine now. I usually listened to the radio on the way to school, but happened to turn it off as soon as I turned on the van one morning, going to school in silence, oblivious to the world at large. When I got to school, I saw two teachers in the hallway crying, which is always unsettling. My first assumption was that one of the students must have died in an accident or something, since that was the only other time I had encountered a scene like that. Another teacher poked her head into the hallway and shared an update, "They hit the Pentagon as well, and one of the towers just fell."
That was a pretty shocking way to be introduced to the events of September 11th, which were actually drawing to a close by that point, due to the time zone difference. Not that there is a good way to be introduced to something like that, but my imagination always assumes the worst when I hear fragments of detail. I took a minute or two to confirm what was going on before darting into the multimedia lab to borrow a phone, and call my Dad who was still fast asleep. "Hey, you might want to go turn on the TV," was all I could really tell him. We didn't do much in the way of school work that day, mostly just watched TV for the updates as things progressed. One of the first things that my friends and I discussed was how similar it was to the storyline of Tom Clancy's book "Debt of Honor," which ends with a 747 hitting the US Capitol building. The possibility of other events from his books coming to pass was too much to think about.
I didn't find out until much later that the plane in PA crashed only a mile away from my Great Aunt and Uncle's house. That one, Flight 93, had the most interesting story, as it involved resistance and heroism. The passengers on that flight did not sit idly by, but took initiative and acted in the face of death. They were unable to save themselves, but they clearly saved the lives of many potential victims on the ground, and gave Americans the closest thing to a victory that they would see that day. Or they saved someone from having to shoot that plane down, and while the outcome would have been the same, the resulting fallout would not. The unique thing about Flight 93 was that it involved "normal people" who were just going about their business, trying to get to California that morning, but never made it. I have been in that position many times myself. They never suspected when they arrived at the airport that morning, that they would find themselves in such a difficult position. Nor would they have imagined that their flight being delayed by twenty minutes would have such an effect on their destination. And I wonder if they would have believed, if asked ahead of time, that they would have the courage to confront that situation head on, when it arose. Nor would they expect to be banding together as a team, with a group of total strangers, engaging an unknown foe, in the gravest of situations.
Today marks the eleventh anniversary of that tragic series of attacks, and I was at both the Memorial at the World Trade Center and one in a Pennsylvania field last week, so it has been on my mind of late. As I left the Flight 93 memorial, a tour bus full of elderly couples pulled up, and they were getting off. Most of the museums and memorials I go to are for events long past, most frequently WWII, due to my grandparent's involvement. In those places, the older people around have the perspective of remembering the events in question, as opposed to just reading about them like I do. In this case, this event belongs to my generation, and they would be as well served to ask me what it was like. My class was the first to graduate after that event, and those from it who joined the military, did so knowing that they would see actual combat. They were the ones who were just finishing training and entering active duty when we invaded Iraq 18 months later. It was probably the most significant individual historical event of my life up to this point, and I tremble to imagine the possibility of it being surpassed in the future.
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