9/11 in the Eyes of a Six Year Old

I woke up, ate breakfast and went to school. All through the day it seemed like an ordinary day of first grade. I got home, and my dad started telling my brother (who was in fourth grade) that the World Trade Center had fallen down. I had no idea what this meant. Everybody was watching the news, so I figured I’d join them. I saw a burning building, and people running around panicking. At this point I figured that it must be something important, because of all the people. But I still had no idea what this “World Trade Center” was. I kept watching for about half an hour, listening to all the different news reports about what had happened. What I had figured out was that a plane had been taken over and flown directly into a huge building in New York City. I was still confused. “What kind of idiot steals a plane and flies it into a building?”, I thought.

And then it happened. A loud boom, and more screaming. I remember the camera shooting up and showing a huge explosion at the top of another sky scraper. The camera man started to run from a huge cloud of dust that was envoloping the streets. At this point I will admit that I was scared. I had no idea how far away from my house New York City was and I started thinking that it might happen around here.

On another channel, the cameraman was showing what would later be called “Ground Zero”. I watched for a couple moments, and was awestruck as the south tower began to completely collapse down ward, creating a huge cloud of smoke. A little while later, the north tower also fell.

Later in the day I found out that some sort of pentagon had also been hit by a plane, and that yet another plane had crashed on a beach somewhere near Washington D.C.

We had no school the next day, but when we went back our principle gathered our entire school in the auditorium. He explained to us what happened, who did it, and why. He told us about the terrorists (or “terrists” as they would later be called), and about how they hi-jacked a plane with the intention of destroying Americans patriotism.

Today I realize that they did the opposite. After 9/11, America has become stronger and more united. Everywehre you go, you feel a stronger sense of patriotism.