Then Years Later…
by My thoughts on 9/11 ten years after the fact, including two poems I wrote after the attacks in 2001.
Where were you on 9/11 when you heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center?
It was just 12 days before my fifteenth birthday. I was sitting in a computer programming class checking my email and preparing my mind for the coming day. I had a Geometry test that day, and I was not looking forward to it at all. I don’t even think I had studied for it. My teacher rushed into the classroom, having been across the hall talking to another teacher, turned on the TV and said, “We’re being attacked!”
I looked up at the screen in time to see the first tower fall. Not long after that, the second tower fell. I nearly threw up.
The rest of that day was spent watching CNN and discussing what this would mean for our country and the world as we knew it. Except in Geometry. My Geometry teacher was one of those math nerds that would keep doing math even if the world around them were falling apart. So he expected nothing less out of us. Jerk.
For weeks upon weeks after the attacks, I was completely emotionally drained. I hadn’t lost any family that I knew of in the actual attacks, but the vast majority of my extended family were, and are, in the military in one capacity or another. It got to a point that my choir director had to actually pull me aside and ask if I was going to be okay. I felt like it was my job to help carry the burden that came with the world’s sorrow as a result of the attacks.
Ten years later, I am 12 days away from turning 25. I am no less proud to call myself an American as I was 10 years ago. We’re not the most perfect country in the world, but I wouldn’t be from anywhere else. I have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the freedom to pursue any career I wish to pursue. Do I think Bush was a great president because he steered us through a dark time in our country’s history? No. Do I think Obama is a terrible president because of his “radically liberal and borderline socialist policies”? No. Where do I stand politically? You may well ask. I stand for the idea of a government by the people, for the people, and of the people. I stand for a country that lets its citizens express their viewpoints in as peaceful a way as possible. Was there a time when I was disillusioned by my country? Absolutely. Are there still moments of disillusionment? Absolutely. But as I said before: I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m proud to be an American. And being proud to be an American doesn’t necessarily mean standing by every decision the government makes, but rather standing by everything this country was founded on: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. God bless America!
Liked it
