“There are no words.”
This is how former CNN anchor Aaron Brown described the events that took place on Sept. 11, 2001, just five short years ago today. As a country, we owe it to the 2,819 people that died and the 115 countries that lost at least one citizen on that horrific day not to forget, but rather remember and revisit what transpired that tragic Tuesday morning.
If you were like me, Sept. 11 started out like any other normal day. Little did I know that as I was leaving for school at 7:59 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 left Boston’s Logan International Airport taking off for a destination that only five of its passengers actually knew. It was not until 8:45 a.m. that America and the rest of the world would know what 19 terrorists had planned for New York and Washington, D.C., for it was at this moment that Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. .”Complete and utter disbelief” was how Leslie Resnick, a senior in business management, described her emotions during the event. This was not an uncommon emotion felt by Americans.
Personally, I did not know what to think or what to feel. Like others, all I wanted to know was who was behind this apparent attack on America. “I wanted to kick their ass, the news was fueling my anger,” Zach Brecheisen, a senior in construction engineering and management, said of Sept. 11.
It wasn’t until 10:05 a.m. that the world saw the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapse like a “house built of cards” as one New Yorker said in an interview on CNN. Seeing this, we witnessed the frightening emergence of America’s most deadly and determined enemy. Hearing the screams from people I realized that this was not just about buildings anymore, but rather people. Like countless other Americans this was the first attack on American soil that I had ever witnessed firsthand.
It was such a surreal feeling that as civil engineering sophomore Eric Stover put it, “it didn’t really sink into my mind for almost two days.” Like Eric, I was struggling to make sense of the events that were going on all over our country as I watched the second tower come falling down only 24 minutes later.
In between the crumpling of the two towers in New York there was a brave group of people that were aboard another hijacked airplane, United Flight 93. Much like the democracy America enjoys, the people on Flight 93 operated under the same principal when they made the most important vote of their lives. According to one phone call, they voted on whether to rush the terrorists and attempt to retake the plane. Yes, in the midst of the hell that they were experiencing they did something that most Americans don’t do — they voted.
At 9:57 a.m. the first battle in the War on Terrorism began as the passengers of Flight 93 launched their assault to take back the plane. As the passengers rushed to the front of the plane, the terrorist hijackers attempted to barricade themselves in the cockpit. After several tries at gaining access into the cockpit one passenger said “Roll it” as the door finally opened. A few minutes later the passengers defeated the terrorists and at 10:03 a.m. the plane slammed into an empty field in Shanksville, Penn.
Many have said that this single act was the first victory in the War on Terrorism, a thought that I could not agree with more.
If you are like me those images and sounds seem more like last week than five years ago. It is imperative that as a country we do not let our guard down. Through the policies that have been put in place in the past five years we are a much safer country since 9/11, but we are not completely safe. With the new policies and with the assistance of our allies we have successfully foiled terror attempts here in America and abroad.
It is our duty to never forget what took place. In one of his statements that day, President Bush said, “None of us will forget this day.”
I for one will hold true to that statement.
Sept. 11, never forget.
E-mail Matt at [email protected].