They say.. every person literally remembers what they were doing at that moment the terrorists struck and took down the twin towers, hundreds of lives lost and with that the innocence and naivety of the world was taken away.
I remember I was watching tv at the time, and then all of a sudden the news was broadcasting, I couldn’t believe my eyes. At first I seriously thought the tv was broken.
I remember watching in disbelief like many millions across the world who witnessed the second plane crashing into the towers.
I also remember a few days prior to this event, in our religious education class we had started watching “On the beach” which is an apocalyptic movie. Basically the world had died or was dying and the ONLY current surviving humans happened to live in Melbourne after some nuclears bombs had been detonated.
I remember all of us watching this film thought this was extremely far fetched considering we were a generation of kids who lived in peace times. There were no nuclear threats, no terrorism, nothing to fear…
And then September 11 happened.
I remember clearly watching the ending of the movie after the Sept 11 attacks (because we only obviously watched 1/2 way through prior) and almost cried, other students did cry, traumatized at what had happened with September 11… and what we had dismissed as potentially NEVER EVER could happen in a million years… well frankly after September 11 event, basically everything was up in the air.
Looking back now, I feel sorry for the religious education teacher who had to go through with showing us the movie. I think in normal circumstances, most students watching this (as part of the normal curriculum) would have easily dismissed it, had a normal class discussion on whether or not the end of the world was possible and write a discussion paper.
Instead, this teacher now had to deal with wailing kids freaked out to the core that potentially their lives were at stake.
There were a lot of questions asked, none of whom the teacher had answers for…
but it was and still is an experience I’d always will remember.
Personally for me, I avoid watching the Sept 11 memorial/documentaries because it makes me sad that we lost so many innocent people who were just going about their normal daily lives (you know like work), but also angry because there are people out there as callous and EVIL enough to want to hurt so many people.
But even if I avoid watching these things, it doesn’t mean I forget or that I dismiss these shows/documentaries. These things have their place and there are obviously people who want to watch this to remember. We can remember however we like…
And no matter what happens 10 years from now, or 20 years or even 60 years.. I’ll always remember.
September 11 2001 changed our lives forever.
