September 11th, 2001

This is an email from my penpal in Peru the week of the attacks. Her name is Rosa and we are still on contact. Her twitter handle is @Rositavill.

Newspaper clippings of the newspaper on September 11, 2001.

More clippings and a ribbon that the marching band wore to the football game that Friday.

This event changed the world. It turned my life upside down. I was almost 18 years old, in my senior year of high school, and the way I function and live life is different now because of this day.

 

The newspaper clippings and things that I saved were included in my senior project that my AP English teacher assigned. I think I cried the rest of this year. Things came to an end. Friendships were placed on hold. The world cried with our nation. Everything about the future was uncertain.

 

I was supposed to come to school early this day to finish up an art project. My art teacher never showed up, though. I was headed to the band hall to put away my instrument when she finally came and unlocked her door. "I couldn't leave home because I had to watch what was going on." I was clueless about what she was talking about. It wasn't until I arrived in the band hall that several people were gathered around the televisions. I watched the second airplane hit.

 

As I made my way to Spanish, which I had first hour, a sense of dread began to seep in. I had written a paper about the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, so Osama bin Laden immediately came to mind as the person behind this. It wasn't until the towers collapsed, a plane was crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, and another plane crashed into the Pentagon, that the news media began to suspect a terrorist attack.

 

That evening we had a scheduled marching band rehearsal. We did not cancel that rehearsal because we did not want to give the world the idea that we could be stopped. The aggression and anger over this event caused us to speculate about invading the Middle East, even on the day the attacks occured. We stopped rehearsal early to watch the president's address to the nation. The whole day felt like I was watching a movie.

 

The corruption, the endless fighting in Afganistan, and the invasion of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, all began to overshadow how truly horrific this day was. It is important to me that we are giving the proper information about what happened to future generations so that it never happens again.