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i'm warning you now, this is probably the longest "say what" that will ever appear on this page. but writing this down helps me sort out the events of the past few days.  normally i would just write about it in a journal, but in this case, i thought it would be appropriate to share it with everyone, since i bet most people have a lot of the same thoughts i am having. i hope you get something out of it, if you have the time to read it.tuesday september 11 started out just as boring as any other tuesday for me just like everyone else. my alarm went off, waking me to the sound of howard stern, who wakes me every morning (it's harder to hit the snooze button when you want to hear the rest of a conversation). i brushed my teeth. i had some cereal. as i was finishing my morning routine i heard something about an explosion at the World Trade Center. oh great, i thought, not really paying attention, another 'best of' show. i wondered why they would rerun a show about the WTC bombing in 1993. of all things to pick! that's kind of depressing, i thought. i headed out to my car and it wasn't until about 10 minutes later that i realized they were live and talking about a plane hitting the tower. i figured some inexperienced idiot had screwed up. i was almost to work when i heard them say another plane had hit. that's when words like "terrorist attack" and "war" began to fly about the howard stern studio. that's when i could hear fear and shock in the voices of howard and his costars, normally goofing around and laughing, as they watched it on the news. just before i got out of the car, they said that all bridges, tunnels, and trains in and out of manhattan were closed. that's when i flipped out. i had never heard of any bridge or tunnel in manhattan being completely shut down, let alone all of them. i realized the severity of what was going on. we were ATTACKED. we could be AT WAR. there could be a WAR in the united states of america. i have never felt such shock and horror in my life. at the office, the radios were on. we couldn't see the pictures but knew from the reports how severe this was. then the report of all air traffic grounded throughout the united states.  then another plane down at the petnagon. then the 4th plane in pittsburgh. then the false reports of a car bomb at the state department and a missing 5th plane. i could not believe what i was hearing. this couldn't possibly be real. an attack on new york really didn't surprise me, i had been expecting it for years. i knew it was a target, they had tried before and it was only a matter of time. of course at this point i had not seen the pictures or heard the stories of witnesses, and didn't really have any idea of the horror, destruction, and death that i would later see in photos and even worse captured live on video. but in all the paranoid (so i thought) scenarios that had ever flashed through my imagination i never could have imagined what i saw on tuesday. when i heard of the collapse of the towers, i just kept thinking this was a dream. the twin towers do not collapse, i thought. it must be a mistake, like the report of a car bomb that had turned out to be untrue. or a nightmare. but it had happened. all day, friends emailed me wondering if i had accounted for everyone i knew of in the nyc area, and described what they were seeing on television - the collapse, the people running for their lives, the bodies dropping from windows. i saw some photos online and thought they just looked so fake, to use a phrase used a billion times already, it looked like a bad movie of the week. i just kept thinking i had to get home and see it on tv, i couldn't believe this had really happened unless i saw it for myself. i watched all night, unable to turn it off, staring at it for hours as i went back and forth between yelling  at the tv that we need to bomb someone, and breaking into tears every time there was another example of the sorrow, or the show of support, people shared. it was just such an emotional thing to watch and i know i will never forget it. this was the worst tragedy in history if you ask me, and i can't believe it happened during my lifetime. my friend at work and i laughed about how cheesy the radio's "and now...ATTACK ON AMERICA" voice-over sounded. but now it doesn't sound crazy anymore. it has hit us that it really was an attack on america.
i feel that writing about this tragedy is helping me to sort
out all of the thoughts and emotions i have. hearing that
the two planes came from boston, i feel so personally about these
attacks. a new yorker living in boston, i felt like these
people were messing with my two hometowns. i find myself
questioning many of the beliefs i have had for so long.
i am such an anti-war person, i have always felt that there has
to be an alternative to killing innocent people, to resorting
to causing suffering to other human beings. but i never
could have imagined anything like this. now i find myself
accepting the fact that this will lead to war. the entire
country is screaming "bomb them!" and i find myself thinking it
as well. i see the palestinians dancing with their children
in the streets and i think, there is no other way to prevent this
from ever happening again, except to just go in and bomb all these
people. i really get it now, the need for some innocents
to die in order to save more. i see those little kids cheering,
brainwashed, just like the suicide terrorist pilots, into believing
in some stupid cause and the honor in dying for a god that they
believe wants them to bring about suffering in other human beings.
i think, these poor little kids, they are only doing what their
parents tell them, and our country will probably kill them.
can't we save them? can't we put them somewhere and deprogram
them? but i know that these little kids are  who
those suicide pilots once were. we can kill their parents,
but then in 10 years they will just be even more committed to
trying to bring us down when they are full-grown terrorists.
i find myself agreeing with the people i used to argue against,
the ones who say, "i don't give a shit about anything, we just
need to go in there with bombs and kill them all." there
is the liberal voice in my head, anti-hate, anti-death penalty,
anti-war, wanting to find another solution. but i think
for the sake of this country, the world, democracy, freedom, i
don't see how to prevent this and save future lives, other than
mass destruction of anyone and anything involved in the planning
of something like this. all of the people cheering the attacks
seem to represent the chance of this happening again, and i really
feel like they all should be wiped off this planet. i can't
believe i am saying it. i hate that these scumbags have
made me change something i used to feel so strongly about.
but the world is a different place. they are attacking
my home, my friends, my family, my fellow americans, my sense
of security. and i really am starting to get the concept
of war. i liked being naive to it, wish i could go back
to that, it's a lesson i never wanted to learn, but it's too late.
anyway, among all the anger and fear and sadness i have also never felt so proud to be an american. this summer, i watched "the patriot" (the mel gibson one - i only watched it for heath but it was worth it!) on tv and it hit me during one of the 75 billion times i watched it: i really felt the sacrifices that so many people had made for us to live in what, i thought then, was a free, safe place where we would never have to face people coming into our homes and shooting at us. it wasn't long after that i sat on the charles river watching an amazing fireworks show in boston on july 4th, and when they played "proud to be an american," i really did feel proud and had a total cheeseball moment of wanting to stand up and salute and sing along and crap. watching everyone come out and work together to cope with this attack on the united states, i really feel proud again, more than ever. these terrorists may have met one goal - to destroy the World Trade Center and kill a lot of innocent people - but anything else they expected to accomplish didn't get done. thanks to the heroic actions of people on the plane that crashed in pittsburgh, the fourth "bomb" never reached its target. even knowing they were about to die, people on that flight fought back to save others. the government kept on running, a lot of people still did their jobs, the country really went on with their lives, not letting terrorists stop our world. with the exception of the new york city area, life in the united states was surprisingly normal. early in the day, listening to one hit after another, one downed plane after another, i feared the worst. i pictured people running out and rioting, not going to work, screaming that we were going to war and all going to die and who cared about anything anymore. that didn't happen. we went on. we were in pain but they didn't even make a dent in our love for this country, our power, or our strength. this country still kicks ass!!! no matter what happens i think we proved something to the world this week. and to ourselves. and now i can stop all the cheesiness and say the world will soon find out what happens when you fuck with new yorkers! please feel free to send me your stories, thoughts, feelings, whatever. i'll be here. i'll try to keep adding more resources and news as i hear it. >>send mail to erosen@lycos.com.
>> quote of the week
luckily my dad was not injured - as some of you may know, he works in lower manhattan. in what seems like a fitting quotation this week, here is his account of what happened as he completed his morning commute, from an email he sent me that afternoon after he finally made it back to long island:"I walked out of the subway station just before 9:00 this morning, and looked up, as many others were, to see the World Trade Center ablaze, about 3 blocks away. I would have stayed to watch this NY happening, but I had a meeting to go to. Halfway down the block, I heard a loud roar, like a rocket coming in, followed by a tremendous explosion, which actually bumped me over about a foot from where I had been walking. Just ahead, my office building shook, and the windows appeared to buckle. The second plane had just hit Tower #2. Once the alarm went out to clear the building, my boss and I decided to get out of town ASAP. We caught a still running subway train to Penn Station, and took the first train to Jamaica. As we exited the tunnel in Queens, we could see there was only one tower left across the river. By the time we arrived at Jamaica, we could still see the smoke in the distance, but the Twin Towers were gone. I arrived home about three hours after it all started. Let us all pray for those who will not..." view the report by my parents from nyc read other people's thoughts on this tragedy
note: all WTC-related photos i used on this site are courtesy of the lycos photo gallery. ----- If you have a topic you want to discuss on this page or a quote to contribute, email me now or sign the guestbook... |
