The Day Everyone Remembers--9/11

No matter where you were or what you were doing, it is impossible to forget where you were when the news of the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in the heart of New York on September 11th, 2001 was released. I was only in kindergarden when two histrocial monuments of one of the world's most famous cities collapsed, but I can still picture the look on my teacher's face when she told us that something terrible had happened. Even now, I can remember the panic in my mother's eyes when she hugged me and took me home from school. With your eyes glued to the television, the attacks scarred a painful memory into my brain. I cannot even begin to imagine viewing the falling of the towers through your own apartment window.

In John Updike's article in the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section, he explains the horror of witnessing that tragic day from his tenth-floor apartment window in Brooklyn Heights. After reading his article, I felt as though I was back in my small kindergarden classroom. The way he told his experience clearly took me back to that day. My favorite passage of his article was when he discussed the silence of the city that never sleeps. "It (the first tower) fell straight down like an elevator, with a tinkling shiver and a groan of concussion distinct across the mile of air. We knew we had just witnessed thousands of deaths; we clung to each other as if we ourselves were falling. Amid the glittering impassivity of the many buildings across the East River, an empty spot had appeared, as if by electronic command, beneath the sky that, but for the sulfurous cloud streaming south toward the ocean, was pure blue, rendered uncannily pristine by the absence of jet trails." The way he describes the emptiness after the first tower had collapsed made me picture the city completely silent. The brilliant word choice also made me feel even more connected to the story in such a vivid way that I felt as though I was experiencing the trauma alongside him. His article moved me in ways that I never imagined writing could.

As I finished Updike's article, I turned to the second article by Susan Sontag. Sontag's article was one of the most incredible pieces I have ever read. It made me think of the way the attacks were portrayed in an entirely different mindset. Sontag carefully bombarded the media and Washington with questions on how they are dealing with 9/11. The questions are ones that all of America should have asked. She helped me realize that many times, the government and media act as though we are inept for the real truth and we should fight for justice. We as citizens deserve more than just the stereotypical superpower comments. With powerful word choice and very convincing arguments, she tells the reader everything she believes he or she deserves to know. By the way the article is written, I can tell that she is fighting for the American public. "Let's by all means grieve together. But let's not be stupid together." That passage is by far my favorite and the most powerful because it sums up the point of the incredibly convincing article in two sentences. We, as Americans, know that our country is strong; but after 9/11, that is not what we want to hear.