Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 10 YEARS since the planes hit the towers, crashed into the Pentagon, and changed how we perceive the world.
I was 14. Just starting high school. I remember watching the news that morning before leaving to meet a friend for school, and being disappointed that Ed McCaffery, my favorite Denver Bronco, would be out for the season on a broken leg. In the eerie silence that guided my bike ride to my friend's house, the only bad news I knew that morning was about our beloved wide receiver. In the 10-15 minutes it took to ride from my house to my classmate's, two planes hijacked by terrorists made my bad news look even more petty than it probably already was.
We didn't know the word terrorism when my friends told me the news as I reached the doorstep. We sat in awe in their living room - unsure that the "coincidence" of two planes crashing into two buildings in NYC was even possible. I still remember that morning so vividly and wish the innocence of our first reaction could have maintained its purity.
At school, everyone was buzzing about the events - not everyone understood the extent of what was happening, but the fact that everyone was talking about it alerted me that this was so much bigger than I had thought on the way to school. Throughout the day and that evening, watching news coverage and talking with people, the enormity of this event overwhelmed me. It became horribly real and even more unsettling as I watched scenes that normally are in movies: people jumping out of burning buildings and running from a wave of rubble overtaking a city.
The next weeks included a bombardment of information at all levels - connections to the events by close friends and teachers, non-stop news coverage and commentary, and the attempt of some of my classmates and I to raise money for disaster relief.
10 YEARS LATER - the impact of this still haunts me. The images still hit me as deep as they did in 2001. They still shock me and overwhelm and confuse me. They are so real that it can't be real. And life is still chunked up into "before" and "after" 9/11.
This event shaped the politics of the last decade, and as I grew in my political awareness, shaped my perspectives. We went from feeling of unity in the face of adversity to the feeling of disillusionment in the face of even deeper adversity. My opinion, informed by a decade of experience in the post-9/11 world, is that 9/11 irrevocably changed not only how we perceive the world, but how we act within it. Sometimes not for the better.
We went into two wars early on in the decade. Two wars I have adamantly opposed. While I can reject the premises of both wars, I can't deny the fact that we are a part of two fronts, that we have been for the better part of a decade. I also can't deny the human aspect of this all - it is a large part of my rationale for opposing the wars, but the reality of human involvement makes this all the more complicated for me. I whole-heartedly support the service men and women across the country and the families they leave behind when they go overseas - regardless of my opinion of the war. I am saddened that so many people have to continually be affected by the wars, and wish it didn't have to extend the death and tragedy of 9/11/01 even further.
I have always felt that way. And now, 10 years later, one of my dearest friends is going into the fray. He is being deployed in a matter of weeks, to the war zone I least agree with, to serve our country. I support him 100 percent, but I still worry about the premise of his mission and the danger it brings to him. I wish, more than anything, he didn't have a war to be deployed to, that we found other ways to solve problems instead of putting people in the middle of battle. I have felt this way all along, but this is the first time in a decade when I am so close to the actual issue - when someone I love is a direct player. Talk about real.
It all makes me wonder: what have we learned in a decade? What did the tragedy of 9/11 teach us? Are we a nation of retaliation, and are we ok with even more death in the name of justice? Are justice and revenge the same thing?
Some say it's easy to be an outsider and to oppose the war. I am not in uniform and I don't plan to be anytime soon. I agree that my outside status doesn't always yield the best information, and that I can only own my own opinions, but I still oppose the war. I don't think only outsiders do, either. I just think that especially when we have loved ones on the front lines, our opinions may shift but we believe that it shouldn't have to be this way. Maybe not all of us. But, I do believe we can do better, that we can convey strength and independence without sending anyone into harm's way.
And I wish we had learned this lesson as a nation in the decade since 9/11/01. That by now, we at least would be off the front lines. We are pulling out of one war zone at the end of this year, but does that mean the war is really over? How long will we feel the affects of it?
I wish some things about the past decade had been different. You probably know what. And maybe you wished some other things went differently. We are all entitled to our own opinions.
My biggest wish is for the safety of our citizens - the human beings tasked with playing out our country's decisions. I also wish more peace and security for our world over the next decade - I think it's about time we found some.
~MJ
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