I remember the day well... my ex-husband (the blues musician) took me to work that day. As we were driving onto campus, we heard a news report on National Public Radio that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. My ex said that many years ago, a plane had flown into the Empire State Building. Planes accidentally fly into buildings... that's a fact of life.
But later as I was walking to my office, a student came up behind me and said "Have you heard the news? The United States is under attack!" Now, I had never seen this student before, and I never saw him again, but he was the person from whom I found out that a second plane had hit the other tower of the World Trade Center, and this was not-- REPEAT-- NOT an accident.
I was teaching that day at Louisiana State University, and New York City seemed very far away. I continued to teach my classes. One of my students came to Latin class with a portable television on a lanyard around his neck. Mind you, streaming video on the internet was in its infancy or non-existent. On this tiny screen, smaller than a modern cell phone, I saw the first images of the Twin Towers collapsing into dust along with the remains of nearly 3000 people. It was horrifying.
The next few days, the only thing that was broadcast on television was the attack on the United States of America. In addition to the images of the Twin Towers collapsing, was footage of people, covered in dust, crossing the bridges of New York on foot, and videos of neighbors across America reaching out to comfort each other.
Since that day, I have met people who were in New York on 9/11 and walked across those bridges. My best friend's husband was an air traffic controller in the DC area and could only watch in horror as three planes crashed into nothingness. I have met people who lost loved ones in the attacks. I have seen countless times the video of a plane hitting Tower 2, with such accuracy that it looked like a Roadrunner cartoon. I have read the stories of people who fought back against the terrorists, the conspiracy theories, the transcripts of voice messages left for people on the ground.
Although Americans drew a little closer in the days after 9/11, I can tell you that every single time I get onto an airplane, I scan the faces of my fellow passengers and I wonder if these are the faces that will be on the next cover of Time magazine, victims of yet another terrorist attack.
The world changed on 9/11/2001 - and I don't think it was for the better.
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