Image source: Photo by Aidan Nguyen on Pexels
Today is twenty-two years after that horrible day that changed the course of my country’s destiny as well as the lives of people all around the world. Previous generations had world wars, worldwide depressions, and global pandemics that changed lives forever. This event impacted our lives immediately. We watched as President George W. Bush learned on air (while reading The Pet Goat to a classroom of second graders) of the attacks by terrorists using air planes on the twin towers in New York City and on the Pentagon. There was a nationwide ground stop for all flights, something that I had never witnessed before or since. A panicked nation watched the news with baited breath.
I was twenty-six at the time, and, living on the West coast, I learned of the attacks several hours after they had happened. I called my boyfriend, now husband, and asked if he was OK. He lived in Boston at the time, the city where two of the flights had left from. He was fine, as was his family. Both of our employers had sent people home early. No one knew if there would be more attacks or if we were safe.
When it seemed that there would be no more attacks after those four planes crashed, actions followed actions in a blur of activity. American politics was partisan, but not to the degree that it was now. It felt like all of the US rallied behind our president, and, even though we didn’t know it then, the war machine gears had already started slowly clinking and coming to life.
After that day, 2,977 Americans lost their lives in the immediate attack and nearly 7,000 US soldiers lost their lives in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that followed (with another 50,000+ becoming wounded in battle). Those wars also resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis (the exact numbers are hard to come by) and close to 200,000 Afghan civilians in the Afghan war, a twenty-year war that only just ended in 2021. Regardless of the politics around the justification of these wars, the September 11, 2001, attacks and the wars that resulted led to less freedom for US citizens and a devastating loss of life for people around the world.
I had grown up rushing to meet people waiting for me at airports at the gate. I had grown up not having to take my shoes off while going through security at the airport. I had grown up without a government that had given itself expanded powers to spy on US citizens by tapping domestic and international calls through the Patriot Act. I had grown up thinking that the wars we entered were just wars. I grew up believing politicians when they said that we were going to war with a country because it was justifiable (and not a made-up lie about weapons of mass destruction).
Because I was in my mid-twenties, I think I was still very naive about US and international politics. I still somehow believed that the US was ultimately a shining example on the hill. A beacon of freedom and democracy. But watching fearmongers use this terrible act of destruction not to bind us together but instead to demonize people of different religions, make up reasons to go to war, and to strip us of our own freedoms, I quickly learned to be more cognizant of US propaganda. I had to become more critical of what I read about from our politicians on both sides of the aisle.
It was the end of innocence for me and so many others around the world. I like to think that I am a hopeful person, an optimist at heart. Twenty-two years after this horrible event, I am glad that we have been able to elect a president that does not believe in Muslim bans. We now have a president that believes in working together with our international allies. We voted out an ideologue who would have worked to forge an isolated and nationalistic path that could only ever lead us to more wars and more tragedy.
I wonder what my daughter and her generation will come to think about the September 11 attacks. She has not known a life where security wasn’t onerous at the airport. What will her history books tell her about this life- and world-changing event?
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