“Where were you on September 11?”
Those of us in high school are either too young to remember or weren’t even alive yet. I was six months old.
Regardless of the fact of whether we can recall that infamous Tuesday morning from our own accounts or not, we must not forget innocent citizens and, in a broader sense, that the western world was attacked.
The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were not military against military; innocent citizens were killed. The hijackers who took over the four planes were not Kamikaze pilots sacrificing their lives, they were members of a terrorist group who took citizens’ lives alongside their own.
According to CNN, 403 of those who died during the initial attacks in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pa. were first responders. While the primary responsibility of first responders is to protect citizens, firefighters and police officers are not proficiently trained, or at least weren’t prior to Sept. 11, in what to do in case of a sudden terror attack, especially in one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S.
Despite their lack of preparedness, these first responders, along with those even less experienced, put the lives of fellow Americans before their own.
The families and friends of these almost 3,000 citizens and heroes who died are still missing them today.
While it is difficult to imagine losing a loved one for those fortunate enough to not have experienced this yet, it is imperative to at least understand how painful and life-changing this can be.
The unusually high level of violence and death in our world today has caused us as a society to become desensitized to feeling sympathetic in regards to tragedies that don’t directly pertain to us.
We have 24/7 access to global news results and instantaneous exposure to current events, especially those regarding acts of violence. As a result, we have become accustomed to hearing about violence all the time, and thus dismiss anything beyond our own atmosphere.
Becoming ignorant to the magnitude of devastation caused, on Sept. 11, 2001—the first and arguably most significant terrorist attack of our modern era—leaves a terrifying amount of room for other tragedies to be neglected as well.
We cannot let this happen. We must remember 9/11.
