Jesse
Burgess’s 9/11 Experience
I
was 20 years old attending Wabash College and eating breakfast when a friend
approached me in a panic and said, “Did you see the plane fly into a building
in New York City!?!” I thought it was a
joke, so I continued to eat my breakfast; I had a class to attend in about an
hour. After breakfast I went up to my
room to grab my backpack and books for class, however, I was curious if my
friend was actually telling the truth, so I turned on the news. Sure enough, a passenger plane had flown into
one of the World Trade Centers. At that
point, it was still believed to be an accident.
As I was glued to the TV, for a moment I forgot about everything else
around me. As I was listening to the
frantic reporting and watching the news footage of the World Trade Center on
fire I saw the second plane fly into the other building. I was horrified, building debris was falling
thousands of feet and landing on the ground, as a camera man zoomed in to
identify the pieces of the debris I could see it was a person jumping to avoid
the raging fire in their office. Never
in my mind would I have ever believed what I saw next, an entire building
constructed of steel collapse like an empty paper bag all the way to the
ground. What about all those
people? Did they somehow get out? What the heck is going on?
Confused,
shocked, and not really understanding the scope of the events unfolding I went
to class wondering about the events unfolding in New York. When I entered class, it was the talk of the
hour; surprising everyone was there. The
class was entitled, The Military Revolution… it wasn’t until later that I would
realize the irony. For the next hour
we dismissed the discussion over the reading from the night before, we just
talked. We asked questions, shared what
we personally witnessed, and periodically received updates about new events
unfolding from students on their laptops. The events of that day changed the
world forever. Prior to September 11,
2001 terrorism was something I only read about happening in other parts of the
world. Words and phrases like “The War
on Terror”, “Osama bin Laden”, “Al Qaeda”, “Cruise Missile” and “Axis of Evil”
were foreign to most Americans. The new
President had just won a controversial election and his focus was on domestic
issues, who would have thought he would end up being the President of two wars
to “stop the spread of terrorism”.
Today, terrorism is common, I hear about a new event occurring every day
and so to do our students. But ultimately it’s only truly effective if one
allows the fear of terrorism to influence daily decisions – to scare
individuals into not doing what is right because it is difficult. Let us not allow terrorism to work as we
strive to make the right decisions, the difficult decisions.
