I woke up this morning and didn't realize it was September 11th. I think we need to make this an official memorial holiday. It was one of the most catastrophic days on United State's soil. Mallory and I would like to take a second and remember that day and what was going on in our lives.
Myself, I was a junior in High School. I was in early morning seminary, which started at 6:15 am PST. That's 9:15 am EST. I was probably a few minutes late. I first heard of it on the radio as I drove myself over to the Church building. I didn't think anything of it, I just heard them mention it and figured it was a prop plane that made an error. I go into my class sit down and go on with my morning. My friend Miles Curley arrives about 5-10 minutes after me to break us all the real news. A passenger plane crashed into the World Trade Center, not a prop plane. And that it probably wasn't any error. After seminary and before school I went home to watch the news. Right as I got home I saw the second plane hit the other tower live on the broadcast. That whole day, everyone in school was absolutely shocked. A lot of guys talked about having desires to join the service out of duty to their country. Others were saying it was the end of the world. I really didn't know what to think. I just remember feeling a lot of anxiety through it all. Just not knowing what would come about of this whole mess. Where the country would be in five years. Etc. So, on top of all that (not that this even compares with 9/11), my dog got attacked by another dog! Talk about getting attacked on all sides!
So Mike wants me to write in what I was doing when 9/11 struck. (I think it's funny we say that, 'cause it was actually the planes the struck... not really funny-funny, just ironic funny.) So, Fall semester of 2006, I was given this prompt from my Eng. 111 teacher and wrote the following:
It was probably the heat that woke me. I was still trying to acclimatize to Saipan, and island in the Pacific that my family had just moved to. I was almost fifteen, and I was used to the cool nights of down-east Maine. It was about two in the morning, and there's really no other reason I would be awake in the wee hours.
I wrapped my fingers around my know and opened the door. I immediately realized I was not the only person inhabiting the main parts of the house. A light from the kitchen shined off the marble floors and the picture window in the dining room. I stood in the dark hall for a few minutes staring up the steps that led to the dining room, gazing at the half-illuminated figures of Mum and Dad like a moving picture, framed in the archway I watched them through. Dad was dressed as though her were ready for work. After finishing whatever hushed conversation they were having, Mum tiptoed and Dad bowed his head for a kiss goodbye. Dad turned the corner and I heard the front door softly testify he had left. I climbed the stairs and joined Mum.
"Where's he going?"
"The hospital called him in. Governor Tenorio is meeting with all of Emergency management. Something's happened in the States."
Mum and I went downstairs to the family room and got on the computer. We accessed MSNBC and watched the footage of the planes crashing into those formidable towers like they were Lego's.
I felt like a traitor for getting out only a few months before they hit; as though leaving made me less of an American. It was a notion I had all through high school. I know now it was ridiculous, but I felt so strongly like I was abandoning my home. I had always been patriotic, but never before had I so fervently stood up for my country.
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