I was in my first month as a Freshman at Tulane University. I woke up to what seemed like absurd rumors that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. As soon as I became aware it wasn't an accident, I freaked. Called my parents to make sure my dad wasn't crossing the Golden Gate Bridge like he does every day for work. Because for all I knew, San Francisco could have been next. I felt sort of lucky to be in New Orleans, the kind of back asswards town that wasn't symbolic enough of "America" to warrant a copycat attack. But anxiety gave way to anger (as it does) which gave way to a profound sadness and sense of loss. I couldn't stop looking at the pictures of the towers. Of the people falling serenely out of 90th story windows, choosing that over burning to death. People who had woken up and gone to work that morning just like everyone else. I saw images of New York looking like some kind of surreal, fucked up movie set. But I also felt the groundswell of camaraderie between Americans in the wake of the attack. The quiet knowledge that, in the words of one survivor, "as long as a plane didn't crash through your office building" you weren't really having a bad day. 9/11 didn't just happen to New York. It happened to all of us.
Ten years later. I can't believe it's 10 years later.
I was in DC and had a scheduled visit to the pentagon and the white house it was awful cause I really got to see the disaster on first hand, and we had our field trip suspended. I will never ever forget it.
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I was a senior in high school. I remember my algebra teacher couldn't even teach us, he was so distraught. All politics aside, you have to have a heart of ice to not be changed by this day, all the innocent people that never even knew what hit them. Ones who called their families to say they were ok and then boom, the 2nd plane hit. The carnage of it all. Poor people.
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